Alfred James Phillips

Thorns of the Roses: a Family's March to Freedom Alfred James Phillips

After years of relative tranquility, the mixed-race Miller family experiences a traumatic wake-up call as racial tensions begin to build across the South. Thorns of the Roses is the story of a white family and their adopted Negro child who live in the segregated South in the 1950s and '60s. It is the chronicle of one family's struggle against the consequences of bigotry and prejudice while honoring the triumph of the human spirit. Experience the love, laughter, terror and tears when the family moves from North Carolina to Montgomery, Alabama and attempts to adapt to a 'separate-but-equal' society. Join the boy, Tommy John Miller and the Miller's maid, Hannah as they inadvertently share the Montgomery bus ride with Rosa Parks. And be there when Tommy John, now a young man, and his godfather and others are driven back as they attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. But most of all, share the joy of the finish when Eunice Miller's pregnancy brings forth new life and Tommy John leads Eunice's prejudiced and alcoholic mother to redemption and reunion with the Miller family.