Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford

In Kin, author Carole Boston Weatherford tells the story of her family, descended from ancestors brought to America via the Atlantic Slave trade.

As a teenager, Weatherford was uninterested in her past, and more concerned with life in the present. She knew her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney had been enslaved but that was the extent of knowledge of her ancestry. Before Alex Haley's mini-series, "Roots" few Black people considered exploring their ancestry back to Africa. With his book and the television show that changed.

At Wye River, a plantation named Wye House includes Long Green, a village of tradespeople, sailors, sawyers and boat builders. At Long Green, enslaved people lived and loved, having both shackles and bonds that linked them. Life is hard: they sleep on bare planks with only one blanket and the food is not good.

Wye House is the jewel in the Lloyd family's crown. Its Puritan patriarch, Edward Lloyd emigrated from the British Isles to America in 1645. He eventually settled in Maryland colony, and was granted land by Lord Baltimore, Charles Calvert. Wye House states that it is an "agricultural factory" powered by hundreds of Black slaves. The house states:

"I am proof of the wealth

that America's founding families could amass

by enslaving laborers and marrying money...

I witnessed more cruelty than I care to recall

The sin of slavery haunts my every hall..."

The Lloyd's 1781 ledger contains an earliest known ancestor including the name of twenty-one-year old Isaac Copper. The ledger is a record of the Lloyd's property including cattle, farming equipment and slaves: their names, ages, occupations but also infirmities and quality. All are property, even the people.

Weatherford's great-grandpa James Henry Moaney never told her that his father (her great-great-grandfather) Phillip has been enslaved and that his father-in-law, Isaac Copper was also enslaved at Wye House but fought in the Civil War.

A litany of Lloyd's from Edward Lloyd III (who lived from 1711 to 1770) to Edward Lloyd VII (1825 to 1907) speak about life at Wye House and in the Maryland area. Edward Lloyd III is concerned about "the French corrupting enslaved people with promises of freedom" while his son Edward Lloyd IV switches sides during the Revolution. He now owns two-hundred-sixty Blacks. As the Lloyd's influence grows, Colonel Edward Lloyd V (1779 to 1834) becomes  a state senator and eventually Maryland's thirteenth governor and a U.S. Senator. A boy called Frederick listens and learns outside the schoolroom window as Lloyd's children are tutored. 

Edward Lloyd VI (1798 to 1861) owns over four hundred Blacks, worth more than twenty-eight thousand dollars. He trusts his overseers "to wield the lash and report runaways."  Unable to support so many slaves at Wye House, Lloyd moves some slaves south to Mississippi, taking them along as punishment and selling some. Edward Lloyd (1825 to 1907) sees all of his slaves freed as a result of Emancipation. In 1881, that boy called Frederick, Frederick Douglass returns to Wye House where he makes peace with the slaver Thomas who repeatedly beat him.

Frederick Douglass (1818 to 1895) was brought to Wye House by his grandmother when he was six-years-old. He lived with Captain Anthony who he learned was his father. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and he was enslaved. He was "a ship caulker, abolitionist, orator, and publisher of the North Star newspaper. After the Civil War, a public servant who rose to become minister of the Republic of Haiti." Frederick Douglass writes about Isaac Copper, a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Divinity, and a confirmed cripple who taught Douglass and other children how to say the Lord's prayer. It is Douglass's written account of Wye House that leads the author  to an Isaac Copper, the man she knew who leaned heavily on a cane. He was not the Isaac Copper who fought in the Civil War but likely his son. The Isaac Copper in the ledger of 1781 was likely born c.1760 or 1763. Weatherford wonders how he came to be owned by the Lloyds in a poem filled with many questions.

From this point on, the life of the children of Isaac and Nanny Copper, other slaves at Wye House are told, including some who flee as the Civil War approaches. And after freedom, it is the Coppers who work at building Black villages during the Reconstruction era, their industriousness and their determination to make a better world for their children and grandchildren.

 Discussion

Kin is author Carole Boston Weatherford's family's story, begun in Africa and told in America. It is a story mostly lost in the mists of time, with just enough hints and records to form an understanding. The setting spans the mid-1600's to the early 1900's, in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, at Wye House, the state's largest slave plantation and in the Black Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville. 

Before Alex Haley's famous "Roots" mini-series, many African Americans never considered tracing their own "roots" back to Africa. For many, their roots go back only a few generations, before the darkness of the past closes in. For Weatherford and her son, they could only trace their family back five generations. And so with what information she could glean from records, library records and historical societies, from databases of slave ships and records from Wye House, Weatherford has pieced together a story, giving voice to her ancestors who were enslaved but who, when freed after the Civil War, played an important part in the founding of several Black Reconstruction-era villages. 

Kin  is written in verse, featuring many different voices, including several Isaac Coppers whom Weatherford believes are her ancestors: Young Isaac Copper and his wife Nanny, some of their eight children including Marena, Prissy and Polly Copper as well as sons Henry (born 1800) Isaac Copper II (born 1798), and Isaac Copper III who fought in the Civil War and became a founding father of a Black village. 

Other poems give voice to Colonel Lloyd, Daniel Lloyd son of Colonel Lloyd whose companion was Frederick Douglass, Edward Lloyd IV's wife Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, house servant Daphne, Chicken Sue who cares for the poultry, the servant Katy who once worked in the Great House Kitchen but now cooks for her people because she's too old. Then there are poems in the voice of  former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Francis Scott Key composer of The Star-Spangled Banner and Harriet Tubman,

Chesapeake Bay, Wye House, the Wooden Case Clock, and the ship The Rachel also lend their voices, all having no say in their involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.  The Rachel laments being involved in the slave trade:

 "I am no vessel for sweet memories...

I bore thirty-seven Blacks into bondage

in the British colonies, having lost but one

Black captive enroute from Antigua

Yet my belly is full of regret..."

The ship mentions it is like the enslaved teenager, Rose who bore Captain Bruff two sons: "I had no more say in carrying cargo than Rose did in bearing those children." .

Each of these poems piece together a part of the story, from the beginnings of Wye House, the generations of the Lloyd family who enrich themselves through the slave trade and move up the social class ladder, the ships that brought the enslaved to America, the enslaved who lived, suffered and worked the plantation, those who ran away sometimes successful sometimes not, the enslaved who fought in the Civil War and who returned free men to rebuild their lives and communities. 

The poems portray life as a slave: the beatings for the slightest infractions, long hours of back-breaking work in the fields, little food, one set of clothing and shoes that once worn out meant going naked, the rape and forced pregnancy of young enslaved girls, and separation of families as children and parents are sold off sometimes for extra money, sometimes as punishment. In contrast, the life a slaveholder like the Lloyds was one of opulence, enriched by the free work of the enslaved. Many poems describe Wye House as one that included beautiful furniture "mahogany table draped in fine lace and set with English crystal, china, and silver", and expensive carriages, saddles and harnesses. The family ate delicious food  and sipped "fine wines shipped from across the ocean".  

Wye House was a house of many mirrors, of all types, that witnessed the goings on in the plantation. Those mirrors saw all the occupants of the house, including the enslaved. Weatherford notes this in several poems including "My Question For the Looking Glasses" and in "Missing Faces" The mirrors are "...forever neutral as generations dart past or pose to ponder reflections." The author also noticed that while the oil paintings, etchings and silhouettes remain as memorials to the Lloyds, there is nothing to remember the generations of enslaved who passed through the house.  In Missing Faces, Weatherford writes, "Absent are the visages of my ancestors" who "hanged the Lloyds' framed conceits," While the decor endures, Weatherford writes, "...But the faces of my kin have vanished. Erased."  And so through her poetry, Weatherford gives voice to some of those enslaved at Wye House, and allows us to see them through the artwork of Jeffery Boston Weatherford.

Carole Boston Weatherford has written a thought-provoking novel-in-verse about slavery in Maryland, at the state's largest slave plantation, imagining what life might have been like for her enslaved ancestors. It's evident from the extensive Bibliography at the back of the novel, that she has done considerable historical and genealogical research. This research, as is often the case, leads only to more questions which Weatherford expresses in her poetry.

What might have given more clarity to the genealogy of the author's family as she understands it to date,  is a cast of characters and perhaps a family tree that outlines her connection to the Coppers. From the novel's poems, Weatherford reveals that her great-great-grandfather Phillip Moaney was enslaved and that his son, her great-grandfather James Henry Moaney, born in 1872, seven years after the end of the Civil War (1865) was born free. His father-in-law was Isaac Copper who was enslaved at Wye House, and fought in the Civil War. For whatever reason, James Moaney never spoke about Isaac Copper being enslaved. Weatherford assumes that the practice of naming children after kin continued throughout the passing generations - a reasonable assumption given the number of Isaac Coppers in the ledgers. This is a custom common to many families.

Kin: Rooted In Hope also portrays one of the consequences of slavery: the loss of family roots that often cannot be reclaimed. Our heritage connects us to the past, to our culture, our beliefs and our identity. Knowing our past helps us to understand who we are and develop resiliency as we see how ancestors dealt with difficult life situations. For Weatherford, knowing that her ancestors were significant contributors to life for Blacks in the Reconstruction Era was likely encouraging and a source of intense pride. Despite the hardship they had endured, they built something good out of slavery and the ruins of war. They formed a sense of community and connection that continues to this day.

The beautiful artwork, done on scratch board adds considerably to the story, capturing the many emotions of various characters and embodying  the darkness of slavery. The cover art is exquisite, the purple background suggesting royalty and the title in gold, as many of the enslaved came from what was known as the Gold Coast of Africa, including many African kings. Kin: Rooted In Hope is a book that asks its readers to pause and think about those that came unwillingly before, ripped from land and home, and yet persevered, bringing a rich cultural to what would become America. 

Book Details:

Kin: Rooted In Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford
New York: Atheneum Books For Young Readers     2023

202 pp.

March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

This graphic novel is the first in a series telling the story of civil rights leader and former Democratic Congressman, John Robert Lewis, one of the "Big Six" leaders who organized the March on Washington in 1963. March opens in the present and then flashes back to Lewis' humble beginnings on his family's farm in Alabama.

John Lewis wakes up the morning of January 20, 2009 - the beginning of a very special day. Lewis shows up at the Cannon House Office Building where he meets Rosa Parks. Suddenly three people enter his office, a lady with her two sons, Jacob and Esau. She has brought them to see Congressman John Lewis' office. She wants them to "know how far we've come..."

As he points out some of the key photographs in the picture, one of the boys asks him why he has so many chickens in his office. This triggers Lewis' memory of growing up and he begins to tell them his story. He starts with when it was his responsibility to care for his family's chickens. They lived on 110 acres of land in Pike County, Alabama that his father bought in 1940 for three hundred dollars. Lewis knew all the different kinds of chickens on their farm and even named some of them. He loved them so much, he would conduct funerals for them when they died, and he would deliver a eulogy. He often protested his parents treatment of the chickens and wouldn't be at family chicken dinners. 

John's eyes were opened when he was taken on a trip north by his uncle, Otis Carter.  Otis lived in Dothan, where he was a teacher and school principal. The trip north meant no stopping at restaurants because there was no where for them to eat as black people. Uncle Otis knew which gas stations to stop at, offering colored washrooms. Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky were the states they had to be careful in. Once they got to Ohio, they felt safer. In Buffalo, New York, Lewis was thrilled; the city was busy and his uncle's home had white people living side by side with them. Lewis was able to visit a department store. He saw that life was different and after that trip he was different.

When Lewis started riding the bus to school that fall he could see once again how different life was for black Americans. Roads into "colored" communities were not paved until whites had to drive through them. The books and buses in Black schools were hand-me-downs. White schools were nice with playground equipment while the colored schools were cinder block with a dirt field to play in. Lewis also noticed the people working in the fields or on the prison gangs were usually blacks too. But sometimes, Lewis' family needed help on the farm. His father wanted him to stay home and help out but Lewis would hide. 

Then in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine of "separate but equal" upon which segregation was based, was ruled unconstitutional. Lewis was certain things would change, that he would be going to an integrated school with a nice bus. Lewis noticed that the ministers at church never mentioned the injustices that were happening.

In 1955, he heard a young preacher out of Atlanta, Georgia on the radio. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. and he preached the social Gospel. That spring another ruling by the Supreme Court, which struck down segregation, saw segregationists insist they would defy the law. In August, the body of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, a black boy visiting Money, Mississippi was pulled from the Tallahatchie River.  He had been forcibly taken from his relatives' home after calling a white woman, "baby". Despite the testimony of a black farmer who witnessed what really happened, the white men were acquitted. 

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus and was arrested. Martin Luther King led a boycott of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Lewis was inspired by King and so five days before his sixteenth birthday, he preached his first sermon.

The woman in his office wants to know how he managed to attend college. He tells her that his mother helped him by encouraging him to apply to the American Baptist Theological Seminary, a school for Black men and women. He was accepted Lewis got a job washing dishes and serving food. But he wanted to do more for Black rights.

Lewis wanted to attend Troy State, which was closer to his parents' home, but Black students weren't accepted. He applied as a transfer student but when he never heard back he wrote to Martin Luther King Jr. He also began communicating with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and a lawyer, Fred Gray who represented Rosa Parks.

In the spring of 1958, Lewis met up with Fred Gray and Martin Luther King Jr. After questioning him, they told Lewis that if he wanted to attend Troy, he would have to sue both the State of Alabama and the Board of Education. Because he wasn't old enough, Lewis would need the permission of his parents. They also pointed out that he and his parents would most likely face serious repercussions. Ultimately, Lewis' parents decided against giving him their permission to proceed.

Lewis is interrupted in telling his story and told he must leave to meet Rosa Parks, but is also told he has a message from Jim Lawson. In 1958, Jim Lawson ran a series of workshops on non-violent action and passive resistance. After this, Lewis and others, as part of the Nashville Student Movement began protesting segregation at department store lunch counters. It was the beginning for Lewis, of real action, nonviolent protest to end segregation in Nashville and across America.

Discussion

March is the first of three comic books that tell the story of John Robert Lewis, a congressman and civil rights leader. Lewis, who was born near Troy, Alabama, was the son of sharecroppers and by his own admission grew up poor. Most of the area where he lived and grew up had few white people, yet everything was segregated. He and his siblings were denied the use of the local public library, being told it was for whites only. His trip north to Buffalo, New York opened Lewis's eyes to the extent of segregation and its impact on himself and his family. He saw that things could be profoundly different and he wanted to change America, supposedly founded on the belief that "all men are created equal" and yet not in practice.

Lewis had to counter not only white America and its segregationist practices, but the views of the older Black generation exemplified by Thurgood Marshall and local Black ministers who seemed to want to maintain the status quo. And yet, as is told in March, Lewis and the Nashville Student Movement were successful in their first nonviolent protests. 

The beginning of Lewis's civil rights work is a story of courage and determination. Lewis acted on his belief that all men are created equal and that he and other African Americans had the same rights as white Americans. To achieve the goal of dismantling segregation, Lewis and many other civil rights leaders began to implement nonviolent forms of protest, at great personal risk. He states that he felt this calling at a young age and it seemed to intensify as he grew older and saw the world as it really was.

Lewis' story is told with the assistance of  Andrew Aydin, who served as his Digital Director & Policy Advisor while Lewis was a Congressional representative. It is told as a story within a story: the book begins with Lewis getting ready to meet Rosa Parks in 2009 in preparation for attending the inauguration of Barak Obama as president of the United States. Illustrating Lewis' story is the artwork of Nate Powell, an accomplished and award-winning graphic novelist. 

The graphic novel format makes John Lewis' story accessible to readers of all ages and backgrounds. The visual character of the graphic novel conveys  the reality of what segregation entailed for millions of Black Americans in the 20th century and highlights the significant efforts these early civil rights activists had to resort to, in order to undo a deeply entrenched system of discrimination and hatred. It also visually portrays the violence, hatred and ugliness of those determined to prevent Black Americans from gaining their God-given right to be treated with respect, dignity and equality.

March is a book for people because it is only in reading about and studying the past, can we make a better future for everyone.

Book Details:

The March by John Lews, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
Marietta, Georgia: Top Shelf Production   2013
121 pp.

The Girl With A Mind For Math by Julia Finley Mosca

When Raye Montague was only seven years old, her grandfather took her to see her first ship. This ship was a submarine and it astounded Raye. 

She was told engineers built the ship but that she didn't need to know about that. The meaning was clear, that as a girl it wasn't something she needed to ever be involved in. However, Raye decided that she wanted to build ships and therefore needed to be an engineer.  Her mother encouraged her, telling her not to let people tell dissuade her, just because she is a girl, because she's black or because she did not graduate from a good high school. Segregated schools like the one Raye would attend often offered a lower quality of education than schools attended by white students.

So, gifted in math, Raye read plenty of books and taught herself. But when it came to applying to college, she was told that engineering was not taught to black students!

So Raye enrolled in a business program, graduating with honours.  Eventually she got a job typing where submarines were built. In her job at the Navy, Raye paid close attention, watching the engineers as they worked, learning what they did. She also took computer classes at night.

When the entire staff came down with the flu, Raye not only did her job but theirs as well. Her boss was stunned. Despite this, he continued to treat her badly. Then the president of the United States ordered a submarine to be built quickly, so Raye used a computer program to design a ship in just over eighteen hours!Unbelievably, Raye was not invited when the ship was launched. Only white men could attend.

It would take many years for Raye to achieve the recognition she deserved but it did come eventually. Eventually she became the first woman to lead ship design. Other honours soon followed.

Discussion

The Girl With A Mind is a story about perseverance, determination and the courage to follow one's dreams. Raye Montague was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to Rayford and Flossie Jordan on January 21, 1935. It was during World War II that her grandfather took her to see a captured German submarine that was on exhibition. Intrigued by the submarine, Raye asked a man at the exhibition what a person needed to know in order to make such a machine. He told her that engineers build ships but that she didn't need to worry about learning such things. The implication of course was that as a young black girl she would never grow up to be an engineer. But Raye's mother had already prepared her daughter for the many obstacles she would face in life, telling her she was black, a female and went to a poor school.

Raye graduated from Merrill High School in Pine Bluff in 1952 and went on to earn a Bachelor's Degree in Business from the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College in 1956. At this time, African Americans could not earn an engineering degree from colleges in Arkansas. Raye, now twenty-one-years old, began working as a typist a the David Taylor Model Basin. She then moved to Naval Ship Engineering Center where she was a digital computer systems operator. Raye had taken computer courses at night as a way to continue learning and upgrading her skills. When she was required to work night shifts, Raye bought a car and taught herself to drive. There was no public transit at night. 

In 1971, Raye became the first person to design a naval ship using a computer. This happened during the Vietnam War and the request was made by then President Richard Nixon. Normally it would take at least two years to draft the plans for a new ship, but using a computer, Raye accomplished this in just over eighteen hours. This amazing accomplishment earned her the Navy's third highest award, the Meritorious Civilian Service award in 1972.

Raye had a distinguished career in the Navy: she was the Navy's first female program manager and was also a program manager of information systems improvement. She was also recognized by the engineering profession when she was awarded the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Achievement Award in 1978, the first woman to do so. She also finally achieved what she so desperately wanted years ago as an aspiring seven year old, her professional engineer credentials in both the United States and Canada!

Like many other African American women scientists, engineers and mathematicians, Raye Montague's achievements went unnoticed for decades. Raye's success was achieved through hard work, determination, and the courage to excel despite facing many obstacles. The Girl With A Mind For Math especially highlights these qualities that Raye Montague had. The message Raye has for young readers is not to give in, to take a chance and never quit working towards what you really want!

Author Julia Finley Mosca was able to speak at length with Raye and was given access to some personal photographs. Raye passed away on October 10, 2018 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mosca has crafted a simple retelling of Raye Montague's life, using rhyming verse. The accompanying artwork by illustrator Daniel Rieley help to flesh out Raye's remarkable story.

Included in the back matter is a section based on the author's conversations with Raye, titled Facts and Tidbits from the Author's Chat with Raye!, a timeline of her life and achievements and a detailed biography, About Raye Montague. 

The Girl With A Mind For Math is an inspiring story that encourages girls from all walks of life to dream big.

Book Details:

The Girl With A Mind For Math: The Story of Raye Montague by Julia Finley Mosca
Seattle, WA: The Innovation Press     2018

Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink

Angel of Greenwood tells the story of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre through the eyes of two young people. The story begins on Thursday, May 19, twelve days before the riot. Angel Hill lives on Greenwood Avenue with her mother and her father who is terminally ill. Angel loves to help people as she's certain God has put her on the earth to help others. Angel helps her mother care for her father, and she helps her neighbours including Mrs. Nichelle who has a fussy baby.

After Angel dances at Sunday school, she attracts the attention of Isaiah Wilson, a boy who has taunted her along with his friend Muggy Jr. Angel recognizes Muggy as the real mean one, whereas Isaiah "was kinder...He simply didn't stand for anything. Isaiah went along to get along..." and that leads Angel not to respect him.

From his bedroom window, seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson watches a group of sixteen white boys on the other side of the tracks. Angel Hill who is walking towards them, is accosted by the group. Although she initially stands up to them, she flees. Isaiah wants to stand and yell at them, but instead he hides behind the curtains. Angel leaves behind some kind of walking contraption that one of the boys destroys in anger.

On the following Sunday, Isaiah is hauled to Mount Zion Baptist Sunday school by his mother. But far from being bored as usual, Isaiah is entranced by the worship dancing of Angel Hill.

The next day, while walking to school with his best friend Muggy Little Jr., Isaiah is distracted. Muggy's father owns a successful butcher shop in Greenwood and his family, along with many others in the district, have helped Isaiah's family since his father's death in the Great War. Muggy's father doesn't have a good reputation in the community: he is considered a "notorious double dealer with both his butcher business and his family". He flaunts women and his behaviour has Muggy beginning to have doubts about his father. 

Isaiah knows his friend is not a good person but can't seem to break free of him. He joins Muggy in his pranks, even when he knows those pranks are hurtful and embarrassing to others. During the day, Isaiah follows Muggy out to the back bleacher instead of going to Mrs. Greene's class to write his Latin test. When Isaiah daydreams about Angel, Muggy burns him on his forearm with a matchstick and threatens to tell Angel that Isaiah likes her. 

After English Literature class, Miss Ferris pulls Isaiah and Angel together and reveals that she's starting a sort of mobile library. She has a three-wheel bike and she needs someone to ride it and someone to hand out the books. Miss Ferris offers them the job with a pay of five dollars a week. Isaiah immediately accepts but Angel is reluctant because it means working with Isaiah whom she knows is not a nice boy. 

However, that changes when Donna Mae Bullock, at the urging of Muggy, steals Isaiah's journal one evening. Donna Mae shows up in Isaiah's bedroom to kiss him, but her real purpose is to steal his journal. However, when Isaiah manages to get Donna Mae to talk about herself she realizes what she's done and gets Muggy to return the journal, but not before Muggy reads to Angel the poem Isaiah wrote about her.

Eventually Angel accepts Miss Ferris's job offer and both Angel and Isaiah get to work on fixing up the decrepit three wheel bike. As love blossoms between the two, storm clouds are brewing over Greenwood, and neither Angel nor Isaiah know just how much life is about to change.

Discussion

Angel of Greenwood chronicles the days leading up to the Tulsa massacre of June 1 1921, through the eyes of two teenagers, Angel Hill and Isaiah Wilson as they fall in love. Author Randi Pink initially wrote a story of two Black teens who fall in love in a neighbourhood where it was safe to do so in peace. According to the Author's Note at the back of the novel, her original story was Pink's "My Wakanda" book. However, in a conversation with a friend, Pink learned  that the place she had dreamed of someday existing and had written about, really did once exist in the form of Greenwood, a district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. But Greenwood, a thriving, close-knit Black community that had become known as Black Wall street, was looted and burned to the ground by white rioters. The riot was triggered by events the preceding day in which a black man was arrested for an incident that occurred in an elevator with a white woman. At the end of the looting and burning, thirty-five blocks that comprised Greenwood lay in charred ruins and over one hundred people were dead. Pink decided to set her story against the backdrop of the Tulsa massacre and it's fortunate for young readers that she did so, because Angel of Greenwood is a remarkable novel.

Most of the novel portrays life in Greenwood prior to the riot. Pink does this through the two main characters and the people they meet in their day-to-day lives. The people of Greenwood are hard-working, God-fearing, neighbourly and not unlike people everywhere else and Pink offers a host of diverse characters to flesh out the community. There is Angel Hill, a gifted dancer, whose father is slowly dying from an unknown ailment. Angel is a hard-working girl, who spends time helping others such as her neighbour, Mrs. Nichelle. She helps Mrs. Nichelle to care for her little baby boy, Michael. Isaiah Wilson, whose father died in the Great War, is a good student with aspirations of attending college, who writes beautiful poetry. Isaiah seems unable to break away from his friend Muggy Little Jr. whose pranks humiliate and hurt others. Muggy Little Jr., whose father owns the butcher shop, is a bully and struggling to cope with his father's reputation as a liar and a cheat. There is Miss Ferris, the English Literature teacher who channels Isaiah's abilities into poetry and who starts the mobile book library. Mrs. Tate, whose husband owns the Greenwood pharmacy, has a son Timothy attending medical school. She has prize-winning junipers but is not known as a pleasant woman. There is Mr. Morris a kind and patient man whose son George now runs their wood-carving shop and Mrs. Turner with her tiny flower shop. Pink's depiction of a vibrant Greenwood District and its residents, a community where Black Americans are free to live their lives as they want,  makes reading about the burning of Greenwood all the more painful.

Besides being a novel about a largely forgotten event of racial hatred, Angel of Greenwood also explores the coming of age of Isaiah and Angel and to a lesser extent, Muggy. For Isaiah and Muggy it is a journey to redemption. 

Isaiah experiences a transformation from a neighbourhood troublemaker to the person he aspires to be. Isaiah is under the influence of Muggle Little Jr., boy with mean streak who delights in playing humiliating pranks on others. Isaiah knows he shouldn't follow Muggy's lead but he can't seem to stop. Isaiah wants to be different but feels his family is indebted to Muggy's family. "What was he to dare do? Challenge Muggy? Never. If he did, there would be hell to pay."

Isaiah hides the things that matter the most to him from Muggy: his love of poetry and books and reading. He hides the fact that he is in the top tenth percentile and that he has a secret plan to leave Greenwood. And for years he's gone along with bullying Angel Hill and many others. But when Isaiah sees Angel dance at church, his eyes are opened and he begins to change. From this point on, his attraction to Angel is the impetus for change.

It is only when Muggy steals Isaiah's journal of poetry and his college letters of intent to Morehouse and Howard, and in effect Isaiah's plan for success, that Isaiah is stirred to confront Muggy at his house.  Feeling freed from Muggy and his bad influence, Isaiah wants to be a better person for Angel but the prospect of him having to be responsible for his own behaviour is daunting. "Behave in ways she longed for a man to behave. With Muggy, he was mean. With Angel, he assumed, he would be better, kinder, and more empathetic. But without either, Isaiah was floating along with no leader to lead him. Secretly terrified to lead his own self." 

But Isaiah discovers he is able to lead himself, when Muggy hurts Mrs. Tate by revealing something about her son Timothy. He punches Muggy in the face, knocking the bully to the ground and gaining the respect of the community. This event leads Isaiah to make a serious decision about his life, deciding not to be selfish, lazy or unworthy. Isaiah comes to realize that Greenwood is a "... beacon of hope for his people..." and that he would use this gift to help his own people. From this point on, Isaiah begins to redeem himself, and ironically leads Muggy into doing the same.

For Angel, the journey is also about finding herself. Angel believes she has been put on Earth to help others. But as the days pass, she finds herself increasingly wanting something more for herself. These thoughts are stirred by the offer from Miss Ferris of working on the book mobile. Besides helping her parents, there "...was a selfish longing to get away from it all....When she was very small, Angel dreamed only of taking care of others. For the first time, she wanted a few hours per day to do only the thing she wanted to do."

As Black teenagers coming of age in the early 20th century, Angel and Isaiah want to live their lives like white teenagers in America do, having the same rights as their white counterparts. Their belief as to how to achieve these rights differ.  Isaiah favours the ideas of  W.E.B. Dubois, while Angel believes in Booker T. Washington's ideas. The two men, born in the middle of the nineteenth century became influential leaders in the civil rights movement in the early 20th century. However, they were at odds as to how to achieve equal rights for Black Americans. Washington felt that economic independence was key to Black rights while Dubois championed education and civil rights activism. Dubois' book, The Souls of Black Folks was critical of Washington's approach. Dubois eventually was involved in the formation of the NAACP  in 1909 while Washington's influence waned. He died in 1915. 

Both Isaiah and Angel struggle with their separate beliefs as to how Black Americans can achieve full civil rights. They debate the ideas of W.E.B Dubois and Booker T. Washington. While discussing why a man would return to bondage and slavery at Miss Ferris' over dinner, their teacher explains what the Black community of Greenwood understand compared to Blacks living in the rest of America and what it means to white America.
"We all get one life to live. One chance to make something beautiful of ourselves or to not, that's what we know to be true here in Greenwood. That's the difference between us and them, nothing else. We are no better on the inside. We simply know a Black life can be transformed from that of servitude to that of unmatched intelligence, resourcefulness, creativity, triumph...It's the immaterial knowledge that we, Black people, can be even better that whites if we want to be. And furthermore, much to their dismay, we don't need them to survive. Everyone should possess this knowledge, but the men who stayed in bondage didn't."

Angel of Greenwood is a remarkable novel, well-written, and offering plenty of themes and ideas to further delve into. The tragedy of the Tulsa massacre forms the climax of the novel. With the centenary of the massacre having just passed, Angel of Greenwood is a timely novel offers readers that opportunity. Pink supplies her readers with a wealth of sources used in the writing of her novel, as a starting point. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 should be remembered not only for the crime it was, but because as Pink writes, "Inside of every Greenwood home burned that day in 1921, there was a story. Few who experienced it are alive today. Many of those stories will never be told..."  Angel of Greenwood does just that.

Book Details:

Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink
New York: Feiwel and Friends     2021
295 pp.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Brown Girl Dreaming is the story of Jacqueline Woodson's life growing up as an African American in America during the 1960s and 1970s. Woodson is an award-winning American author who has written many children's books.

In Part I "I am born", Woodson writes about her family history, on her father and mother's side. To aid her readers, Woodson provides family trees of her father Jack Woodson's family and her mother, Mary Ann Irby's family.

Woodson was born February 12, 1963 in Columbus, Ohio, into a nation in which the black civil rights movement was blossoming. The 1960s was a time of great change and agitation in the United States. The civil rights movement and the anti-war movement were just beginning to gain traction in 1963.

Her great-great-grandparents were slaves working the land. Although her parents, Jack and Mary were born free, in many ways they still did not have the freedoms that most white American's take for granted. And so, throughout America, African-Americans from all walks of life, led by Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks are standing up for their civil rights, each in their own way.

Woodson writes that her father's family can be traced back to Thomas Woodson of Chillicothe, who was the first son of Thomas Jefferson and his black slave, Sally Hemings. Her paternal great-great-grandfather, William J. Woodson, born free in Ohio, fought in the Civil War for the Union. His son, William Woodson was sent to Nelsonville, Ohio to be educated in an all-white school. In a family of doctors and lawyers, Woodson's father Jack, earned a football scholarship to Ohio State University and settled in Columbus Ohio.

After her parents married, three children followed: a boy named Hope, a girl named Odella and then Jacqueline. Every year in the fall, Woodson's mother along with her children take the bus south to Woodson's mother's parents in South Carolina, leaving behind her father in Ohio Her father is determined to never return to the south because of the way African Americans are treated there. But in May of 1964, her father travels to South Carolina to reconcile with her mother and together the family return to Ohio. However, when Woodson is a year old, her mother decides to South Carolina for good, taking the children with her and leaving Woodson's father behind.

Part II "The stories of South Carolina run like rivers" focuses on Woodson's life in South Carolina at the home of her maternal grandparents, Gunnar and Georgiana Irby. Her grandfather Gunnar becomes "Daddy" to the three Woodson children,. He works as a foreman at a printing press while her grandmother teaches part-time and does what is called daywork which is cleaning the homes of white folk. In South Carolina, life is full of stories. Woodson with her sister Dell and her brother Hope sit on the porch stairs in the evening, listening to the women tell stories about relatives, the people in the daywork houses and neighbours. There is also her grandfather's garden, the smell of wood burning in the pot-bellied stove in autumn and fire flies in mason jars.

Woodson's mother leaves for New York City but returns before the summer with a plan to eventually move her family there. Woodson and her siblings find themselves pulled into their grandmother's faith as a Jehovah Witness, attending meetings at the local Kingdom Hall and going out to neighbours to share their faith. Woodson's mother returns to New York City but the following year she is back in Greenville, bringing a new baby brother, Roman. They move to New York City to start a new life.

Part III "Followed the sky's mirrored constellation to Freedom" describes Woodson's move to New York city. Woodson along with her mother, brother Hope and sister Odella and the new baby Roman, move to Herzl Street where her Aunt Kay and Bernie live. They then move to a house on Madison Avenue. For Woodson, New York is much different and she missed
"the collards growing
down south, the melons, fresh picked
and dripping with a sweetness New York
can never know."
But Woodson loves her school with its warm wood trim but life in New York takes some getting used to. Tragedy strikes when her half-brother Roman eats paint off the walls and becomes sick from lead poisoning. When the family returns to Greenville for the summer, Roman has to stay behind in the hospital to recover.

Part IV "Deep in my heart, I do believe" is a collection of poems about Woodson's life in New York City. By this time, Woodson is beginning to adjust to life in the big city. She has a good friend, Maria with whom she shares her lunches. She is considered family by Maria who invites her to her brother Carlos' baptism. Her beloved Uncle Robert is sent to jail on Rikers Island. It is during this time that Woodson begins to write - small poems which she finds are easier to express herself . 

Part V "Ready to change the world" touches on the tumultuous times of the late 1960s and Woodson's experiences in school during this era. She found her calling gradually, her voice, and her place as a writer.

Discussion

Brown Girl Dreaming is about a young African American girl's journey to finding her place in a  changing America. Woodson takes young readers through her own journey by first setting the stage of the America her family came from; black Americans, one side freeborn, the other side only two generations from slavery. The Civil War victory for the Union was supposed to given African Americans their freedom but in the south things have been slow to change. It is this situation that seems to divide Woodson's parents. Her mother's love of Nicholtown in Greenville, South Carolina draws her back to the south. Her father on the other hand, is determined to leave the south,

 "You can keep your South,...
The way they treated us down there,
I got your mama out as quick as I could.
Brought her right up here to Ohio."

Woodson describes growing up in a loving family, her early years wrapped in the love of her beloved grandfather Gunnar and her grandmother.  As her mother moves her family from Greenville to various locations in New York City, Woodson is shaped by the events happening throughout the nation; the marchers in the south, Angela Davis and the Black Panther movement in California, and the Vietnam War.

Jacqueline Woodson gradually discovers that words hold a special meaning for her and that she wants to be a writer. Her storytelling begins with her own stories that she tells, which her Uncle Robert enjoys and encourages, but which her mother accuses her of lying, warning her that she will one day steal.
"I won't steal.
It's hard to understand how one leads to the other,
how stories could ever
make us criminals."

Storytelling is easier at first for Woodson as she explains in the poem, "writing #1"
"It's easier to make up stories
than it is to write them down. When I speak,
the words come pouring out of me. The story
wakes up and walks all over the room...."

In the poem "birch tree poem" Woodson captures what poetry and words mean to her, how poems open her imagination in a way that brings tears to her eyes. When she tells her family that she wants to be a writer, they acknowledge her love of writing and its benefits as a hobby, but suggest she should consider something else...a teacher, a lawyer.

When Woodson's quiet, older brother Hope shocks everyone including his family with his wonderful voice at a school concert, she wonders,
"Maybe, I am thinking, there is something hidden
like this, in all of us. A small gift from the universe
waiting to be discovered."

Woodson love of stories is shown when she memorizes the story of the Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde and recites it to her classmates, enthralling them,
"But I just shrug, not knowing what to say.
How can I explain to anyone that stories
are like air to me,
I breathe them in and let them out
over and over again."
After this she knows that "Words are my brilliance."

After this she writes a book of poems about butterflies, and another time whispers a song she thinks up on the bus to Dannemora to visit her Uncle Robert. Her sister believes it's "too good" to have been thought up by Jacqueline. But she's now beginning to find where she belongs, what her "small gift" might be.

Brown Girl Dreaming is about finding your own niche, learning to accept yourself and finding that hidden "small gift" that everyone has. It's about believing in yourself and having the courage to follow where your "small gift" might lead you! For Woodson, words are her gift, everlasting,

"...on paper, things can live forever 
On paper, a butterfly
never dies."

Well-written, Brown Girl Dreaming captures the essence of coming of age as an African-American in America during the 1960s and 70s.

Book Details:

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
New York: Puffin Books     2016
348 pp.

Tiny Stitches: The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas by Gwendolyn Hooks

Tiny Stitches presents the remarkable story of a surgeon few people have likely heard of, but to whom many owe their life. Vivien Thomas, an African American doctor developed a surgical technique to save the lives of babies born with a serious heart defect. Personal circumstances and deep-rooted racism almost succeeded in preventing this remarkably talented man from the profession he felt called to.

Vivien Thomas was born in 1910 in Lake Providence, Louisiana. However, his family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where Vivien attended public school. Inspired by his family's doctor to enter the medical profession, Vivien saved his wages from various jobs including working with his father who was a master carpenter and also working in an infirmary. When he graduated high school, Vivien enrolled in the premedical program at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College. Unfortunately, the stock market crash in October 1929, wiped out Vivien's bank savings and he was forced to withdraw.

Determined to somehow continue, Vivien was hired as a laboratory assistant to Dr. Alfred Blalock at Vanderbilt University, an all white institution.  Blalock and his research fellow Dr. Joseph Beard tutored Thomas in complex surgical techniques. However, Thomas was classified as a janitor rather than a surgical assistant or researcher. Thomas became a skilled assistant whose work was so good that when Blalock was offered the post of Chief of Surgery at John Hopkins in 1941, he insisted that Thomas accompany him.

While at Vanderbilt, Blalock and Thomas determined that shock following traumatic crushing injuries required blood transfusions and fluid. Their work was used to save the lives of many World War II soldiers. This discovery was a foreshadowing of the great work that was still to come.

At John Hopkins, pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Helen Taussig approached Blalock about a congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome or Tetralogy of Fallot. In a normal heart, the left side of the heart pumps blood to the body, while the right side of the heart pumps blood to the lungs to be oxygenated. However, in babies with this defect there is a hole between the left and right chambers that allows some of the blood that should go to the lungs to be oxygenated, to flow back to the left chamber and to the body. Thomas replicated this defect in laboratory dogs and then devised a way to safely repair the damage. Eventually, this procedure was carried out on a desperately ill baby, with Thomas guiding Blalock in the surgery and was a resounding success.  Blalock and Taussig received recognition for this procedure, but Thomas, the real genius behind the technique which became known as the Blalock-Taussig shunt, did not.

Thomas was known for his brilliant surgical technique and his ability to suture flawlessly. He was the inspiration and surgical instructor for an entire generation of American surgeons including the renowned heart surgeon, Denton Cooley. But Thomas's abilities were never fully recognized for decades.  It wasn't until 1976 that Vivien Thomas was recognized but with an Honorary Doctor of Laws (and not Medicine).

Discussion

Tiny Stitches is a well written and informative picture book that captures the real impact of racism on the lives of  black Americans. Vivien Thomas had a dream of being a doctor but his ability to attain his dream was impacted both by the economic fallout of the 1929 Stock Market Crash as well as by systemic racial discrimination. Despite his brilliant surgical skills and his outstanding abilities as a researcher, he was never afforded the opportunity to further his education when he worked at Vanderbilt because the university only accepted white students.  His immense contributions to medicine and surgery remained unrecognized for twenty-six years; instead those contributions were attributed to the white surgeons he worked with and who came to be recognized internationally. Yet despite all the obstacles Thomas faced, his life is an example of fortitude, perseverance and resiliency, and he graciously trained other doctors who came to study at John Hopkins. By all estimates, he was a remarkable man.

Hooks fully utilizes the picture book format to present her readers with many interesting details about the life of Vivien Thomas.  These details, in easy to read, bold text, accompanied by Colin Bootman's realistic watercolour illustrations,  make Thomas's life come alive and help to showcase his remarkable character and skills. Hooks demonstrates how Thomas's early life prepared him for his vocation as a medical researcher. Working with his father, a master carpenter, Thomas developed the skills and the dexterity required to perform delicate surgery and to craft the specialized surgical instruments needed for such operations. The racial discrimination he experienced in society, as when his family struggled to find a place to live in Baltimore, and professionally as when he knew he would have to leave Vanderbilt because he would likely lose his job are simply presented. Tiny Stitches will to think prompt young readers to consider what it would be like to experience this kind of discrimination.

Hooks' subject is well researched, as shown in her Author Sources at the back, where the author references interviews with Thomas's nephew and also a colleague. In Tiny Stitches readers will find an easy-to-understand explanation of the blue baby problem, known as tetralogy of Fallot, and how Thomas pioneered a surgical treatment for this serious defect.  Hooks also provides readers with further information about tetralogy of Fallot in a short note at the back and there is also a short note about Vivien Thomas.

Tiny Stitches is highly recommended as a resource for students to studying black history and individuals who have overcome significant obstacles in life to made a difference in the lives of others.

Book Details:

Tiny Stitches The Life of Medical Pioneer Vivien Thomas by Gwendolyn Hooks
New York: Lee & Low Books Inc.       2016

Fancy Party Gowns: The Story of Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lowe by Deborah Blumenthal

Fancy Party Gowns is a story about African American fashion designer Ann Cole Lowe who is probably most remembered for the gorgeous wedding dress she designed for Jacqueline Bouvier's wedding to John F. Kennedy.

Ann Lowe was born in 1898 in Clayton, Alabama. She developed an interest sewing and designing because both her mother and grandmother were seamstresses. She received little schooling in the segregated schools in Alabama but her skill making gowns and fancy dresses was developed under the tutelage of her mother and grandmother.

In 1916 she moved to Florida where she gained a reputation for her gowns among the debutantes in the Tampa area. Springboarding off of this, Ann and her mother moved to New York City where she married. There her mother opened a small dress making shop. When her mother died, Ann finished all the dresses her mother was working on and kept the shop open.

Ann's clientele were high society, including the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts but she was fashion's best kept secret at this time. Jacqueline Bouvier was one of her clients and when she became engaged to marry John F. Kennedy in 1953, her mother, Janet Lee Bouvier employed Ann Lowe to create and sew her wedding dress as well as all the dresses for the entire wedding party! Lowe had designed Bouvier's wedding dress when she married her second husband, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss Jr.

Jaqueline's dress was made of ivory silk tafetta, had a large skirt and what is called a portrait neckline. The dress was partially destroyed along with nine of the bridesmaid's dressses when a pipe burst in her Lextington Avenue shop a little more than a week before the wedding. Ann had to remake these dresses but lost money on the order. She never received credit for the design which won world-wide praise.

Despite income tax issues and some health problems, Ann persisted and opened a boutique in the Saks Fifth Avenue store in 1961. She was awarded the Couturier of the Year in 1961. Ann soon was designing and sewing dresses for numerous high society ladies. She was never interested in dressing the average woman. "I love my clothes and I'm particular about who wears them. I am not interested in sewing for cafe society or social climbers. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for the families of the Social Register."

Several of Ann Lowe's gowns are now part of the holdings of the Museum of African American History. Ann Lowe passed away in 1981 at the age of eighty-three.

Fancy Party Gowns captures the essence of the Ann Lowe story. It is a remarkable story because Lowe was African-American and succeeded at a time when racism was still very much in evidence in American society. Blumenthal takes young readers from Ann's childhood in Alabama where she caught the love of sewing from her grandmother and mother to her taking over her mother's shop upon her death to Ann designing and sewing Jacqueline Bouvier's wedding dress. Eventually Ann's achievements were recognized. She received the Official Couturiere

Blumenthal lightly mentions some of the struggles Ann overcame. Although slavery had been abolished in the previous century, racial prejudice against African Americans still dominated much of American life in the early to mid-twentieth century. Ann often encountered this; she experienced the humiliations of segregation, she often did not receive the credit due to her. In spite of this, Ann persisted. She continued to design and sew fancy dresses, elaborate gowns and women loved and wore them.

Accompanying Blumenthal's biography are the bright illustrations of Laura Freeman. Freeman had her sister stand in as a model for some of her illustrations because she noticed that her sister shared the same sort of facial features as Lowe. The colourful illustrations in this picture book were done using photoshop.

Ultimately Fancy Party Gowns is about a young woman persevering to achieve her dream of doing what she loves - designing and sewing beautiful gowns and dresses.

The author has included a note at the back with more information about Ann Lowe and a For Further Reading list that includes books and blog posts about Lowe.

You can see some of Ann Lowe's designs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where five of her dresses are in their collection.

Book Details:

Fancy Party Gowns: The Story of Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lowe by Deborah Blumenthal
New York: Little Bee Books        2017

DVD: The Race

"'Cause you know, out there on that track you're free of all this. The moment that gun go off, can't nothing stop me. Not color, not money, not fear, not even hate. There ain't no black and white. There's only fast and slow. For those ten seconds you are completely free."

The Race is a dramatization of Jesse Owen's quest to run in the 1936 Olympics which were held in Nazi Germany. The Olympics were awarded to Germany in 1931 with the intention of supporting the country, but two years later, the country found itself under the control of Hitler and his Nazi party. As the racial policies of the country became known more and more Americans began to question their country's participation in the Berlin Olympics, which would be seen as supporting Hilter, the Nazi party and its policies.

The movie opens in 1933 with Jesse Owens, played by Canadian actor, Stephan James living with his mother, father and sister Laverne in Cleveland, Ohio. He has a passion for running. As a high school athlete Owens tied the record of 9.4 seconds for the 100 yard dash. In the fall of 1933 Jessie prepares to leave for Ohio State University in Columbus.

Before leaving for Ohio State University (OSU) Owens goes to visit his little daughter, Gloria and her mother, Minnie Ruth Solomon who works as a hairdresser.  He promises Ruth he will return to marry her.

In the past three years OSU has had a poor showing at the national college championships. Track coach Larry Snyder, himself once a great runner, is being blamed for the losses and his career looks like it might be finished. He's looking for fresh talent to restart his track team. Snyder has Owens come to his office where he asks him why he came to OSU, a school considered to be very bigoted towards black athletes. Owens tells him that his coach Charlie Riley told him he's a natural runner and that Snyder was the best. Snyder tells him that records don't matter, only gold medals matter. He asks Owens if he wants to run in Berlin in 1936 and Owens indicates that he's concerned that the Germans don't like blacks. But Snyder points out that the same attitudes exist in the United States. He warns Owens that if he wants to run and win he must spend the next 28 months training hard every day.

Meanwhile at a meeting of the U.S. Olympic Committee Convention, Avery Brundage, a former track athlete and Olympian, and now a wealthy businessman head of the American Olympic Committee (AOC) is told that Germany's racist policies towards Jews and Romany Gypsies is a major concern and that a boycott of American athletes is being considered. Officials from the Amateur Athletic Union point out that the Germans are not allowing Jewish athletes to join sports clubs and therefore they are unable to qualify for the Olympics. The Germans also do not want Negroes to compete at the Games. Brundage believes that Germany needs the Olympics and Ambassador Charles Sherrill states that they have assurances from Germany they will not discriminate. However Judge Jeremiah T. Mahoney of AAU states that they cannot trust the Nazis and that he will recommend a boycott. They decide to send Avery Brundage over to Germany to talk to German officials.

Meanwhile at OSU, Owens struggles to find the time to attend practice and work. He writes Ruth and sends her money for their daughter and tells her he has applied for a marriage license. Confronted by Snyder about missing practices, Owens reveals his dilemma and tells Snyder he needs to find a way for him to make money and train.

In 1934 Berlin, Brundage is shown the stadium under construction and is told everything is being recorded by Miss Leni Riefenstahl who was hand-picked by Hitler. Brundage sees for himself the situation in Berlin: Jewish stars on businesses, people being dragged from their homes. Brundage meets Leni and Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda at a lunch. While Leni tries to explain that she wants her film to showcase the Olympic ideals, Brundage doesn't believe her. He tells the Germans that they risk an Olympic games without America unless they come into line and allow Jews and Negroes to participate. He also tells them they have to clean up their press. Goebbels states he will agree if Brundage agrees to support them with the AOC (American Olympic Committee).

Back in Columbus, Snyder gets Owens a job as a page at the Ohio legislature paying him $60 a month and allowing him to train. They work on his start. Jesse continues to face racism and ridicule from the football team which is all white but coach Snyder tells Jesse that this is just a distraction and that he must learn to filter all of this out while he is at the Big Ten meet.

Just before the meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1935, Jesse injures his back trying to high jump with friends. In pain he completes in four events over the span of 45 minutes and sets three world records and ties a fourth. Owens competes in the 100 yard dash, the broad jump, the 200 yard dash and the 225 yard hurdles.

Owens and Snyder head to Los Angeles for the NCAA Track and Field Championships. Held at Edwards Stadium in Berkley, Owens wins four events. During his time in LA he meets a woman at a jazz club and becomes romantically involved with her. During this time Brundage returns to Berlin where the situation appears to meet his expectations. He tells Goebbels taht the Americans will be voting soon on whether to participate. Goebbels attempts to bribe Brundage by offering him to be involved in the building of a new German embassy in Washington designed by Albert Speer. Brundage is drawn into looking at the plans and it appears he accepts Goebbels offer.

Back in the United States, Owens affair with Quincella Nickerson gets into the papers and Minnie Ruth threatens to sue him for breach of promise. Owens unsuccessfully attempts to call Ruth. At a meet in Nebraska, Owens loses the 100 yard dash to his rival Eulace Peacock. The next morning Owens breaks up with Quincella and when he returns to Ohio he goes to see Ruth in Cleveland. At first Ruth runs him out of Ida's Beauty Salon, but not to be deterred, Jesse waits for her to leave and eventually convinces her to marry him.

On December 23, 1935, the U.S. Olympic Committee meets to vote with Brundage arguing for participation and Mahoney arguing for a boycott. When Brundage wins the vote 58 to 56, Mahoney resigns from the AAU, not wanting to be involved in something he finds morally wrong. Owens and Snyder rejoice at this news. Knowing that he will be competing in a country that believes he is part of a inferior race, Owens sets out to win the gold medal in track and to deny Nazi Germany the propaganda it so desperately wants.

Discussion

The Race is a well done, timely movie about Jesse Owens and his winning four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Almost forgotten today, there's considerable value in the making of move like The Race to remind us of people such as Jesse Owens, whose light shone brightly in times of darkness. The focus of the movie is on Owen's life leading up to and including his participation in the 1936 Olympics. The title of the movie has a dual meaning, both of a sports event but also referring to the race of a person - in this case Black Americans.

The overarching theme in The Race is the racial bigotry that existed in America in the 1930's and that bigotry was the same hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews, Catholics, homosexuals and gypsies by the Nazi's in Germany. Like most Blacks in 1930's America Owens faced bigotry and discrimination in every aspect of his life. When traveling to Columbus, Owens and his friend sit at the back of the bus. When he meets Larry Snyder for the first time, Owens keeps his eyes cast down, as most Blacks were taught to do. Despite his athletic ability, Owens wasn't offered an athletic scholarship and he couldn't room on the campus of OSU.  After working out at the track, Owens and his friend are made to wait until the whites use the locker room showers, and black athletes are not allowed to play football. At the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Owens is booed when he lines up for the 100 yard dash with the other white competitors. When he travels to Germany to participate in the Olympics, the rest of the team are in first class on the ship, but Owens and his Black teammate travel in steerage. Even attending a dinner in his honor, Owens and his wife must use the back entrance. At the end of the movie, it is noted that Owens athletic achievements were never acknowledged by the White House in 1936. Against this backdrop, the film shows the hypocrisy of America as it protests against the racial policies of Nazi Germany, threatening to boycott the Berlin Olympics, while it treats its own Black citizens poorly.

The Race presents a mostly sanitized Jesse Owens, focusing on his athletic accomplishments and his relationship with his coach, Larry Snyder played by Jason Sudeikis who gives a surprisingly good performance. Jesse is shown as a young man who believes in his ability to run but not so certain off the track. Owen's family was involved in the development of the script, and as a result The Race is a fairly accurate portrayal on the events that occurred. Canadian actor Stephane James trained at Georgia Tech working to get into shape and to run like Owens. The recreation of the 1936 Olympics and Owen's win in the 100 meter dash are amazingly well done.

Of particular interest in this film is Avery Brundage played by Jeremy Irons who makes Brundage look too old for the age he would have been in 1933 to 1936. Yet Irons captures the complicated character of Brundage whose backroom deal with the Nazi regime created a great scandal. Another fascinating character of this era was Leni Reifenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker who is portrayed as a moderate German caught in the middle of the conflict between Brundage and Goebbels. Reifenstahl, brilliantly played by actress Carice van Houten, created many films that propagandized the Nazi regime. She appears aloof, professional at times, but genial towards Owens, and determined to make her film, even when Goebbels orders the cameras not to record yet another potential Owen's medal. Goebbels was well portrayed by Barnaby Metschurat who gave the Nazi Minister of Propaganda a creepy, chilling persona. As for Hitler, director Stephen Hopkins made the decision to keep the German chancellor in the background and the focus on Owens, Snyder and the quest to win gold. Hitler's face is only ever seen from the side and he has no lines in the movie.

For more information on the movement to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics, check out the Holocaust Encyclopedia entry. The entry points out the conflict that developed between Brundage and Mahoney which is portrayed to some degree in The Race. One benefit of America's participation in the 1936 Olympics is that Jesse Owens proved Hitler's idea of one race being superior to all others as the nonsense it was. Owens won the gold medal in the 100 meter dash as well as gold medals in three other events. Of the eleven gold medals won by the United States at the 1936 Olympics, six were won by Black Americans.

Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper

Stella By Starlight tells the story of being a Negro American during the 1930's. The Civil War had ended only sixty-seven years earlier, outlawing slavery. But the bigotry rages on in a segregated south.

Ten year old Stella Mills lives with her father Jonah, her mother Georgia and her younger brother Jojo in the segregated south, in a town called Bumblebee, North Carolina, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Set in 1932, Bumblebee is segregated, meaning blacks live in one part of the town with their own school and church and white people live in another part of town. The black folks mostly work as cooks, maids and janitors, with few men allowed to work at the sawmill in town. The Negro families take care of one another, expecting little help from the white folk.

It all starts one night when Stella and Jojo witness a Klu Klux Klan meeting across Kilkenny Pond in the middle of the night. They secretly watch nine figures dressed in white robes with pointy hats burn a wooden cross. From their hidden spot, Stella is certain she recognizes the bridle of the horse belonging to the white doctor, Dr. Packard.

Stella and her brother Jojo tell their parents what they saw and their mom and dad convene a meeting immediately that night at their home of some of the Negro parents, including the only Negro doctor, Dr. Hawkins.  While the adults meet, Stella sits outside on the porch steps with Tony, Dr. Hawkins' son. Tony tells Stella that he runs on the track at the white school, something that is forbidden for a black boy. He tells her his dream of being like the "Midnight Express", Eddie Tolan who won two gold medals at the recent Los Angeles Olympics. Tony is determined to run someday in the Olympics. The two children are frightened by the night's events and try to figure out the meaning of the Klan's sudden reappearance in their town.

As her father reads the white and Negro newspapers the next morning Stella questions her father as to why they don't do more. She questions why the Negro paper, The Truth Unbridled, doesn't publish the Klan meeting her father tells her the situation is not as simple as it appears. "Never be afraid to be honest and stand up for what is right, Stella...Just remember to balance your courage with wisdom." He tells her trying to catch the Klan is "like nailing jelly to a tree".

Stella and Jojo and the other black children attend Riverside School for black students while the white students attend Mountain View. Mountain View, with its brick building and well manicured lawn, is known for its academic and sports successes. The students at Mountain View are better off, having shoes and warm coats for the winter while like most black children in the area, Stella and her brother walk to school barefoot. On their way to school they meet Carolyn Malone who is Stella's best friend, five of the thirteen Spencer children, Johnsteve Winston, Randy Bates and Tony Hawkins. The group stop at Mrs. Cathy Cooper's store, Cathy's Candy Store, the white proprietor whose friendliness towards the black children doesn't go unnoticed by Stella. She also allows the children to enter by the front door unlike most other store owners in Bumblebee. White children also enter the store, including Paulette Packard, Dr. Packard's daughter and Barbara Osterman whose father owns the mill. Barbara wonders why they have to attend separate schools, but a white boy, Kenneth, mocks the black children saying they will "never amount to anything."

Stella doesn't like to write because she finds writing challenging. Unable to complete her writing assignment at school, Mrs. Grayson tells her she needs to try harder and finish her work. To help her think better, Stella likes to sneak outside after everyone has gone to sleep.

The black community comes together when "Spoon Man", as Terence Oglethorpe, a traveling salesman is known, comes to visit Bumblebee. Spoon Man travels all over North Carolina, selling cookware, tools and trinkets. He tells them that the Depression has made everyone desperate for change especially in the upcoming presidential election and that he's heard about the reemergence of the Klu Klux Klan in the Bumblebee area. Stella's father indicates to Spoon Man that he wants to vote. "I live in this country and I oughta be allowed to vote!" Dr. Hawkins tells the men that there are now poll taxes and a literacy test about the Constitution before blacks can vote. The KKK are also informed of any black man who tries to register to vote. Hawkins suggests to Jonah that maybe he wait for a better time to push the right to vote but Jonah questions when that time will come.

At church on Sunday, Pastor Patton tells the congregation that he is going into Spindale to register to vote in the morning and he welcomes any man who wants to accompany him. That night at dinner Stella's parents argue about Jonah going to register, but the next morning he meets Pastor Patton along with Mr. Spencer at the Spindale Election office. However, the registrar, Mr. Amherst Pineville, is hostile towards the group and determined to do everything in his power to prevent them from registering. They are forced to pay two dollars to register and must also take a test, while white men who walk in are allowed to register immediately. Eventually they are registered but Pineville warns them that trouble will be coming their way. When trouble does come, Stella and her family and the rest of the black community must pull together to get through a devastating fire and an accident that almost kills Stella's mother.

Discussion

Sharon M. Draper is an award winning author, educator, poet and speaker. On her website, Draper states that she tries to take readers "along on my journey". Stella By Starlight does just that. It is a journey back to 1932 America, suffering through the beginnings of the Depression. Everyone is struggling to cope with poor economic conditions and a drought gripping the Midwest. Prejudice against the black community is on the rise. Society continues to be segregated with blacks having their own schools, churches and doctors. Many jobs are not open to blacks who tend to be in low income jobs. Few own the land they farm. They are not allowed to use the town library. Nor does the American Army want them (an attitude that will gradually change in World War II) It's also the year of the Olympics in Los Angeles and a presidential election. 

Even though black Americans are citizens, they did not have the right to vote until the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.  Despite that change, poll taxes, literacy tests, state laws and even threats and intimidations made it almost impossible for many black Americans to even register to vote. In Stella by Starlight this is effectively portrayed by the author. It would not be until 1964 and 1965 that these injustices were prohibited.

Stella By Starlight reveals the depth of the prejudice in 1930's America when the Spencer's home is burned to the ground by the Klu Klux Klan, when Stella's mother almost dies from a poisonous snake bike because Dr. Packard, who treats "white patients" only, hardheartedly refuses to treat her, and when Tony Hawkins is set upon by a group of white boys who kick and punch him. However, Draper is careful to show that not all the white people are prejudiced. Cathy Cooper treats Stella and the other black children the same as the white children. Annie Lou Summers and her sister Mary Lou bring food and clothing from the white Bumblebee Baptist Church for the Spencer family after the fire.

More importantly Stella By Starlight is story about community, a place where everyone is knit together by their common history and their concern for one another. The loss of the Spencer's home sees the community donate so much clothing that Stella and Jojo finally get new clothes and shoes - because Mrs. Spencer is "glad to be able to give as well as take". When Stella's mother is dying from the snake bite, Mrs. Odom, who never "takes the car out for fear of getting dust on it" drives to Raleigh to get Dr. Hawkins and bring back the antivenom. It is this sense of family, the idea that "I am my brother's keeper", that helps everyone  endure the hard times and savor the good ones.

Stella By Starlight also demonstrates that children aren't born prejudiced - they learn it from adults and the society around them. Some of the children in Cathy's Candy Store believe its ridiculous that they must attend separate schools. They obviously recognize that regardless of skin colour, kids are kids. Draper often juxtaposes acts of kindness against acts of prejudice. For example, when Stella goes to get medicine for her sick brother at the general store, Mr. O'Brian allows her to pay for her purchases with what little money she has. Immediately after leaving the general store, she and Tony are set upon by a gang of white youths who beat up Tony accusing him of stealing the candy he paid for.

Draper has written a very good novel that captures the reality of life in America for African Americans in the 1930's. All of her characters are well drawn, believable and unique, from the heroine, Stella Mills, to the antihero, Dr. Packard. The seed for Stella By Starlight came from Draper's own grandmother, Estelle Twitty Mills Davis, who was forced to leave school in grade five but who spent her nights after everyone was asleep, outside writing in her journal.

Book Details:
Stella By Starlight by Sharon M. Draper
Toronto: Atheneum Books for Young Readers     2015
320 pp.