Bertie's Place

An aspiring young New York journalist is assigned by his editor at Life Magazine to travel to a small Alabama town-an assignment Richard Curtis resists with all his might-to look into the events surrounding the arrest and conviction of a county sheriff who was charged with aiding and abetting a mob of alleged members of the Ku Klux Klan in the flogging of several Negroes in the early 1950s. Elevating the story to national level is the suspicion that a conspiracy was carried out by some influential members of the little town, designed to rid the county of a sheriff who apparently had stepped on some toes in his efforts to clean up the corruption, a job which he was allegedly elected to perform. Encountering a citizenry that, not unexpectedly, is resentful of a seemingly biased Northern journalist coming to their town asking what they consider to be meddling questions, Richard soon finds himself in a predicament where he sees no way out. Fortunately, he meets a few people in the town who seem to want to befriend him, although primarily by suggesting that for his own well being he should get on the next bus heading North. What he did not expect to encounter were either of the two extremes: his life being threatened by those who with secrets they did not want revealed; and falling madly in love with a gorgeous girl from the little Southern town. Eventually returning to his job in New York, after learning the true story that he was assigned to uncover regarding a conspiracy, Richard is torn between doing his duty by publishing the story and keeping his job, or maintaining his personal honor and integrity by refusing to reveal the horrendous, unbelievable truth about what really happened, a revelation that he is convinced would devastate the lives of several townspeople, including many members of the family of the woman he has come to love. Through a strange sequence of events over the next several months, Richard returns to the little town, which he finally realizes, and admits to himself, that he likes. Soon, however, he becomes embroiled in another bizarre episode that puts him in what seems a no-win situation; yet, as sometimes happens, this series of unexpected events results in his finding his one true love, albeit not in the way he had expected or would ever dreamed possible. As the years pass, Richard becomes a respected citizen of the place where he was once reviled and distrusted by most, and where he once believed most of the people were ignorant, racial bigots. This heartwarming story parallels attitudes and events of the mid-twentieth century regarding racial biases and the Civil Rights movements, while at the same time providing a vehicle for clearing up many of the misunderstandings Northerners held about Southerners, and vice versa.