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When the first production of On the Town in 1944 featured the Japanese American ballerina Sono Osato as its star, as part of a cast that also included whites and blacks, it aimed for a realistic depiction of the diversity among US citizens during World War II. It did so at a time when African Americans were expressing affinity with Nisei – that is, with second-generation children of Japanese nationals who had immigrated to other countries. The two communities shared the struggle of discrimination by the majority culture.

In 1942, the Office of War Information conducted a survey in Harlem, trying to gain an African-American perspective on the war, and opinions about the Japanese emerged in the process. Many Harlemites communicated a feeling that “these Japanese are colored people.” That quotation comes from a letter written by William Pickens, an African-American journalist who worked for the US Department of Treasury during World War II. When asked “Would you be better off if America or the Axis won the war?” most blacks in the survey stated they “would be treated either the same or better under Japanese rule, although a large majority responded that conditions would be worse under the Germans.”

Yet relationships between these two marginalized communities were not always easy, and On the Town became a flash point for racial distress. A striking case appeared in the memoir Long Old Road (Trident Press, 1965), written by Horace R. Cayton, Jr. An African American sociologist from Chicago, Cayton attended On the Town soon after he heard about the bombing of Hiroshima, which occurred on 6 August 1945. He articulated a shared mission between Nisei and African Americans, yet he did so with considerable agitation. “Our seats were good, and the theater was cool after the heat of New York,” wrote Cayton. He responded positively to the opening number, “New York, New York,” then launched into an assessment of the racial and political complexities posed by Osato’s appearance on stage at that particular moment in time. He perceived her as racially accommodating.

“It was a catchy tune with cute lyrics, but when the beautiful Sono Osato, who is of Japanese descent, appeared and frolicked with the American sailors, I was filled with anger and disgust,” wrote Cayton. “I care more about your people than you do, I thought, as I sat through the rest of the first act looking at the floor and wondering how soon I could escape to the bar next door.”

Cayton’s “anger and disgust” came from watching Osato engage directly and uncritically with white actors playing the role of sailors. At intermission, Cayton’s wife June, who was white, said to him: “This is the first good musical I’ve seen in years. Isn’t Sono Osato wonderful?” Cayton then recounted a tense conversation between the two of them:

“If I were half-Japanese I wouldn’t be dancing with three American sailors at a time like this,” I [Cayton] commented sourly.

“Why shouldn’t she? She’s as America as you or I.” June began to warm to her subject. “She was born in this country. She’s one hundred per cent American, doesn’t even understand Japanese.”

[Cayton replied:] ‘She’s a Jap, I’m a nigger, and you’re a white girl. Let none of us forget what we are.”

Cayton’s outburst comes across as a racial polemic. But there was deep complexity to his reaction, as he expressed solidarity with other non-white races as they confronted the hegemonic power of Caucasians. Even though his language is disturbing, it is extraordinarily frank, acknowledging the era’s venomous racism against the Japanese and the degree to which African Americans felt themselves to be backed against a wall during World War II. Cayton continued:

“I’m torn a dozen ways. I didn’t want the Japanese to win; after all, I am an American. But the mighty white man was being humiliated, and by the little yellow bastards he had nothing but contempt for. It gave me a sense of satisfaction, a feeling that white wasn’t always right, not always able to enforce its will on everyone who was colored. All those fine white liberals rejoicing because we dropped a bomb killing or maiming seventy-eight thousand helpless civilians. Why couldn’t we have dropped it on the Germans—because they were white? No, save it for the yellow bastards.”

Those multi-layered thoughts were unleashed by watching Sono Osato on stage, dancing an identity that was intended to portray her as “All-American” yet could not avoid the realities of her mixed-race heritage at a harrowing historical moment.

Headline Image: Sono Osato modeling a dress by Pattullo Modes, early 1940s. Dance Clipping Files, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

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Because They Marched: the people's campaign for voting rights that changed America by Russell Freedman Holiday House. 2014 ISBN: 9780824329219 Grades 9 thru 12 To write this review, I borrowed a copy of this book from my local public library. While campaigning in 2007 for the presidency, Barack Obama spoke at a ceremony commemorating the forty-second anniversary of the march from Selma to

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I was lucky enough to hear Jacqueline Woodson speak about and read from Brown Girl Dreaming during the School Library Journal Day of Dialog last spring.  If any of you have seen Woodson before, you know she is charming, and dynamic and funny.  She read a few poems from the book and spoke of her family and writing life.  Like the rest of the librarians, I waited in line to speak with Ms. Woodson and have an arc signed, but 10 minutes or so into the wait I knew this arc wasn't going to be for me to keep.  Instead, I had it signed for a student and gave it to her when I saw her next.   So like so many others, I waited for the book birthday to get my hands on the hard cover copy on the day of its' release.

I'm not sure I can add much to the conversation around this book, as I agree with the buzz.  Brown Girl Dreaming is more than a book or a memoir....it is a gift.  We follow Jacqueline and her changing family from Ohio to South Carolina and up to NYC and each poem is a revelation of sorts that brings the reader through the timeline of Woodson's life.  From the "how to listen" haikus to poems like "sometimes, no words are needed", "stevie", and "as a child, i smelled the air" I found myself closing the book to pause again and again.

I had posted a photo of "stevie" on Instagram and commented that I was swooning over this book, and a friend commented that her copy is so dog-eared that she isn't going to share it with her students.  It made me comment back that this is the kind of book you carry around with you.  I will take the dust jacket off, and place it in my school bag.  And when the world gets to be a little too much, I will open the pages and gift myself with a little bit of magic.

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By Elaine Lewinnek

On 27 July 1919, a black boy swam across an invisible line in the water. “By common consent and custom,” an imaginary line extending out across Lake Michigan from Chicago’s 29th Street separated the area where blacks were permitted to swim from where whites swam. Seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams crossed that line. He may have strayed across it by accident or may have challenged it on purpose. We do not know his motives because the whites on the beach reacted by throwing stones and Eugene Williams drowned. Police at the beach arrested black bystanders, infuriating other blacks so much that one black man shot at the police, who returned fire, shooting into the crowd of blacks. The violence spread from there. Over the next week, in the middle of that hot summer of 1919, 38 people died, 537 were hospitalized, and approximately 1,000 were left homeless. White and black Chicagoans fought over access to beaches, parks, streetcars, and especially residential space. The burning of houses, during this riot, inflamed passions almost as much as the killing of people. It took a rainstorm and the state militia to end the violence in July 1919, which nevertheless simmered just below the surface, erupting in smaller clashes between blacks and whites throughout the next four decades, especially every May, during Chicago’s traditional moving season.

The 1910s were the first decade of the Great Migration, a decade when 70,000 blacks had moved to Chicago, more than doubling the existing black population. This was also a decade when the lines of Chicago’s residential apartheid were hardening. Historically, Chicago’s blacks found homes in industrial suburbs such as Maywood and Chicago Heights, domestic service hubs such as Evanston and Glencoe, rustic owner-built suburbs such as Robbins and Dixmoor, and some recently-annexed suburban space such as Morgan Park and Lilydale. Increasingly, though, blacks were confined to a narrow four-block strip around State Street on Chicago’s South Side known as the Black Belt. Half of Chicago’s blacks lived there in 1900, while 90% of Chicago’s blacks lived there by 1930.

The Black Belt was a crowded space where two or three families often squeezed into one-room apartments, landlords neglected to repair rotting floors or hinge-less doors, schools eventually ran on shifts so that each child was educated for only half a day, and the police tolerated gamblers and brothels. It was so unhealthy that Richard Wright called it “our death sentence without a trial.” Blacks who tried to move beyond the Black Belt were met with vandalism, arson, and bomb-throwers, including 24 bombs thrown in the first half of 1919 alone.

Earlier, some Chicago neighborhoods had welcomed black homeowners, but after the First World War there was an increasingly widespread belief that blacks hurt property values. Chicago realtor L. M. Smith and his Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners Association spread the notion that any black moving into a neighborhood was akin to a thief, robbing that street of its property values. By the 1920s, Chicago Realtors prohibited members from introducing any new racial group into a neighborhood and encouraged the spread of restrictive covenants, legally barring blacks while also consolidating ideas of whiteness. As late as 1945, two Chicago sociologists reported that, while “English, German, Scotch, Irish, and Scandinavian have little adverse effect on property values[,] Northern Italians are considered less desirable, followed by Bohemians and Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Greeks, and Russian Jews of the Lower class. Southern Italians, along with Negroes and Mexicans, are at the bottom of the scale.” As historians of race recognize, many European immigrants were considered not quite white before 1950. Those immigrants eventually joined the alliance of groups considered white partly because realtors, mortgage lenders, and housing economists established a bright line between the property values of “whites” and those of blacks.

The lines established in 1919 have lingered. As late as 1990, among Chicago’s suburban blacks, almost half of them lived in the same fourteen suburbs that blacks had lived in before 1920: they had not gained access to newer spaces. It was black neighborhoods that suffered disproportionately from urban renewal and the construction of tall-tower public housing in the twentieth century, further reinforcing the overlaps between race and space in Chicago. Many whites inherit property whose value has increased because of the racist real-estate policies founded after the violence of 1919. Recently, Ta-Nehisi Coates has recently used the history of Chicago’s property market to publicize “The Case for Reparations,” after generations of denying blacks access to homeowner equity.

It is worth remembering the events of 95 years ago, when Eugene Williams and 37 other people died, as Chicagoans clashed in the streets over emerging ideas of racialized property values.

Elaine Lewinnek is a professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and the author of The Working Man’s Reward: Chicago’s Early Suburbs and the Roots of American Sprawl.

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The post On the 95th anniversary of the Chicago Race Riots appeared first on OUPblog.

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Revolution, Deborah Wiles’ second novel in The Sixties Trilogy, sends readers on a journey to Greenwood, Mississippi in the summer of 1964, also known as “Freedom Summer."

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Today we celebrate the birthday of Ida. B. Wells—activist, educator, writer, journalist, suffragette, and pioneering voice against the horror of lynching. Born on July 16, 1862, Ms. Wells used fierce determination and the power of the pen to educate the world about the unequal treatment of blacks in the United States.

If you’re looking for an entry point into civil rights discussions with younger (or even older) readers, consider this picture book biography by the beloved Walter Dean Myers.

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”—Ida B. Wells

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I am Rosa Parks By Brad Meltzer Illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos A whitewashed (ahem) picture book biography of the famed Civil Rights icon. Parson Weems would be proud. Now that we have Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice out in the world I feel it is incumbent on anyone treading toward teaching kids about the Civil Rights do so with a more open understanding

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By Tim Allen

Josephine Baker, the mid-20th century performance artist, provocatrix, and muse, led a fascinating transatlantic life. I recently had the opportunity to pose a few questions to Anne A. Cheng, Professor of English and African American Literature at Princeton University and author of the book Second Skin: Josephine Baker & the Modern Surface, about her research into Baker’s life, work, influence, and legacy.

Baker made her career in Europe and notably inspired a number of European artists and architects, including Picasso and Le Corbusier. What was it about Baker that spoke to Europeans? What did she represent for them?

It has been traditionally understood that Baker represents a “primitive” figure for male European artists and architects who found in Baker an example of black animality and regressiveness; that is, she was their primitive muse. Yet this view cannot account for why many famous female artists were also fascinated by her, nor does it explain why Baker in particular would come to be the figure of so much profound artistic investment. I would argue that it is in fact Baker’s “modernity” (itself understood as an expression of hybrid and borrowed art forms) rather than her “primitiveness” that made her such a magnetic figure.  In short, the modernists did not go to her to watch a projection of an alienating blackness; rather, they were held in thrall by a reflection of their own art’s racially complex roots. This is another way of saying that, when someone like Picasso looked at a tribal African mask or a figure like Baker who mimics Western ideas of Africa, what he saw was not just radical otherness but a much more ambivalent mirror of the West’s own complicity in constructing and imagining that “otherness.”

Baker was present at the March on Washington in August 1963 and stood with Martin Luther King Jr. as he gave his “I have a dream” speech. What did Baker contribute to the struggle for civil rights? How was her success in foreign countries understood within the African American community?

These are well-known facts about Baker’s biography: in the latter part of her life, Baker became a very public figure for the causes of social justice and equality. During World War II, she served as an intelligence liaison and an ambulance driver for the French Resistance and was awarded the Medal of the Resistance and the Legion of Honor. Soon after the war, Baker toured the United States again and won respect and praise from African Americans for her support of the civil rights movement. In 1951, she refused to play to segregated audiences and, as a result, the NAACP named her its Most Outstanding Woman of the Year. She gave a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall for the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Congress of Racial Equality in 1963.

What is fascinating as well, however, is the complication that Baker represents to and for the African American community. Prior to the war and her more public engagement with the civil rights movement, she was not always a welcome figure either in the African American community or for the larger mainstream American public. Her sensational fame abroad was not duplicated in the states, and her association with primitivism made her at times an embarrassment for the African American community. A couple of times before the war, Baker returned to perform in the United States and was not well received, much to her grief. I would suggest that Baker should be celebrated not only for her more recognizable civil rights activism, but also for her art: performances which far exceed the simplistic labels that have been placed on them and which few have actually examined as art. These performances, when looked at more closely, embody and generate powerful and intricate political meditations about what it means to be a black female body on stage.

Did your research into Baker’s life uncover any surprising or unexpected bits of information? What was the greatest challenge you experienced in carrying out your research?

I was repeatedly stunned by how much writing has been generated about her life (from facts to gossip) but how little attention has been paid to really analyzing her work, be it on stage or in film. The work itself is so idiosyncratic and layered and complex that this critical oversight is really a testament to how much we have been blinded by our received image of her. I was also surprised to learn how insecure she was about her singing voice when it is in fact a very unique voice with great adaptability. Baker’s voice can be deep and sonorous or high and pitchy, depending on the context of each performance. In the film Zou Zou, for example, Baker is shown dressed in feathers, singing while swinging inside a giant gilded bird cage. Many reviewers criticized her performance as jittery and staccato. But I suggest that her voice was actually mimicking the sounds that would be made, not by a real bird, but by a mechanical bird and, in doing so, reminding us that we are not seeing naturalized primitive animality at all, but its mechanical reconstruction.

For me, the challenge of writing the story of Baker rests in learning how to delineate a material history of race that forgoes the facticity of race. The very visible figure of Baker has taught me a counterintuitive lesson: that the history of race, while being very material and with very material impacts, is nonetheless crucially a history of the unseen and the ineffable. The other great challenge is the question of style. I wanted to write a book about Baker that imitates or at least acknowledges the fluidity that is Baker. This is why, in these essays, Baker appears, disappears, and reappears to allow into view the enigmas of the visual experience that I think Baker offers.

Baker’s naked skin famously scandalized audiences in Paris, and your book is, in many respects, an extended analysis of the significance of Baker’s skin. Why study Josephine Baker and her skin today? What does she represent for the study of art, race, and American history? Did your interest in studying Baker develop gradually, or were you immediately intrigued by her?

I started out writing a book about the politics of race and beauty. Then, as part of this larger research, I forced myself to watch Josephine Baker’s films. I say “forced” because I was dreading seeing exactly the kind of racist images and performances that I have heard so much about.  But what I saw stunned, puzzled, and haunted me. Could this strange, moving, and coated figure of skin, clothes, feathers, dirt, gold, oil, and synthetic sheen be the simple “black animal” that everyone says she is? I started writing about her, essay after essay, until a dear friend pointed out that I was in fact writing a book about Baker.

Tim Allen is an Assistant Editor for the Oxford African American Studies Center. You can follow him on Twitter @timDallen.

The Oxford African American Studies Center combines the authority of carefully edited reference works with sophisticated technology to create the most comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.

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As part of Miami Dade College’s (MDC) month-long celebration of Black History Month, Professor Geoffrey Philp will be delivering a series of lectures, “Marcus Garvey: Human Rights Champion” at the North Campus. The lectures are free and open to the public.

“On August 13, 1920, Marcus Garvey and the UNIA published the “Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,” said Professor Philp. “The declaration highlighted basic human rights, which were finally included in the United Nation’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” on December 10, 1948. Garvey and the UNIA were ahead of the world body by twenty-eight years!” 

The kickoff for the lecture series will be on Thursday, February 13, 2014, at the North Campus. Join us for these lectures on Marcus Garvey’s visionary movement which championed the human rights of peoples of African descent in North America and the African diaspora worldwide.

MDC recognizes Black History Month each year with an array of community and educational activities at each of its seven campuses. College administrators believe students, as well as the community at large, should be mindful of the contributions made by Black Americans throughout this country’s history, both past and present

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Katherine Ali is a dual-certified elementary and special education teacher. She recently graduated as a literacy specialist with a Masters in Science from Manhattanville College. She has experience teaching internationally in northern China and now teaches in the Bronx, NY.

In order to be active participants in the literate world, students must be reading, writing, speaking, and listening at all ages. The natural interplay of language looks slightly differently across grades levels, but the foundations and mission are the same:

Reading:  Text Complexity and the growth of comprehension

We want our students to ascend the staircase of text complexity and simultaneously sharpen their comprehension skills.  Students, of all ages, need to build stamina through independently reading more rigorous and complex texts.  Additionally, read-alouds allow students to access content and concepts they may not be able to decode themselves.

Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research

Opinion pieces, research-based projects, and narratives are the three main categories of student writing the Common Core State Standards focus on.  It is also imperative that our students engage in the writing process and expand their writing style using the conventions of the English language.

Speaking & Listening: Flexible Communication and Collaboration

Speaking and Listening in each grade level includes but is certainly not limited to presentations, group work, and class discussion.  Students need to be aware of their oral language skills and communicate their thoughts and research appropriately.   Building off other students’ ideas is also an important component in developing these skills.

Last week, I explained what what it looks like to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening in grades K-1, using the book Rainbow Stew as an example. This week, I take a look at grades 2-3:

As Fast As Words Could Fly by Pamela M. Tuck, illus. by Eric Valesquez
Interest Level: 2 -7
DRA: 34, Guided Reading Level: O

Reading:  Doing a close read with students of As Fast As Words Could Fly fulfills the Common Core’s shift up the staircase of text complexity and builds strong vocabulary skills. Words such as refused, boasted, disbelief, barricaded, grimaces, and blurted are rich and valuable for second and third graders to read and understand.  This text is also an excellent model of the use of dialogue.  Through close reading activities students can highlight the dialogue and the speaker to understand the different ways to properly punctuate dialogue in a narrative. Of course, teachers can also read this story aloud so students can connect to the themes of perseverance and overcoming adversity.

Writing: Tuck’s writing style is strong and complex.  She uses compound sentences, prepositions, and onomatopoeia throughout the story creating a very sophisticated narrative.  Teachers can focus on one of these skills in a Writing Workshop model in which students translate the skill into their own writing. Mason’s story also evokes different opinions and feelings that lead to rich discussion. Use these discussion questions as a guide and encourage students to write a Reader’s Response and to share their responses with the class.

Speaking & Listening:  By second and third grade, students should be developing their formal presentation skills, therefore they may share Mason’s story through a presentation about influential people who took risks (complement the study with this interview with Moses Teel Jr., whose experience as a teenager during integration was the basis for Mason’s story).

Students also need to learn to lead discussions.  Assign a group of students to be the leaders of an interactive read-aloud and have them come prepared with various questions they developed in advance with the classroom teacher.  Creating a routine of student-led conversations around literature will catapult students into the upper elementary grades.

Stay tuned next week, when I discuss how to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening standards for grades 4-5 using Bird.

Filed under: Curriculum Corner, guest blogger Tagged: CCSS, Civil Rights, close reading, common core standards, ELA common core standards, integration, listening and speaking standards, reading, Reading Standards, writing standards

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As Fast As Words Could Fly tells the story of Mason, a teenager growing up in North Carolina who becomes one of the first black students to attend an all-white high school. In this guest post, we interview author Pamela M. Tuck’s father, Moses Teel Jr., whose experience during integration inspired the New Voices award-winning title.

Lee & Low: In the Author’s Note, it says that you used your “typing talent to defy the prejudices of people who considered [you] inferior.” Did you also participate in a typing contest similar to the one Mason was in? What was that experience like?

Moses Teel Jr.: Yes. In my typing class, we had five-minute timed typing exercises. Five strokes counted for one word and every error took one word away from your total word count. I participated in a lot of these classroom competitions and won. That’s what helped me qualify for the tournament. By the time I had to compete, I felt pretty confident in my skill and I stayed focused by telling myself, “I can do this.”

L&L: How did you handle the hardships you encountered while at Belvoir-Falkland High School? Was there a piece of advice that you were given that inspired you? What advice would you give others who experience some form of prejudice directed toward them?

MT: The encouragement from my family and other members of the civil rights group helped me handle the hardships I faced. My dad had sacrificed a lot during the Civil Rights Movement so as to make a difference. Integrating the schools was one of the most important parts of the Civil Rights Movement in Pitt County during that time. By the time I started Belvoir-Falkland High School, I knew I had to remain humble in order to stay there. I went there for a better education, so I could make a difference in my community.

Filed under: guest blogger, Musings & Ponderings Tagged: African American history, As Fast As Words Could Fly, Civil Rights, historical interest, integration, interview, overcoming obstacles, Pamela M. Tuck, typewriters

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The strides that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made during the Civil Rights Movement continues to be remembered and honored today, but did you know it actually took 15 years for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to be created?

In 1968, Congressman John Conyers introduced legislation to make a national holiday in honor of Dr. King, four days after he was assassinated. The bill was initially stalled, but luckily, Conyers and Representative Shirley Chisholm were persistent and they resubmitted the legislation during each legislative session. This, along with mounting pressure during the civil rights marches in Washington DC in 1982 and 1983, got the bill passed. On November 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill, establishing the third Monday of every January as Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday, beginning in 1986. The first national Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was observed on January 20, 1986.

So today, we honor Dr. King and his message of compassion and equality for all. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Filed under: Holidays Tagged: Civil Rights, Jr., Martin Luther King, MLK, national holidays

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Levine, Kristin. 2012. The Lions of Little Rock. New York: Putnam.

I talk a lot.  Just not out loud where anyone can hear.  At least I used to be that way.  I'm no chatterbox now, but if you stop me on the street and ask me directions to the zoo, I'll answer you.  Probably.  If you're nice, I might even tell you a couple of different ways to get there. I guess I've learned it's not enough to just think things.  You have to say them too.  Because all the words in the world won't do much good if they're just rattling around in your head.

The year is 1958, and 12-year-old Marlee is beginning West Side Junior High School.  An intelligent, but extremely quiet girl, Marlee is often at the mercy of her bossy and outspoken "friend," Sally.

    Judy sighed. "Why are you even friends with Sally McDaniels?"
      I shrugged.  Sally and I have been friends ever since were five and she pushed me off the slide at the park.
     "She likes to boss you around," Judy said.
     That was true.  But she was also familiar.  I like familiar.

So, when she is befriended by Liz, the affable newcomer to school, Marlee is most pleasantly surprised.  Marlee, who has a penchant for categorizing people as beverages, finally questions Liz as to why she is helping Marlee to overcome her debilitating shyness,

     For the first time, Liz was silent.  Behind her, the giraffes chewed their cud. "I thought it might be hard always being quiet," Liz said finally.  "I thought you needed a friend."
     She was right.  I did.
     "I needed a friend too," said Liz.
     And suddenly I knew what Liz was -- a cup of warm milk with a dash of cinnamon.

The two become inseparable.  But one day, after a chance encounter with Sally and her mother near the Baptist church in the "colored part of town," Liz stops coming to school.  Word leaks out that she's been "passing," pretending to be white, in order to attend a better school.  Central High may have been forcibly integrated last year, but change has not come to West Side Junior High, and Hall High remains closed, forcing Marlee's older sister to attend school out of town. The status quo sits well with Marlee's mother, but her father, a teacher in the district, is disturbed.  The tension in Marlee's household mirrors that of the town's.  Liz and Marlee's friendship is a cause for concern in Marlee's part of town and Liz's; the threat of violence looms ahead.

A stellar depiction of  "us vs. them" mentality, The Lions of Little Rock shows the awful consequences of race against race, neighbor against neighbor, even husband against wife. Betty Jean, the maid at Marlee's home and the wife of the pastor at Liz's church, creates the story's bridge between the two neighborhoods. The Lions of Little Rock offers no easy answers, no neatly wrapped happy endings.  Brave Marlee will risk anything to stand by her friend, but her brave actions do not right the wrongs of the world; rather, they place the life of her dear friend and others in grave danger.  Life is messy.  Neither life nor its people can be neatly separated into black and white.  There are always shades of gray.


Other reviews @

• proseandkahn
• richiespicks
• Waking Brain Cells
• The Fourth Musketeer

 An interview with Kristin Levine is at The Fourth Musketeer.

Note: The librarians of NJLA's Children's Services Section are discussing this book and others on their mock Newbery blog, Newbery Blueberry Mockery Pie. Please feel free to join them with your comments.

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Awkward Family Photos

Holidays mean family photos, right? This children’s book shows the extremes to which a kid can go to avoid those photos. The difference is that this girl has a good reason.

THE STORY: “11 Ways to Ruin a Photograph”

When her father goes soldiering for a year, a girl decides that without Dad at home, it’s not a family photo album. Though her beloved Nanny is in charge of the album that year, the girl makes sure that photographs of her never turn out well. It results in some awkward family photos! Photos are blurred, wind blows hair in her face. April rains bring umbrellas to hide behind. Halloween means a mask. This poignant, yet funny family story, expresses a child’s anger and grief for a Dad whose work takes him away for long periods of time. This story for kids is a tribute to the sacrifices made by military families and to those who care for children when a family needs support.

THIS STORY IS A WINNER!

In conjunction with “The Help” movie (www.thehelpmovie.com), TakePart.com (www.takepart.com/thehelp) recently sponsored three writing contests: a recipe contest, an inspirational story contest and a children’s story contest. TakePart is the digital division of Participant Media which aims to bolster a movie’s audience with a message of social change. THE HELP movie campaign emphasized the role of stories in people’s lives. After winning the contest, the story was made into a children’s book.

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Notice: This site and the story are not endorsed by or affiliated with TakePart, LLC or the motion picture “The Help” and or its distributors.

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READ THE BOOK!

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THE AUTHOR: Darcy Pattison

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Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 41. The Writer’s Life with Children’s Author Nancy I. Sanders 22 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Mayra Calvani, on 3/13/2012 Blog: Mayra's Secret Bookcase (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  Alphabet, Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, Black history, African American history, black leaders, Add a tag Featured Book: D is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet Author: Nancy I. Sanders Illustrator: E. B. Lewis Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press Book’s Website: www.DrinkingGourdAlphabet.wordpress.com Mini Interview Q. What is a typical writing day like for you? A. Over the years, my writing schedule has reflected the seasons in my life. When I first started writing, I had a newborn and a two-year old. When I was busy caring for the boys during the day, I was constantly brainstorming ideas. When I put them down for their naps, I’d sit down to write. Now I have the luxury of writing from the moment I get up until my husband, Jeff, comes home from teaching fourth grade in a public elementary school. Both our sons are grown and gone and live nearby. So I can be found writing some days from 6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. It’s a writer’s dream come true! I keep pinching myself to make sure it’s real, but know as new phases and stages of life come by, new writing schedules will appear. Every other week or so I have writing groups that meet in my home, so I’m usually writing four full days a week. Before breakfast, I work on little projects such as submitting my current book for state reading lists and awards. After breakfast, I work all morning on my current major project, which over the years has usually been a book deadline. After lunch, I work on short writing projects such as magazine articles, social networking, marketing, new book proposals, and writing for my church. Q. Where do you write? A. Now that our sons are grown, I have the luxury of writing all over the house! I remember those early years of writing on a card table on our porch or on a desk squeezed in the corner of our bedroom. I guess those memories help me appreciate all the space I can write in today! In our office, there are three desks. Two of them are my writing desks. One desk is where my desktop is. The other desk is where my laptop is. Each desk has research books, file folders, and notes on a major writing project I’m currently working on. I split half my computer time between my desktop and my laptop. Alternating between the two helps keep my eyestrain and wrist strain to a minimum. Also, I carry my laptop out to my couch/recliner where I can type with our two writing buddies, our kittens Sandman and Pitterpat, napping next to me. A 22 Comments on The Writer’s Life with Children’s Author Nancy I. Sanders, last added: 3/14/2012 Display Comments Mayra Calvani said, on 3/13/2012 1:29:00 AM Dear Nancy, It's a pleasure having you on my blog today. From from post, I can tell you're living the writer's dream! :-) Question: you say you work on your desktop and also on your laptop. Do you carry an ISB stick with you where all of your work is contained or--?? I always find working in alternating computers a little confusing because I may not remember later where my 'latest' version of something is located. How do you deal with this? Wow, from 6am to 6pm! I assume you take short breaks to stretch or do other stuff? Do you have any secrets to keep your eyes from getting too tired? Mine hurt so much at the end of the day. Thanks, Nancy! Griefcase said, on 3/13/2012 2:21:00 AM What a delightful interview. Reading how your writing day works is like opening a window--it's a breath of fresh air! Thanks for sharing. Linda Della Donna www.bookorbust.blogspot.com www.griefcase.net Magdalena Ball said, on 3/13/2012 3:55:00 AM That writing table with the big project spread out on it sounds great, as do your long writing hours. Thanks for sharing your work environment. Kathleen Moulton said, on 3/13/2012 5:54:00 AM Nancy, this looks like a beautiful book. It would fit perfectly in my homeschool. Thank-you so much for sharing a bit of your world! Kathy http://kathleenmoulton.com Angela said, on 3/13/2012 6:39:00 AM Nancy, I'm not an envious person, but I do envy you having all that time to write. Not that I could ever write from 6.00a.m to 6.00 p.m., but it would be nice to have that much time available. All the best with your tour and other projects. Donna M. McDine said, on 3/13/2012 7:14:00 AM Hi Nancy: Your writing schedule obviously works well for you. Glad you have various spots you work in. Once I finally got into gear and started writing first thing my day flowed much smoother. I always enjoy learning more about you. Great pics! Best regards, Donna The Golden Pathway Story book Blog Karen Cioffi said, on 3/13/2012 7:55:00 AM Nancy, you're my writing idol! :) My daughter is a 4th grade public school teacher also! nancyisanders said, on 3/13/2012 9:06:00 AM It's such a joy to be here on your blog today, Mayra! Thanks for waiting for me to hop in (I'm on late California time compared to all you early birds across the states and around the world :o) And yes, Mayra, it can get confusing working on 2 different computers. I used to carry an ISB or flash drive stick back and forth. But now we have wi-fi so I just e-mail my projects back and forth. I always number or date my manuscripts so I can keep track of which is the most current. But even easier than that is that I try to keep each project on its own computer. So if I'm working on the actual manuscript, say it's on my desktop. But the research is on my laptop. And shorter projects like magazine articles and picture books tend to be on the laptop. I e-mail everything to an online e-mail account every day as backup so I can also retrieve any project from anywhere. nancyisanders said, on 3/13/2012 9:06:00 AM It's such a joy to be here on your blog today, Mayra! Thanks for waiting for me to hop in (I'm on late California time compared to all you early birds across the states and around the world :o) And yes, Mayra, it can get confusing working on 2 different computers. I used to carry an ISB or flash drive stick back and forth. But now we have wi-fi so I just e-mail my projects back and forth. I always number or date my manuscripts so I can keep track of which is the most current. But even easier than that is that I try to keep each project on its own computer. So if I'm working on the actual manuscript, say it's on my desktop. But the research is on my laptop. And shorter projects like magazine articles and picture books tend to be on the laptop. I e-mail everything to an online e-mail account every day as backup so I can also retrieve any project from anywhere. nancyisanders said, on 3/13/2012 9:08:00 AM And yes, Mayra, the eyes are an issue, too! I definitely take short breaks every hour or so when I do something physical like the dishes or ironing or gardening or play with the cats. (That's their first choice of course!) And when my eyes start to bug me I avoid both computers entirely for an hour or so and sit and brainstorm or outline or research the old fashioned way...with pen and paper. nancyisanders said, on 3/13/2012 9:10:00 AM And thanks for all your kudos everyone! If you want to join in a contest, just hop on over to my blog and follow the steps to get your name in the hat. The winner gets a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble! My blog is at www.nancyisanders.wordpress.com And may all your writing dreams come true! Mayra Calvani said, on 3/13/2012 9:23:00 AM That makes sense, Nancy, to keep specific projects on either your laptop or desktop. Thanks for sharing that. Best of luck with the rest of your tour! Your book looks awesome! Karen Cioffi said, on 3/13/2012 10:22:00 AM I have a laptop and computer also. I use the laptop when I'm babysitting at my daughter's. I use Dropbox to keep my files synced on both. This way no matter which one I'm using the file is updated. I also have a zip drive, but with Dropbox I don't use it as much. T. Forehand said, on 3/13/2012 12:35:00 PM This is a great post with tips that I can use for organizing my work. Love learning from the professionals and Nancy is such a help. Thanks for sharing this. NancyCL said, on 3/13/2012 1:04:00 PM Thanks for this great interview and letting us get to know Nancy better. What an awesome author! Marge said, on 3/13/2012 1:45:00 PM Thank you for all the interesting insights. It was a great interview.I'm hoping to retire soon and have all that time to write, too. I am wondering what a drop box is. That's a term I haven't heard before. Marge Annie said, on 3/13/2012 2:49:00 PM A lovely post which revived my determination to be (at least slightly) better organized. Thank you for sharing all your tips, Nancy, and thanks too to Mayra for this inspirational blog. Marge, Drop Box is a website to which you can upload files for safekeeping, share them, encrypt them for transfer or keep them private. Someone else may well have a better explanation. I am with Box.net which is also cloud computing, and I back up my important files there weekly. People use these instead of Google docs as some say Google may index the docs on its search engines. Monti said, on 3/13/2012 5:41:00 PM You certainly have a wonderful writing situation now, and you sound very organized. Thank for sharing your writing story! Monti Mary Montague Sikes Cheryl said, on 3/13/2012 7:48:00 PM I love Nancy's books. How neat that she has writing groups in her home. I would love to do that one day too. nancyisanders said, on 3/14/2012 7:23:00 AM It's good to hear about box.net, too, Annie! Thanks for sharing. And Cheryl...hopefully you can invite some writer friends over. Right now the 2 groups that meet are small...5 of us who are mentoring each other writing picture books and 5 different gals who are mentoring each other trying to break into writing for the big magazines. You can even invite just 1 for starters! I look forward to these so much and they're so motivating and inspirational. nancyisanders said, on 3/14/2012 7:24:00 AM Mayra, thanks for hosting my VBT today. You've got a fantastic site and lots of enthusiastic readers. Hip hip hooray! Hugs, Nancy Morgan Mandel said, on 3/14/2012 1:19:00 PM Alternating between the desktop computer and laptop sounds like a good idea. I haven't used my laptop one as much since I've been at home over the past year and a third. I think I'll try that. I used to have a nice couch similar to the one in the picture, but the dog before the latest ruined it. Now I have a plain blue one, and Rascal, whom we've had for about 6 years now, doesn't get to sleep on it. Morgan Mandel http://facebook.com/morgan.mandel Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 42. African American History Month Add/View Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Bianca Schulze, on 2/10/2012 Blog: The Children's Book Review (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  Ages 4-8, Ages 9-12, Picture Books, Book Lists, Black History Month, Civil Rights, African American, featured, Kadir Nelson, James E. Ransome, Ntozake Shange, Kelly Starling Lyons, Shane W. Evans, Daniel Minter, Diane Dillon, Leo Dillon, Rod Brown, Taye Diggs, Cultural Wisdom, Jessie Carney Smith, Lean’tin Bracks, Margaree King Mitchell, Patricia C. McKissack, Add a tag By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review Published: February 11, 2012 In celebration of African American History month, I discovered some especially moving books to share with The Children’s Book Review. Fighting for justice and equality through solidarity and courage, these books uncover the truth of the African American experience whether it’s during the time of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement or even today. Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans By Kadir Nelson In truly stunning paintings, Nelson follows the trajectory of the African-American experience in all of its harrowing and haunting glory. Beginning with slavery and ending with the civil rights movement, he gently describes the events to enlighten and as he explains in his gentle prologue, “make some things known before they’re gone for good.” You’ll find more details on Nelson’s remarkable book in these two stories from NPR and The New York Times and additional notes from the publisher. (Ages 8-11. Publisher: HarperCollins) When Grandmama Sings By Margaree King Mitchell; illustrated by James E. Ransome It’s almost incredible to recall that Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong were not allowed as audience members in many of the theaters where they performed sold-out, standing-room-only shows. In Mitchell’s story, a small-town woman with a magnificent voice decides to bring her granddaughter along on tour. Although they are harassed, refused service and even payment from one stage manager, Grandmama keeps singing to inspire and bring people together with courage and the power of her conviction. (Ages 5-9. Publisher: HarperCollins) We March By Shane W. Evans In this eloquent book by Shane W. Evans, author of Underground, he recounts the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. His bold illustrations depict families as they make their way to the Lincoln Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 43. Monumental decisions 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 9/30/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  memorial, mlk, *Featured, bunker hill, making slavery history, margot minardi, monument, monument’s—limitations, bunker, US, controversy, civil rights, Martin Luther King, Add a tag By Margot Minardi The new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, DC, attracted criticism from an unlikely corner recently when poet Maya Angelou complained that one of the inscriptions made the civil rights leader seem like an “arrogant twit.” In a sermon on “The Drum Major Instinct,” delivered two months before 0 Comments on Monumental decisions as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 44. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Joan Enders, on 9/2/2011 Blog: What to Read, What to Read... (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  families, civil rights, humorous stories, compassion, Add a tag If you have been under a rock the last few months, let me help you escape. The Help is an entertaining, eye-opening, jaw-dropping novel about the lives of one young woman who is white, 23 years old, and in a southern protocol prison, and how two maids, "the help," helped her escape. The Help is about two extraordinary black maids, trying to make a living and trying to survive working for pennies for an array of fussy, social-climbing, vindictive white women. Before they know it they are authors and creating quite a stir in the town of Jackson, Mississippi. Didn't live during 1962? Not a problem. You will get this book. ENDERS' Rating: ***** Kathryn's Website 0 Comments on The Help by Kathryn Stockett as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 45. Freedom Ride dispatch: Days 6-8 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 5/16/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  American Experience, Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault, bloody sunday, *Featured, freedom rides, racial justice, ray arsenault, whites only, ku klux klan, slave market, PBS, US, civil rights, oprah, birmingham, bus, violence, African American Studies, documentary, KKK, massacre, college students, scottsboro, NAACP, Add a tag Tweet Raymond Arsenault was just 19 years old when he started researching the 1961 Freedom Rides. He became so interested in the topic, he dedicated 10 years of his life to telling the stories of the Riders—brave men and women who fought for equality. Arsenault’s book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, is tied to the much-anticipated PBS/American Experience documentary “Freedom Riders,” which premiers on May 16th. In honor of the Freedom Rides 50th anniversary, American Experience has invited 40 college students to join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 Rides from Washington, DC to New Orleans, LA. (Itinerary, Rider bios, videos and more are available here.) Arsenault is along for the ride, and has agreed to provide regular dispatches from the bus. You can also follow on Twitter, #PBSbus. Day 6–May 13: Nashville, TN, to Birmingham, AL Day 6 started with a torrential downpour–the first bad weather of the trip–that prevented us from walking around the Fisk campus and touring Jubilee Hall and the chapel. So we headed south for Birmingham, passing through Giles County, the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, and by Decatur, AL, the site of the 1932 Scottsboro trial. We arrived in Birmingham in time for lunch at the Alabama Power Company building, a corporate fortress symbolic of the “new” Birmingham. We spent the afternoon at the magnificent Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where we were met by Freedom Riders Jim Zwerg and Catherine Burks Brooks, and by Odessa Woolfolk, the guiding force behind the Institute in its early years. Catherine treated the students to a rollicking memoir of her life in Birmingham, and Odessa followed with a moving account of her years as a teacher in Birmingham and a discussion of the role of women in the civil rights movement. Odessa is always wonderful, but she was particularly warm and humane today. We then went across the street for a tour of the 16th Street Baptist Church, the site of the September 1963 bombing that killed the “four little girls.” The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to a tour of the Institute; there is never enough time to do justice to the Institute’s civil rights timeline, but this visit was much too brief, I am afraid. Seeing the Freedom Rider section with the Riders, especially Jim Zwerg and Charles Person who had searing experiences in Birmingham in 1961, was highly emotional for me, for them, and for the students. As soon as the Institute closed, we retired to the community room for a memorable barbecue feast catered by Dreamland Barbecue, the best in the business. We then went back across the street to 16th Street for a freedom song concert in the sanctuary. The voices o 0 Comments on Freedom Ride dispatch: Days 6-8 as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 46. Freedom Ride dispatch: Day 5 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 5/13/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  whites only, arsenault, riders, rides, raymond, anniston, seigenthaler, American Experience, Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault, *Featured, freedom rides, racial justice, ray arsenault, sweet home alabama, vanderbuilt, PBS, US, civil rights, oprah, nashville, bus, violence, African American Studies, documentary, college students, Add a tag Tweet Raymond Arsenault was just 19 years old when he started researching the 1961 Freedom Rides. He became so interested in the topic, he dedicated 10 years of his life to telling the stories of the Riders—brave men and women who fought for equality. Arsenault’s book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, is tied to the much-anticipated PBS/American Experience documentary “Freedom Riders,” which premiers on May 16th. In honor of the Freedom Rides 50th anniversary, American Experience has invited 40 college students to join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 Rides from Washington, DC to New Orleans, LA. (Itinerary, Rider bios, videos and more are available here.) Arsenault is along for the ride, and has agreed to provide regular dispatches from the bus. You can also follow on Twitter, #PBSbus. Day 5–May 12: Anniston, AL, to Nashville, TN Our fifth day on the road started with the dedication of two murals in Anniston, at the old Greyhound and Trailways stations. I worked with the local committee on the text, and I was pleased with the results. In the past, there was nothing to signify that anything historic had happened at these sites. The turnout of both blacks and whites was gratifying and perhaps a sign that Anniston has begun the healing process of confonting its dark past. The students seemed intrigued by the whole scene, including the media blitz. We then boarded the bus and traveled six miles to the site of the bus burning; we talked with the only local resident who was there in 1961 and with the designer of a proposed Freedom Rider park that will be built on the site, which now boasts only a small historic marker. I have mixed feelings about the park, but perhaps the plan will be refined to a less Disneyesque form. It was quite a scene at the site, but we eventually pulled ourselves away for the long drive to Nashville. Our first stop in Nashville was the civil rights room of the public library, the holder of one of the nation’s great civil rights collections. Rip Patton gave a moving account of his life as a Nashville student activist. We then traveled across town to the John Seigenthaler First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, where John Seigenthaler talked with the students for a spellbinding hour. He focused on his experiences with the Kennedy brothers and his sense of the evolution of their civil rights consciousness. As always, he was captivating and gracious, and full of truth-telling wit. We gave the students the night off to experience the music scene in Nashville, while I and the Freedom Riders participated in a Q and A session following a screening of the PBS film. The theater was packed, and the response was very enthusiastic. It was great to see this in Nashville, a hallowed site essential to the Freedom Rider saga and the wider freedom struggle. On to Fisk this morning before journeying south to Birmingham and “sweet home Alabama.” Raymond Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and and Director of Graduate Studies for the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. You can watch his discussion with dire 0 Comments on Freedom Ride dispatch: Day 5 as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 47. Freedom Ride dispatch: Day 4 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 5/12/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  PBS, US, civil rights, oprah, Martin Luther King, bus, violence, African American Studies, documentary, KKK, college students, 1961, coretta scott, American Experience, Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault, *Featured, freedom rides, racial justice, ray arsenault, whites only, arsenault, riders, rides, raymond, anniston, augusta, Add a tag Tweet Raymond Arsenault was just 19 years old when he started researching the 1961 Freedom Rides. He became so interested in the topic, he dedicated 10 years of his life to telling the stories of the Riders—brave men and women who fought for equality. Arsenault’s book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, is tied to the much-anticipated PBS/American Experience documentary “Freedom Riders,” which premiers on May 16th. In honor of the Freedom Rides 50th anniversary, American Experience has invited 40 college students to join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 Rides from Washington, DC to New Orleans, LA. (Itinerary, Rider bios, videos and more are available here.) Arsenault is along for the ride, and has agreed to provide regular dispatches from the bus. You can also follow on Twitter, #PBSbus. Day 4–May 11: Augusta, GA, to Anniston, AL As we left Augusta, I gave a brief lecture on Augusta’s cultural, political, and racial history–emphasizing several of the region’s most colorful and infamous characters, notably Tom Watson and J. B. Stoner. Then we settled in for the long bus ride from Augusta to Atlanta, a journey that the students soon turned into a musical and creative extravaganza featuring new renditions of freedom songs, original rap songs, a poetry slam–all dedicated to the original Freedom Riders. These kids are quite remarkable. In Atlanta, our first stop was the King Center, where we were met by Freedom Riders Bernard Lafayette and Charles Person. Bernard gave a fascinating impromptu lecture on the history of the Center and his experiences working with Coretta King. We spent a few minutes at the grave sight and reflecting pool before entering the newly restored Ebenezer Baptist Church. The church was hauntingly beautiful, especially so as we listened to a tape of an MLK sermon and a following hymn. The kids were riveted. Our next stop was Morehouse College, King’s alma mater, where we were greeted by a large crowd organized by the Georgia Humanities Council. After lunch and my brief keynote address, the gathering, which included 10 Freedom Riders, broke into small groups for hour-long discussions relating the Freedom Rides to contemporary issues. Moving testimonials and a long standing ovation for the Riders punctuated the event. Later in the afternoon, we headed for Alabama and Anniston, taking the old highway, Route 78, just as the CORE Freedom Riders had on Mother’s Day morning, May 14, in 1961. However, unlike 1961’s brutal events, our reception in Anniston, orchestrated by a downown redevelopment group known as the Spirit of Anniston, could not have been more cordial. A large interracial group that included the mayor, city council members, and a black state representative joined us for dinner before accompanying us to the Anniston Public Library for a program highlighted by the viewing of a photography exhibit, “Courage Under Fire.” The May 14, 1961 photographs of Joe Postiglione were searing, and their public display marks a new departure in Anniston, a community that until recently seemed determined to bury the uglier aspects of its past. The whole scene at the library was deeply emotional, almost surreal at times. The climax was a confessional speech b 0 Comments on Freedom Ride dispatch: Day 4 as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 48. Freedom Ride dispatch: Days 1 & 2 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 5/10/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  PBS, US, civil rights, oprah, bus, violence, African American Studies, documentary, greensboro, college students, 1961, American Experience, Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault, *Featured, freedom rides, racial justice, ray arsenault, whites only, arsenault, riders, lunch counter, lynchburg, Add a tag Tweet Raymond Arsenault was just 19 years old when he started researching the 1961 Freedom Rides. He became so interested in the topic, he dedicated 10 years of his life to telling the stories of the Riders—brave men and women who fought for equality. Arsenault’s book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, is tied to the much-anticipated PBS/American Experience documentary “Freedom Riders,” which premiers on May 16th. In honor of the Freedom Rides 50th anniversary, American Experience has invited 40 college students to join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 Rides from Washington, DC to New Orleans, LA. (Itinerary, Rider bios, videos and more are available here.) Arsenault is along for the ride, and has agreed to provide regular dispatches from the bus. You can also follow on Twitter, #PBSbus. Day 1-May 8: Washington to Lynchburg,VA Glorious first day. Student riders are a marvel–bright and engaged. Began with group photo in front of old Greyhound station in DC, where the 1961 Freedom Ride originated. On to Fredericksburg and a warm welcome at the University of Mary Washington, where James Farmer spent his last 14 years. One of the student riders, Charles Lee is a UMW student. Second stop at Virginia Union in Richmond, where the 1961 Riders spent their first night. Greeted by VU Freedom Rider Reginald Green, charming man who as a young man sang doo-wop with his good friend Marvin Gaye. Third stop in Petersburg, where former Freedom Rider Dion Diamond and Petersburg native led a walking tour of a town suffering from urban blight; drove by Bethany Baptist, where the 1961 Riders held their first mass meeting. On to Farmville and the Robert Russa Moton Museum, formerly Moton High School, the site of the famous 1951 black student strike led by Barbara Johns; our student riders were spellbound by a panel discussion featuring 2 of the students involved in the 1951 strike and later in the struggle against Massive Resistance in Farmville and Prince Edward County, where white supremacist leaders closed the public schools from 1959 to 1964. On to Lynchburg, where the 1961 Freedom Riders spent their third night on the road and where we ended a long but fascinating first day. Heade for Danville, Greensboro, High Point, and Charlotte this morning. Buses are a rollin’!!! Day 2-May 9: Lynchburg, VA, to Charlotte, NC The second day of the Student Freedom Ride was full of surprises. We left Lynchburg early in the morning bound for Charlotte. We passed through Danville, once a major site of civil rights protests, where the 1961 Freedom Riders encountered their first opposition and experienced their first small victory–convincing a white station manager to relent and let three white Riders eat a “colored only” lunch counter. Our first stop was in Greensboro, where we toured the new International Civil Rights museum, located in the famous Woolworth’s–site of the February 1, 1960 sit-in. This was my first visit to the museum, even though I was one of the historical consul 0 Comments on Freedom Ride dispatch: Days 1 & 2 as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 49. They called themselves “Freedom Riders” 0 Comments | Previous | Top | Next By: Lauren, on 5/10/2011 Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  PBS, US, civil rights, oprah, bus, violence, African American Studies, documentary, Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault, *Featured, freedom rides, Audio & Podcasts, racial justice, ray arsenault, whites only, arsenault, riders, Add a tag Tweet This article and audio component was produced by Adam Phillips of Voice of America. The American South was a segregated society 50 years ago. In 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in restaurants and bus terminals serving interstate travel, but African-Americans who tried to sit in the “whites only” section risked injury or even death at the hands of white mobs. In May of 1961, groups of black and white civil rights activists set out together to change all that. [See post to listen to audio] They called themselves “Freedom Riders.” An integrated group of young civil rights activists decided to confront the racist practices in the Deep South, by travelling together by bus from Washington D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. Raymond Arsenault documents their trip in “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.” He says many elder civil rights leaders denounced their strategy as a dangerous provocation that would set back the cause. “But the members of the Congress of Racial Equality that came up with this idea, the young activists, were absolutely determined that they were going to force the issue, that they had to fight for ‘freedom now,’ not ‘freedom later,’ [and] that someone had to take the struggle out of the courtroom and into the streets, even if it meant for death for some of them. They were willing to die to make this point,” said Arsenault. The group boarded a Greyhound bus in Washington on May 4. They planned to stop and organize others along the way until they reached their destination on May 17. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and other prominent civil rights activists of the day, the Freedom Riders were trained in the techniques of non-violent direct action developed by the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. Arsenault says that for some of them, non-violence was a deeply held philosophy. For others, it was a tactic to win public support for their struggle. “Part of what they did was they dressed very well, almost like they were going to church and they were absolutely committed to not striking back and being polite, and to contrast their behavior with what they saw as the white thugs who might very well attack them, and of course did,” added Arsenault. The Freedom Riders were taunted – and attacked – throughout the South. John Lewis, now a U.S. Congressman, was badly beaten in South Carolina. Worse trouble awaited the Freedom Riders in Birmingham, Alabama, where white supremacists beat the Riders with clubs and chains while police looked on. In Anniston, Alabama, a mob surrounded the bus, slashed its tires, and firebombed it on a lone stretch of highway outside of town. In interviews culled from “Freedom Riders“, a new PBS documentary tied to Arsenault’s book, several of the Riders recall how they narrowly escaped death. “I can’t tell you if I walked off if I walked off the bus or crawled off, or someone pulled me off,” said one woman. “When I got off the bus, a man came up to me, and I am coughing and strangling and he said ‘Boy, are you alright?’ And I nodded, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. He had hit me with a baseball bat, 0 Comments on They called themselves “Freedom Riders” as of 1/1/1900 Add a Comment More from this Blog | Email This | Add a Tag 50. Freedom on the Menu 2 Comments | Previous | Top | By: J.F. Durante, on 2/7/2011 Blog: Books of Wonder and Wisdom (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags:  Picture Books, Black History Month, Civil Rights, Carole Boston Weatherford, African-American history, Jim Crow, Peace stories, Add a tag Carole Boston Weatherford is the vibrant author of some of the best children’s books  exploring African-American history.  I met Carole a year ago after she flew up from North Carolina to come visit our school library. As a snowstorm barreled in that day, we had to change our schedule at the last minute. Carole mastered the situation with grace and verve, adjusting each of her three sessions to relate perfectly to the age group. She recited poems to the youngest; she had children participating by chanting, jingling bells and tapping a triangle. They left the library joyous and inspired. Image via Wikipedia With the fourth and fifth-graders, she discussed Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins and presented a sensitive and nuanced look at Jim Crow as it still existed when she was a child in Baltimore. She showed a photograph of the park where she and her family were not allowed to go. The students were solemn and spellbound. Carole Boston Weatherford knows how to make history real to children. One of my favorite read-alouds for Black History Month, is Freedom on the Menu (Dial, 2004), which works well with ages 6-10. Told from the point of view of eight-year-old Connie, the story takes readers to the Woolsworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Connie and her mother often stop there for a soda after shopping downtown. Connie would like to sit down and have a banana split instead, but can’t; only whites may sit at the counter.  “All over town signs told Mama and me where we could and couldn’t go,” Connie lamented. Lagarrigue’s somber, impressionistic paintings show the hateful Jim Crow signs that warp the community. Changes are in the air, though, as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to town. Connie sees her older siblings become politically involved and join in the lunch counter sit-ins. As the protests spread through the South, laws change. Six months later, Connie gets to savor her banana split at the counter, and it tastes like so sweet — like freedom. The author’s note about the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins provides additional information that will help young people understand the Civil Rights movement. See Weatherford’s web site for lesson plans inspired by this exemplary picture book. And don’t miss these treasures … For older children: The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights. illus. by Tim Ladwig. Eerdmans, 2009. Ages 7-12. Anyone looking for a picture book to illustrate the role of faith in helping people survive and eventually overcome tragedy should take a look at this beautiful book. While the religious tone might be too heavy for some people, there is a place for a book that fosters faith in God and respect for all. Birmingham, 1963. Wordsong, 2007. 2 Comments on Freedom on the Menu, last added: 2/7/2011 Display Comments Keith Schoch said, on 2/7/2011 11:29:00 AM Thanks for coming by my site, You and I definitely think alike on books; reading through several of your last posts, I see many books that I had considered as well for posting. I think you and I share the same dilemma: too many books, too little time! Janice Floyd Durante said, on 2/7/2011 11:35:00 AM Absolutely, Keith! Life is good — especially with good books around. 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