q*********8
发帖数: 5776 | 1 今天NPR听到的，刚找到文章，很有意思
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/20/151037079/the-artful-reinvention-
The Artful Reinvention Of Klansman Asa Earl Carter
by Radio Diaries
April 20, 2012
In the early 1990s, The Education of Little Tree became a publishing
phenomenon. It told the story of an orphan growing up and learning the
wisdom of his Native American ancestors, Cherokee Texan author Forrest
Carter's purported autobiography.
The book was originally published in 1976 to little fanfare and modest sales
, but in the late 1980s, the University of New Mexico Press reissued it in
paperback — and it exploded. By 1991, it reached the top of The New York
Times nonfiction best-seller list. It was sold around the world, praised by
Oprah Winfrey and made into a Hollywood film.
The Education of Little Tree would go on to sell more than 1 million copies.
But the book and its author were not what they seemed.
Meet Asa Earl Carter
Three decades earlier, in Alabama, Asa Earl Carter was a Ku Klux Klan
organizer, a rabid segregationist and a talk show host who expounded on the
dangers of integration. In 1963, he drafted an inaugural address for Alabama
Gov. George Wallace that would become one of the most notorious speeches of
the civil rights era.
"In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth," Wallace
said, "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of
tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation
forever!"
Wallace's words came from Carter's pen, but as the decade progressed, Carter
turned against Wallace. According to Tom Turnipseed, Wallace's national
campaign manager, Carter felt that Wallace had gone soft on the issue of
segregation. By 1970, Turnipseed says, Carter's ideas had become "too
extreme" and Wallace pushed him aside.
Alabama reporter Wayne Greenhaw covered Wallace's 1971 inauguration. Before
he died last year, Greenshaw said he found Carter behind the Capitol after
his speech. "He started crying," Greenhaw said. "He said that Wallace had
sold out to the liberals."
Then Carter got up, turned around and bid Greenhaw farewell. "And that was
the last time I ever saw Asa Carter," Greenhaw said. "It's like he just
vanished, dropped off the face of the earth."
Ron Taylor was a close friend of Asa Carter's. He remembers Carter calling
him one day to say he was going away. "He just pulled up out of the
Choccolocco Valley, tanned himself up, grew a mustache, lost about 20 pounds
," Taylor says, "and became Forrest Carter."
EnlargeThomas S. England/Time
Forrest Carter's Western adventure novel Gone to Texas tells the fictional
story of Josey Wales, an outlaw-to-be who loses his family and goes on to
become the most wanted man in Texas.
From Asa Earl To Forrest
And then Forrest Carter became a novelist. Through the 1970s, he published
four books: Gone to Texas (later made into the Clint Eastwood western The
Outlaw Josey Wales), The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales, The Education of
Little Tree and Watch for Me on the Mountain.
Chuck and Betty Weeth were running a bookstore in Abilene, Texas, when, in
1975, Forrest Carter walked in and introduced himself. He was dressed in
jeans and a cowboy hat, had a dark complexion and told the couple that he
was Cherokee and had been raised by his grandparents in a Tennessee cabin. "
I liked him from the start," Chuck Weeth says.
That same year, author Forrest Carter appeared on The Today Show, where he
was interviewed by Barbara Walters. "She'd ask him questions and he'd mumble
these answers," Greenhaw said. "He said he wrangled horses and, when he was
in Oklahoma, he was the storyteller to the Cherokee Nation."
Ron Taylor says when he saw the interview, "I literally got down on the
floor laughing. Asa's on TV! He had pulled it. He had fooled them."
"I was bumfuzzled," Greenhaw said of his own reaction to the broadcast, so
the reporter decided to look into what Forrest — or Asa — was up to. He
started calling around, interviewing people who knew Asa and after a few
days, Forrest Carter got in touch.
Smithsonian Prepares Civil Rights-Era Artifacts
This week, museum director Lonnie Bunch takes us back to the '60s and the
civil rights era.
Solving A 1964 Cold Case: Mystery Of Frank Morris
Journalist Stanley Nelson details the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan in a
deadly fire.
Inside Access: Photographer Captures the Taboo
Anthony Karen captures cross-burning Klan initiations and bloody Voodoo
rituals in Haiti on film.
Greenhaw said he had clear memories of the call: "He said, 'You don't want
to hurt old Forrest, do you now?' And I said, 'Come off of it, Asa, I
recognize that voice.' "
In 1976, Greenhaw published a New York Times article drawing the connection
between Asa and Forrest Carter.
Readers Saw What They Wanted
Historian and George Wallace biographer Dan Carter (no relation) is working
on a book about Asa. He says fans of The Education of Little Tree should
have known that it wasn't what it appeared to be. For one thing, the
Cherokee words that Forrest Carter used in the memoir weren't Cherokee —
they were just made up.
"Most people who loved the book couldn't imagine that a former Klansman,
racist, anti-Semite could have written The Education of Little Tree," Dan
Carter says. But the genius of the book is that people took what they wanted
out of it.
"One way you look at it, it's a tree-hugger book," Taylor says. "But the
other way, it's a right-wing, government-leave-me-alone book. That's how I
took it."
Almost four decades after they first met Forrest Carter, Chuck and Betty
Weeth remain perplexed that the man they knew — the man they considered a
friend — had a dramatically different past. "I didn't like Asa Carter,"
Chuck Weeth says, "but I did like Forrest Carter."
Forrest Carter died in 1979 in Abilene. He was buried in Alabama, where
today his tombstone still reads, "Asa Earl Carter."
Produced for All Things Considered by Joe Richman and Samara Freemark of
Radio Diaries with consulting editors Deborah George and Ben Shapiro.
Special thanks to the producers of the documentary The Reconstruction of Asa
Carter, which is airing on PBS stations through April. | b********n
发帖数: 16354 | | q*********8
发帖数: 5776 | 3 比你牛吧，咔咔！3K党编出印第安小孤儿的自传来，畅销这么多年
【在 b********n 的大作中提到】
: 60s and 70s真是黄金年代～～
| b********n
发帖数: 16354 | 4 嗯呐，偶是不能比的～～～
不过真是会编啊，真的是纯编出来么？太不可思议了～～偶觉得那时候的书和电影就是
比现在的好～～
【在 q*********8 的大作中提到】
: 比你牛吧，咔咔！3K党编出印第安小孤儿的自传来，畅销这么多年
| w***s
发帖数: 15642 | 5 确实很牛，哈哈。不过小碧又不是3k党。。。
【在 q*********8 的大作中提到】
: 比你牛吧，咔咔！3K党编出印第安小孤儿的自传来，畅销这么多年
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