McWhorter spent the first part of her life in privileged denial, and most of the second, it appears, in catching up. Wisely, she never tries to place her own story at the center of her book; she simply places all her personal cards face-up so the reader may better judge her perspective.

McWhorter grew up "on the wrong side of the revolution," a white girl, the daughter of Ivy League-educated parents who lived across the hill from the city itself in Mountain Brook, one of the country's wealthiest suburbs. She was roughly the same age as the four little girls who were killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, an event which meant less to her at the time than the cancellation of her school's production of "The Music Man."

In subsequent years McWhorter would be haunted by the killings and, increasingly, by the knowledge of her own father's involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. Finally, her desire to dig up the truth could not be assuaged by anything less than a thorough and complete knowledge of the politics, economics and personalities that led to the most important social events of 20th century America. For there is no hyperbole in her book's subtitle; the struggle for civil rights was nothing less than a battle, and Birmingham was no less a defeat for white supremacy than Stalingrad was for the Nazis.

Though it wasn't apparent to those of us who grew up there, Birmingham was far from a typical city of the Deep South. The big difference was industry: Birmingham really didn't begin to rise until well after the Civil War, and the spur to growth was steel. Though the steel industry has long since given way to the service economy, the town still contains vast yards of warehouses and refineries (if you recall the strike scenes from the 1984 Mel Gibson film "The River," which was filmed right near the downtown area, then you know what much of it looks like).

McWhorter revives an unfashionable explanation -- class antagonism -- in tracing the roots of the battle for Birmingham: the local steel powers, or "Big Mules," pooled their efforts to keep the thousands and thousands of "millbillies" from organizing. Almost before the race conflict began, the town saw violence and intimidation against union organizers and ambitious communists, who nearly succeeded in gaining a foothold in the ranks of Birmingham labor. The Big Mules, like Mafia dons, had stooges and fixers to carry out their acts of terrorism and intimidation so they need have no direct connection with the violence.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"