Clement Walton: Or the English Citizen (1849)

Heslip AHappy Lee was born and raised in rural Georgia to a family of sharecroppers. His early life was steeped in a Christian fundamentalist world view, and he went on to become a Southern Baptist minister after graduating from a liberal Northern seminary. His education and training led him to question his narrow upbringing, and soon he found himself one of the leaders of the civil rights and race relations movements of the 1960s. During his distinguished career in civil rights, Happy was instrumental in desegregating schools, hotels, restaurants, theaters, ball parks and other places of public accommodation. His affable character and quick wit made him a natural conciliator because of his uncanny ability to make anyone feel at ease. His story is inspiring as well as entertaining as it weaves through history and Happy’s work with President John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Thurgood Marshall, President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in implementing the policies of the Civil Rights Act, the war on poverty and the integration of Medicare services; it also crowns the achievement of Happy’s career, and the opening of Prince Edward County Schools, which had been closed for five years, rather than desegregate as ordered by the Supreme Court.