This morning, NPR’s Morning Edition reaches all the way back to a book published in February by Harvard U. Press and owned by just a few public libraries. In it, Suzanne Smith writes about A. G. Gaston, a little-known enterpreneur who was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement. Like other black funeral directors, he used his wealth to pressure for change (threatening to withdraw his money from  the local bank if they didn’t get rid of their segregated drinking fountains).

To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death Suzanne E. Smith Retail Price: $29.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press – (2010-02-25) ISBN / EAN: 0674036212 / 9780674036215

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