During my junior year at college during my experience with 'Whole Language' <yes, I am that old> I was assigned a partner and given the task of creating centers for the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor. From the first chapter, I was hooked. I love all of her books in fact, because she has a way of helping you to get to know the characters in the book. So, in case you have never seen these books (they are award winners by the way) I thought I would introduce them to you!
This book also helped me make a connection to my own family's history....no, we weren't sharecroppers, but my mother was in high school in the 50's when Brown vs. Board was being heard by the judges. And I can remember her telling me stories of busing and changes in schools. My county was the first school system in the south to desegregate in 1958. This sounds like a wonderful historical moment, but it ended in tragedy as the local members of the KKK decided to take things into their own hands and planted a bomb inside the library of the high school <which is still used as the middle school...it was the junior high when I was in school>. The bomb damaged the library and the hallway leading from the hallway and even today the library windows are bricked up as a reminder of stupidity. If you would like to read about this, click here. If you would like to read about the first 12 students to take part in the desegregation, click here.
In 1988, 30 years from the time of the bombing, I was a junior in high school. Several magazines came to town to interview community members, and one particularly eager journalist from Time Magazine came to my high school to 'get the real story' about race relations in our schools. I happened to be at lunch at the time and she would walk from table to table getting comments. I happened to be sitting at a table with a few of my friends (which included, gasp, an African American!) and she stopped to ask us what we thought about race relations in our small town. We just sort of looked at her....the story of the bombing is not a story that is dwelt on and I honestly didn't know all of the details about it until I was an adult and researched it on my own. We were raised to accept everyone and I guess my mother felt that the whole story was not necessary. Anyway, she asked us questions about race problems and we honestly could not tell her about any because everyone at school got a long. I never heard anyone say anything about another person based on their skin or culture. Needless to say, that journalist went away without a story.
My daughter has discovered Mildred Taylor's books and has begged me to get her all of them. I had a few in my classroom and others I have either given away or had to throw away as binding has given out over the years. Mildred Taylor's books are just as timely now as was her families stories that were told to her as she was growing up.
If you aren't familiar with her books, here are others that she has written about the Logans, the family that is central to all of her books.
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