The Teachers March!: How Selma's Teachers Changed History by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace, illustrated by Charly Palmer

 

The Teacher's March!: How Selma's Teachers Changed History

by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace,

illustrated by Charly Palmer

Calkins Creek, 2020, 44 pages

Imagine teaching your African American students that freedom and equal rights are guaranteed in the United States Constitution, but not for them. That was one of the dilemma's faced by science teacher  Reverend R. B. Reese in 1965 Selma, Alabama. Selma was a segregated city and the white people there intended to keep it that way, and one of the ways they did it was by denying black citizens the right to vote.

But when Reverend Reese led marchers to the Selma courthouse to register to vote, they were stopped by Sheriff Clark and his white policemen wielding billy clubs and they didn't hesitate to use them. Realizing he needed a "triumphant idea" that would make the voices of the black citizens of Selma heard, Reverend Reese came up with the idea he needed - what if the teachers marched? After all, they were leaders, but would teachers march? Since judge had declared marching and talking about civil rights against the law in 1964, Selma's teachers might not be so willing to put themselves on the line.

How to convince the teachers to march anyway? After all, they could be arrested, go to jail, loose their jobs. Reverend Reese invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to come and speak to them.

After listening to Dr. King's inspiring talk, one hundred and four teachers signed up to march. Packing a sandwich and a toothbrush in case they were arrested, and led by Reverend Reese, the teachers marched to the courthouse and were twice repelled by Sheriff Clark and cops, but the teachers went back despite their bumps and bruises. 

This time, the school superintendent came out, realized what it would mean to arrest so many teachers and next thing he knew, the police had put away their billy clubs and handcuffs: "Reverend Reese and his triumphant idea had gained a glorious victory". 

Reverend Reese's marchers may not have been able to register to vote that day, but in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed and there were no one on the courthouse steps to stop black people of Selma from registering to vote and yes, in the next election, they voted Sheriff Clark out of office.

One of the interesting things about this nonfiction picture book for older readers is that the story, though basically focused on Reverend Reese, also shows the impact the teachers march had on one teacher, Too Sweet Parrish, and her 15-year-old daughter, Joyce, and to a lesser extent on Coach Lawrence Huggins. And the authors were fortunate enough to be able to interview Reverend Reese shortly before he passed away, as well as Joyce Parrish O'Neal and Coach Huggins to get first hand accounts of that day.

Though the Teachers March was a smaller, lesser known protest, the teachers showed so much courage and determination that they inspired others to march, too. And it shows how people can make a difference. 

The book is well-written and well-researched. I find that the Wallace's always seems to make a complicated event more accessible to young readers, and more personal so kids really get a sense of what it was like to be present during the events they write about. 

Charly Palmer's emotional illustrations are painted in bright, bold acrylic colors with thick brushstrokes, adding texture and depth to the text. 

Be sure to read the Authors' Note in the back matter for more information about the Teachers March and the participants. You will also find a Timeline relating to the Voting Rights Movement, and a Selected Bibliography for further investigation. 

You can download a very extensive and useful Educator's Guide HERE, courtesy of the publisher   

This book is recommended for readers age 7+

This book was an EARC gratefully received from Edelweiss+

The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power by Ann Bausum

By the time James Meredith planned his one man Walk Against Fear in 1966, he was already an accomplished African American man. yet he had remained on the sidelines during the early days of the civil rights movement. Although he certainly would have been an asset to it, Meredith was a strongly independent man. He was among the first recruits to serve in the newly integrated Air Force in the 1950s, and after returning home in 1960, Meredith decided to realize his lifelong dream of attending the University of Mississippi. Ole Miss was still a segregated school but it was Meredith who integrated, it thanks to a Supreme Court ruling. So why avoid the Civil Rights movement? 

Meredith had a vision of his own for African Americans. It was his dream to conquer fear, “the fear that pushed through so many racial interactions in the south.” (pg14) And so he planned his one man 22o mile Walk Against Fear, starting from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. It wasn’t a protest, it was simply to show other blacks something he thought anyone should be able to do. Meredith began his walk on June 5, 1966. On June 6, 1966, not long after crossing the state line into Mississippi, James Meredith was shot in an assassination attempt by Aubrey Norvell, a white man. 

Meredith survived the shooting, but was not be able to resume his walk. Which meant that all the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., an advocate of non-violence protests, and Stokely Carmichael, leader of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), whose use of the words “black power” on this march would usher in a more radical thinking.  These men knew they have to continue Meredith’s walk for him - “To do otherwise would allow violence to have the last word. Not acting would embolden those who opposed change.” (pg 23) What they didn’t know that this lesser known event would splinter the Civil Rights Movement from within and steer it in different  directions. 

The March Against Fear clearly and succinctly follows James Meredith’s one-man Walk Against Fear as it morphed into a march that included 15,000 people from around the country with a focus on voter registration. And although thousands of previously disenfranchised African Americans were registered, the march also showed how divided the leaders were. Added to this disunity, when Carmichael introduced the concept of ‘black power’ a lot of young people quickly embraced the term black are a racial identifier of choice, while many whites were clearly uncomfortable with the term, as were the mainstream media. In a movement with conflicting leaders, goals and ideas, everyone wondered if those who aligned themselves with the “black power” faction bring about a social revolution.

I remember reading about James Meredith and his March Against Fear when I was in school, but I never really knew the details of the march until I read this book. And this is where Ann Bausum really shines when it comes to presenting and explaining the time line, the meaning and the participants of a movement. She did it so well in Stonewall, giving just enough background and history for readers, without overwhelming them and all done in a very accessible style.

Given what is happening on the political front in this country these days, it becomes even more important to look back and know the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the legislation that was passed because of it. These laws were meant to provide some measure of equality, political, and social freedoms for citizens of color, but now they are beginning to be slowly chipped away by those who would like to return to an earlier time.

The March Against Fear includes an abundant of archival photographs, so a bit graphic, as well as an extensive Bibliography. It is, without a doubt, a book I recommend highly for today’s young readers. 

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, National Geographic

Seeds of Freedom: The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama by Hester Bass, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

February is Black History Month and this year's theme is A Century of Black Life, History and Culture.  So it only seems appropriate that more and more children's books are being published introducing today's young readers to the often turbulent, sometimes violent struggles of African Americans for equality of the last century.  But it was also a century of change and one of those changes was the peaceful integration of Huntsville, Alabama.

As Hester Bass shows in her new book Seeds of Freedom, the 1960s in Huntsville, Alabama was a study in contrasts - as the "Space Center of the Universe," great scientific minds working on America's space program, but an invisible, uncrossable line dividing Huntsville into black and white existed.

However, things were happening all over the country and seeds of freedom were being planted by leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, college students who were being trained in non-violence and staging sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, and demonstrators carrying protest signs.  By Easter 1962, those seeds of freedom had been planted in Huntsville, Alabama by its African American citizens who decided it was time for those seeds to grow there as well.

Bass tells the story of the peaceful integration of Huntsville event by event, month by month beginning with Easter 1962, when no African Americans bought their traditional new clothes for the holiday, choosing to wear blue jeans instead, an economic measure strongly felt by the white store owners.  More peaceful demonstrations followed.  Slowly, but peacefully, integration began to happen in Huntsville.   But it took a lawsuit brought by four families to finally integrate the schools.  The peaceful nature of the events in Huntsville, however, sets it apart from so many other towns and cities in the south where demonstrators were confronted by armed police, dogs and fire hoses.

In this picture book for older readers, Bass has presented the story of Huntsville in clear, concise yet lyrical language.  She not only describes the events in Huntsville, but gives some history of the Civil Rights movement and its leader Dr. King, as well as what was happening elsewhere.

Young readers will certainly find Seeds of Freedom an inspirational story, the more so because it is a true story.  And, it will definitely resonate with today's readers given some recent events in the news that sometimes make us feel that we are slipping back to those days of racial divide.  Hopefully, it will be the example of courage and sacrifice in the face of resistance that readers will carry away with them.

Complimenting and enhancing Seeds of Freedom are the watercolor paintings of E. B. White.  White always manages to catch just the right expression of the faces of the individual people he paints, and just as beautifully switches to an impressionist style for depicting crowds, such as those demonstrators who were met with firehouses elsewhere in Alabama.  Either way, White's illustrations are sure to move the reader.

Be sure to Author's Note at the end of the book, explaining why she decided to write Seeds of Freedom and giving some important background information.  Bass also includes a Selected Bibliography for further exploration.

Seeds of Freedom is an excellent and welcomed addition to the ever increasing body of literature on the Civil Rights Movement.

This book is recommended for readers age 7+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Candlewick Press

February is Black History Month

This is book 2 of my 2015 Nonfiction Picture Book Reading Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy

Revolution by Deborah Wiles

It's Saturday night, June 20, 1964 in Greenwood MS and Sunny Fairchild, 12, and her older stepbrother Gillette, 14,, have just snuck into the municipal pool in Greenwood MS for a forbidden nighttime swim.  But as Sunny backstrokes to the edge of the pool, her hand suddenly touches someone else and as she screams and screams, a young black boy, every bit as afraid of Sunny as she is of him, runs from the pool, grabbing his clothes and a pair of new white Converse hi-tops.

Raymond Bullis, 14, just wanted to know what it was like swimming in the cool, clean "white only" pool, especially since the "black" pool had been closed for a long while now and black kids could only swim in the muddy river.

This night begins a intertwined journey which will take Sunny and Raymond through a summer of change that will impact both of their lives as each comes of age in the time that will become known as Freedom Summer

Sunny has heard so much about the so-called "invaders", as the local media refers to those "Civil Righters" coming south to help register black voters and to set up Freedom Schools for their children, but she is also dealing with "invaders" at home.  Sunny was perfectly happy living with just her father and an idealized idea of her mother, a person only known to her in a photo with Miranda, age 19 written on the back.  Sunny has convinced herself that her mother loved her but she left her as a baby because she needed adventures.  Now, Sunny's father has just remarried and everything's changed.   He's brought a new family to live in the house, stepmother Annabelle, Gillette and his little sister Audrey, 5.  And even though Annabelle wants nothing more than to be a mother for Sunny, Sunny is resistant to her every attempt, testing her over and over.

For Raymond and his friends, change can't come fast enough - in fact, even SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) are too slow.  But when he takes things into his own hands, he brings down all the wrath and hatred of Deputy Davis, a little too quick with physical force when it come to the activists, both black and white, and the black residents in Greenwood.

The novel is told from three points of view - Sunny, Raymond and a narrator there to fill in some of the blanks about Sunny's mother and father, as well as Annabelle's first abusive husband, a cop friend of Deputy Davis.  The narrative is interspersed with photos, song lyrics, speeches, political slogans, posters, pamphlets and four of what Wiles calls "opinionated biographies" of SNCC's Bob Moses, Lyndon Johnson, the Wednesday Women and Muhammad Ali, all important figures of the Civil Rights movement, so that the reader genuinely feels wrapped up in the events of that summer along with Sunny and Raymond.

Sunny and Raymond are both believable characters, well drawn as children of the time.  Sunny has always accepted the way things are, believing that the blacks on the other side of the tracks were happy with their separate but definitely not equal lives, and so Freedom Summer is a real eye opener for her.
Raymond gives the reader a credible picture of what life was like on his side of the tracks, from the lack of electricity, indoor plumbing, proper schools and recreation for kids to the threat of job loss if one dared step out of line, all designed to keep blacks down.

If there is a flaw in this book, for me it is the thankfully-not-very-time-consuming substory of the young Civil Rights activist, Jo Ellen Chapman, who reminds Sunny of her mother.  Sunny, even as she realizes Jo Ellen is not really her mother, becomes a little obsessed with her, and the whole thing comes to a quick but unsatisfactory resolution by the end of the book.

As a former history teacher, I loved reading Revolution.  It is a truly wonderful book, and one you won't soon forget as it brings history to life and life to history.  It is the second book of a planned trilogy.  The first book, Countdown, takes place in Washington D.C. and is the story of Jo Ellen's younger sister Franny, 12, and covers time of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.  It is also written in the same documentary style.  I am really looking forward to the third book, which takes place in 1966.  1962, 1964 and 1966 were all important, pivotal years in our recent history.

Want to know more about Freedom Summer?

Deborah Wiles has Pinterest boards for both Revolution and Countdown that have more documentary resources for interested readers who might like to follow her boards.  A particular favorite of mine is the  1962 and 1964 playlists of what kids were listening to back then. Be sure to check them out.

Scholastic offers a PDF discussion guide for the Civil Rights Movement, that includes Revolution and The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell, as well as suggestions for addition books on this important topic.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library