The Best Were There

Letters from Mississippi
by Elizabeth Sutherland
McGraw-Hill, 232 pp., $4.95

This book consists of letters written by Civil Rights volunteers, mostly students, who went to Mississippi during the summer and wrote home. Avoiding almost all the pitfalls and temptations that such writing presents, the letters are honest, concise, well-written and rarely maudlin. There is no sliding over the unpleasant aspects...