Can't Stop the Wind

Two young white boys grow up together during the Civil Rights Era in Tupelo, Mississippi and strive to get an education and become successful as crosses and churches burn around them. Tupelo considers itself a progressive town, and therein lies the rub--good is not good enough and Tupelo becomes an attractive target for civil rights activists. Robbie Smith is an intellectual boy who mostly avoids trouble, but his best friend, Dennis Taylor seems to be drawn to the worst of it, and is not immune to the attention of the Ku Klux Klan.

Can’t Stop the Wind is the story of two young boys, of differing ways and perspective, as they grow up together during the Civil Rights Era in the still Confederate-leaning state of Mississippi. Dennis and Robbie struggle with the old Southern enigma that views people of color differently, loving them as individuals but often being prejudicial toward the black race as a whole. White racism holds firm as black leaders fight to change old Southern institutions and open new doors. The boys try to live normal lives with girls, cars, football games, and bootleggers, but they are caught up in a wind that cannot be stopped, a powerful black cloud that often seems to engulf their lives. They fight their little wars in their own way, and often get into trouble doing so, but they are at real risk when they find themselves immersed in the horrible civil rights battles that dominate the time—destroying major institutions and burning churches. It is a time when shadowy men of evil purpose murder innocent blacks and black leaders of stature indiscriminately. Even an American president is not immune from hatred run amuck. Yet, Dennis and Robbie survive it all and become strong young men, sensing it isn’t over yet …. This story is told with the same sensitivity and understanding of what it’s like growing up in a racist Southern town that the reader experiences in To Kill a Mockingbird. As in Mississippi Burning and A Time to Kill, the flames of Can’t Stop the Wind are fueled by awful racial violence of the time and the search for justice, which is often elusive. This story is often about survival against all odds, and there is no better example than Ole Miss, a former historic university, in flames after the last battle of the Civil War and under siege by federal troops, being saved by the perfect record of a great Ole Miss football team that would not quit. This story is beautifully chronicled in the ESPN Film Ghosts of Ole Miss by Wright Thompson, and is reminiscent of the inmates defeating their prison guards in a football game in The Longest Yard. Can’t Stop the Wind leaves unsettling questions about race and how far we have or have not come since those troubling times.

Davis Temple is a retired pharmaceutical executive and author of an extensive collection of scientific articles, books, and patents. He is also author of five previous novels, Two Letters Then Booger Den (for which Temple received the Mississippi Author of the Year Award for 2004), Preacher Man, Voodoo Storm, Dose of Insanity, and Secret Keeper.