New Civil Rights Memoir Debuts Amid the Renewed Debate over Voter Protections

Linda Farris Kurts revisits activism, interracial marriage and Carl E. Farris' overlooked role in the movement

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Aug. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Linda Farris Kurtz's new memoir, "Those Few Passionate Years: Carl E. Farris, Me and the Civil Rights Movement," revisits the civil rights era through the lens of a young white social worker whose life and marriage became closely tied to the movement in Chicago and Atlanta.

The book arrives as voting rights have returned to the center of national debate following the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in "Louisiana v. Callais," which struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana and narrowed the reach of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling has intensified discussion about the legacy of the 1965 law, which was one of the central achievements of the civil rights movement and a defining backdrop for the organizing work described in Kurtz's memoir.

The book tells two intertwined stories: her own coming-of-age as a white social worker drawn into civil rights activism, and the largely forgotten life of Carl E. Farris, a Black civil rights worker whose career moved from CORE to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and finally into labor organizing.

Structured in two parts, Chicago and Atlanta, the book covers the years from 1964 to 1979 as a brief but intense period when personal love, interracial marriage, political idealism, fear, and disillusionment were all inseparable. Sharing how Farris' contributions have been largely absent from civil rights histories, the memoir acts in part as a personal reckoning and partly as an effort to preserve Farris' place in the movement.

Kurtz begins the story in Chicago, where she met Farris on a picket line in 1964 while participating in civil rights demonstrations. Their relationship developed as Farris left Chicago for the South, joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference after the Selma-to-Montgomery march and working on voter registration efforts through the SCOPE Project, an SCLC initiative created to register Black voters across the South.

After marrying Farris in 1967, Kurtz moved to Atlanta, where he continued his work with SCLC. The memoir follows her efforts to adjust to life in a racially mixed neighborhood, her concerns about the safety of an interracial marriage in 1960s Georgia and her encounters with civil rights workers, including Martin Luther King Jr. Kurtz also reflects on King's 1968 assassination, writing that his death marked the end of the civil rights movement as a social movement, even as staff members and organizers continued their work.

The later chapters trace Farris' efforts to connect civil rights activism with labor organizing in the 1970s, including his role as SCLC labor coordinator and his later work with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Farris later died of brain cancer in 1979. Through personal memory, letters and historical reflection, "Those Few Passionate Years" documents a private marriage shaped by public struggle and restores attention to a civil rights worker Kurtz believes deserves a more predominant place in the historical record.

"Those Few Passionate Years: Carl E. Farris, Me and the Civil Rights Movement"
By Linda Farris Kurtz 
ISBN: 9781665782456 (softcover); 9781665782463 (electronic)
Available at Archway Publishing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble 

About the author
At age 86, Linda Farris Kirtz writes about when she met her husband in 1965, married him and moved to Atlanta where he worked with Martin Luther King jr. in the civil rights movement. She writes about the drama of the movement just before and just after the assassination of King.

General Inquiries:
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Ashley Fletcher
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SOURCE Archway Publishing