Civil Rights Reporter Karl Fleming: 'Son of the Rough South'

Cover of Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir by Karl Fleming.

Journalist Karl Fleming's new book is Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. Born in the South and raised in an orphanage during the Depression, Fleming became Newsweek's lead civil rights reporter at the height of the movement in the mid-1960s.

His stories reflected the turbulence of the era. He wrote about major events such as the Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. While at the 1966 riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fleming was severely beaten.