Daughter of the Boycott

Daughter of the Boycott
Author: Karen Gray Houston
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1641603062

In 1950, before Montgomery, Alabama, knew Martin Luther King Jr., before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger, before the city's famous bus boycott, a Negro man named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by a white police officer in a confrontation after he tried to board a city bus. Thomas Gray, who had played football with Hilliard when they were kids, was outraged by the unjustifiable shooting. Gray protested, eventually staging a major downtown march to register voters, and standing up to police brutality. Five years later, he led another protest, this time against unjust treatment on the city's segregated buses. On the front lines of what became the Montgomery bus boycott, Gray withstood threats and bombings alongside his brother, Fred D. Gray, the young lawyer who represented Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the rarely mentioned Claudette Colvin, a plaintiff in the case that forced Alabama to desegregate its buses. An incredible story of family in the pivotal years of the civil rights movement, Daughter of the Boycott is the reflection of Thomas Gray's daughter, award-winning broadcast journalist Karen Gray Houston, on how her father's and uncle's selfless actions changed the nation's racial climate and opened doors for her and countless other African Americans.

Freedom's Daughters

Freedom's Daughters
Author: Lynne Olson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2001
Genre: African American women civil rights workers
ISBN: 0684850125

Provides portraits and cameos of over sixty women who were influential in the Civil Rights Movement, and argues that the political activity of women has been the driving force in major reform movements throughout history.

Child of the Civil Rights Movement

Child of the Civil Rights Movement
Author: Paula Young Shelton
Publisher: Dragonfly Books
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2013-07-23
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0385376065

In this Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, Paula Young Shelton, daughter of Civil Rights activist Andrew Young, brings a child’s unique perspective to an important chapter in America’s history. Paula grew up in the deep south, in a world where whites had and blacks did not. With an activist father and a community of leaders surrounding her, including Uncle Martin (Martin Luther King), Paula watched and listened to the struggles, eventually joining with her family—and thousands of others—in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery. Poignant, moving, and hopeful, this is an intimate look at the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.

Daughter of the Boycott

Daughter of the Boycott
Author: Karen Gray Houston
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020
Genre: Civil rights demonstrations
ISBN: 9781641603058

"Award-winning broadcast journalist Karen Gray Houston tells the story of the key roles played by her father, Thomas Gray, and her uncle, Fred D. Gray, in the historic Montgomery bus boycott, the action that kick-started the civil rights movement"--

Not My Idea

Not My Idea
Author: Anastasia Higginbotham
Publisher: Ordinary Terrible Things
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2018-09
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781948340007

People of color are eager for white people to deal with their racial ignorance. White people are desperate for an affirmative role in racial justice. Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness helps with conversations the nation is, just now, finally starting to have.

I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust

I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust
Author: Valerie Gilpeer
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0062984365

A remarkable memoir by a mother and her autistic daughter who’d long been unable to communicate—until a miraculous breakthrough revealed a young woman with a rich and creative interior life, a poet, who’d been trapped inside for more than two decades. “I have been buried under years of dust and now I have so much to say.” These were the first words twenty-five-year-old Emily Grodin ever wrote. Born with nonverbal autism, Emily’s only means of communicating for a quarter of a century had been only one-word responses or physical gestures. That Emily was intelligent had never been in question—from an early age she’d shown clear signs that she understood what was going on though she could not express herself. Her parents, Valerie and Tom, sought every therapy possible in the hope that Emily would one day be able to reveal herself. When this miraculous breakthrough occurred, Emily was finally able to give insight into the life, frustrations, and joys of a person with autism. She could tell her parents what her younger years had been like and reveal all the emotions and intelligence residing within her; she became their guide into the autistic experience. Told by Valerie, with insights and stories and poetry from Emily, I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust highlights key moments of Emily’s childhood that led to her communication awakening—and how her ability rapidly accelerated after she wrote that first sentence. As Valerie tells her family’s story, she shares the knowledge she’s gained from working as a legal advocate for families affected by autism and other neurological disorders. A story of unconditional love, faith in the face of difficulty, and the grace of perseverance and acceptance, I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust is an evocative and affecting mother-daughter memoir of learning to see each other for who they are.

Mob Daughter

Mob Daughter
Author: Karen Gravano
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2012-02-14
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1250015200

From Karen Gravano, a star of the hit VH1 reality show Mob Wives, comes a revealing memoir of a mafia childhood, where love and family come hand-in-hand with murder and betrayal. Karen Gravano is the daughter of Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, once one of the mafia's most feared hit men. With nineteen confessed murders, the former Gambino Crime Family underboss—and John Gotti's right-hand man—is the highest ranking gangster ever to turn State's evidence and testify against members of his high-profile crime family. But to Karen, Sammy Gravano was a sometimes elusive but always loving father figure. He was ever-present at the head of the dinner table. He made a living running a construction firm and several nightclubs. He stayed out late, and sometimes he didn't come home at all. He hosted "secret" meetings at their house, and had countless whispered conversations with "business associates." By the age of twelve, Karen knew he was a gangster. And as she grew up, while her peers worried about clothes and schoolwork, she was coming face-to-face with crime and murder. Gravano was nineteen years old when her father turned his back on the mob and cooperated with the Feds. The fabric of her family was ripped apart, and they were instantly rejected by the communities they grew up in. This is the story of a daughter's struggle to reconcile the image of her loving father with that of a murdering Mafioso, and how, in healing the rift between the two, she was able to forge a new life.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
Author: Jeanne Theoharis
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2021-02-02
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 080706758X

"A must-read for young people.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Now adapted for readers ages 12 and up, the award-winning biography that examines Rosa Parks’s life and 60 years of radical activism and brings the civil rights movement in the North and South to life The basis for the documentary of the same name executive produced by award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien, now streaming on Peacock. The documentary is the recepient of the 2022 Television Academy Honors Award. A Chicago Public Library’s “Best of the Best Books of 2021” Selection · A Kirkus Reviews “Best YA Biography and Memoir of 2021” Selection Rosa Parks is one of the most well-known Americans today, but much of what is known and taught about her is incomplete, distorted, and just plain wrong. Adapted for young people from the NAACP Image Award–winning The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert shatter the myths that Parks was meek, accidental, tired, or middle class. They reveal a lifelong freedom fighter whose activism began two decades before her historic stand that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and continued for 40 years after. Readers will understand what it was like to be Parks, from standing up to white supremacist bullies as a young person to meeting her husband, Raymond, who showed her the possibility of collective activism, to her years of frustrated struggle before the boycott, to the decade of suffering that followed for her family after her bus arrest. The book follows Parks to Detroit, after her family was forced to leave Montgomery, Alabama, where she spent the second half of her life and reveals her activism alongside a growing Black Power movement and beyond. Because Rosa Parks was active for 60 years, in the North as well as the South, her story provides a broader and more accurate view of the Black freedom struggle across the twentieth century. Theoharis and Colbert show young people how the national fable of Parks and the civil rights movement—celebrated in schools during Black History Month—has warped what we know about Parks and stripped away the power and substance of the movement. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks illustrates how the movement radically sought to expose and eradicate racism in jobs, housing, schools, and public services, as well as police brutality and the over-incarceration of Black people—and how Rosa Parks was a key player throughout. Rosa Parks placed her greatest hope in young people—in their vision, resolve, and boldness to take the struggle forward. As a young adult, she discovered Black history, and it sustained her across her life. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks will help do that for a new generation.

Sweet Justice

Sweet Justice
Author: Mara Rockliff
Publisher: Random House Studio
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2022-01-11
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1524720666

An inspiring picture-book biography about the woman whose cooking helped feed and fund the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956, from an award-winning illustrator. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY New York Public Library • Chicago Public Library Georgia Gilmore was cooking when she heard the news Mrs. Rosa Parks had been arrested--pulled off a city bus and thrown in jail all because she wouldn't let a white man take her seat. To protest, the radio urged everyone to stay off city buses for one day: December 5, 1955. Throughout the boycott--at Holt Street Baptist Church meetings led by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr.--and throughout the struggle for justice, Georgia served up her mouth-watering fried chicken, her spicy collard greens, and her sweet potato pie, eventually selling them to raise money to help the cause. Here is the vibrant true story of a hidden figure of the civil rights movement, told in flavorful language by a picture-book master, and stunningly illustrated by a Caldecott Honor recipient and seven-time Coretta Scott King award-winning artist.

Freedom Walkers

Freedom Walkers
Author: Russell Freedman
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-02-28
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0823421953

A riveting account of the civil rights boycott that changed history by the foremost author of history for young people. Now a classic, Freedman’s book tells the dramatic stories of the heroes who stood up against segregation and Jim Crow laws in 1950s Alabama. Full of eyewitness reports, iconic photographs from the era, and crucial primary sources, this work brings history to life for modern readers. This engaging look at one of the best-known events of the American Civil Rights Movement feels immediate and relevant, reminding readers that the Boycott is not distant history, but one step in a fight for equality that continues today. Freedman focuses not only on well-known figures like Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr., but on the numerous people who contributed by organizing carpools, joining protests, supporting legal defense efforts, and more. He showcases an often-overlooked side of activism and protest-- the importance of cooperation and engagement, and the ways in which ordinary people can stand up for their beliefs and bring about meaningful change in the world around them. Freedom Walkers has long been a library and classroom staple, but as interest in the history of protest and the Civil Rights Movement grows, it’s a perfect introduction for anyone looking to learn more about the past-- and an inspiration to take action and shape the future. Recipient of an Orbis Pictus Honor, the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, and the Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Book Award, Freedom Walkers received five starred reviews. A map, source notes, full bibliography, and other backmatter is included.