12 Incredible Facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Lois Sepahban: Book Review

"Turning Points in U.S. History" (series)
12 Incredible Facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Author: Lois Sepahban
Publisher: Peterson Publishing Company, 2016
Reviewer: Sharon M. Himsl
Ages: 8-12, MG nonfiction
Pages: 32

Montgomery, Alabama’s bus boycott in December 1955 was the onset of the Civil Rights Movement. After passage of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment in 1868  stating that all citizens (born or naturalized), were equal under the law, white southerners in general refused to comply. Laws were passed to segregate the recently freed slaves from full participation in society, banning them from white schools, neighborhoods, restaurants, and more. Eighty-seven years later racial segregation persisted. In 1955, discrimination against blacks in transportation was common, including refusal of service by white taxicab drivers and busing laws that ruled blacks sit in the bus’s rear. Such laws represent the first of twelve facts about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 

Most know the story of black resident Rosa Parks (fact two), who sat in the white section of a Montgomery bus refusing to give up her seat, an act that resulted in her arrest. Others before her had protested similarly, like fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin, but Rosa’s arrest was the final straw in the ongoing discrimination. As a result, 95% of Montgomery’s black community refused to ride the buses in protest (fact three). Montgomery police attempted to arrest the boy-cotters, but the blacks remained peaceful and stayed out of sight (fact four). Finally, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. voiced his support of Rosa at a rally (fact five), drawing a crowd of 5000 blacks (fact six). 

Meanwhile, Montgomery church volunteers drove the boy-cotters to their jobs, as the bus companies refused to budge (facts seven and eight). King’s arrest soon followed and police began ticketing the volunteer drivers (fact nine). Unfortunately, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) violence erupted next, including the bombing of King’s home (fact ten). Some boy-cotters (115) were then indicted (fact eleven), but in June 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of blacks on public buses was unconstitutional (fact twelve), ending the boycott. Complete with glossary, photos, and key dates, Sepahban's book is one of many written on the Civil Rights Movement, but the period remains a pivotal time in American history, which needs to be remembered again and again.

Book Review - Voices of the Civil Rights Movement by Lori Mortensen

“We Shall Overcome” (Series)
Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: A Primary Source Exploration of the Struggle for Racial Equality
Author: Lori Mortensen
Publisher: Capstone Press, 2015
Ages 8 to 10, Nonfiction
Pages: 32

The voices of key Civil Rights activists come to life through documented primary sources in Mortensen’s Voices of the Civil Rights Movement. Readers learn the different points of view, and how participants in the movement actually felt. Photographs show the emotions on people’s faces, their actions and reactions, and elsewhere in quoted speech, the words they spoke. 

After slavery was abolished in 1865, “Jim Crow” laws quickly fell into place in the southern states, separating the black and white races. Hate groups and mob activity rose against African-Americans, threatening all who disobeyed. Blacks grew weary of being separate and not equal. In 1955, Rosa Parks of Montgomery, Alabama, said she “was tired of giving in.” Mortensen describes the bus boycott that resulted when Parks went to jail over a bus seat she refused to yield to a white rider. Leaders on both sides of the argument rose. 

Alabama Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers argued that the law had been broken, plain and simple. Black leader Martin Luther King Jr. initiated a nonviolent protest, in which blacks in Montgomery refused to ride on the bus line. The boycott gained national attention and protest spread throughout the south to other areas of concern, such as school segregation. Black leaders Thurgood Marshall and Daisy Bates spoke out, demanding more action, against objections by Governor Orval Faubus and George Wallace, who fought against racial integration. Freedom Riders made the news, like Jim Zwerg, a white Civil Rights worker who was beaten. 

The fight for freedom changed America, Mortensen writes. White prejudice continued to surface and more lives were lost, but southern viewpoints eventually changed. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and America's first African-American president was elected in 2008. A Glossary and Critical Thinking Using the Common Core section are included to generate classroom discussion. A good primary source for teachers to introduce, as well as for interested parents.

Double Victory by Cheryl Mullenbach: Book Review

 
Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II

Author: Cheryl Mullenbach

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Inc., 2013
Reviewer: Sharon M. Himsl

Age: 12 up, Young Adult nonfiction
Pages: 272 

Thousands of men in the U.S. quit their jobs to fight in World War II. Women rallied to the cause to fill these jobs, but in a segregated society rooted in racial discrimination, African American women were denied access. Segregation rules even kept some from volunteering. Mullenbach describes their upward struggle to participate. Ironically, as the nation fought for democracy and freedom overseas, African Americans were denied such freedom at home. In 1942, a black newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, started the Double V Campaign—V for victory at war; V for victory at home. Not all blacks embraced this campaign, according to Mullenbach, but it “gave some black people the courage to act.” Hattie Duvall carried a protest sign when denied service at a restaurant. Willa Brown, a pilot, started a black flight school. Protester Thomasina Walker Johnson Norford, a young teacher, would become an influential lobbyist. Ethel Bell, who was refused employment after passing a civil service test, traveled to Washington, DC to complain. Others fought to join the military, but once accepted, faced unfair practices. Nursing was only open to white women at first, but persistence paid off. As nurses, they served stateside and overseas, and although segregated, assigned to black soldiers only, they more than proved their worth. Black female entertainers faced similar hurdles. Black actress Hattie McDaniel was denied housing in a white neighborhood, despite her contribution in boosting military morale. However, black singers Margaret Simms and Josephine Baker (also a spy) were well received all over Europe. As war workers, political activists, volunteers, military personnel, and entertainers, black women “broke race and gender barriers to help win” the war. Double Victory is an excellent resource on African American women’s contribution to World War II and the Civil Rights Movement later (1955-1968). 

Copyright 2013 © Sharon M. Himsl    

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech Still Resonates

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I was too young to appreciate the significance of this man or his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, but voices from the past still echo the reality of that time.

I am reminded of my own dear father who had had a black maid growing up in Oklahoma. His racial slurs were common occurrences in my home, but no less common in the homes of my friends. I attended a large high school in the Pacific Northwest that was almost an even split: half white, half black. Interracial dating  was an adamant NO, and anyone who dared to cross those boundaries paid the consequences. Rumors flew through the school halls one day when a girl my friends and I knew was suddenly whisked off to a private school. We all knew that she was dating a handsome black football player. I myself was flirting with one in particular.

But to be fair, interracial dating was a no-no on both sides of the racial track. Fights between whites and blacks were common in school parking lots and around town, including a "rumble" in 1966 between our high school and another school. It made the papers, and as Corresponding Secretary of our school's student council, I was assigned  the task of writing a letter to the offending school, explaining our outrage. The task proved impossible. The letter flopped and was quickly rewritten by another student in council. Embarrassed, I was told my letter wasn't strong enough.

Truth be told, the world around me was changing so rapidly, it was all one big blur. President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 three years prior was still big news. He was gunned down just three months after King's famous speech in August 1963. Then there was the Vietnam War protest and the Civil Rights Movement erupting across the nation. As our soldiers fought for freedom in Southeast Asia, blacks in the south were holding sit-ins and carrying signs, protesting segregation and fighting for their own freedom. Violence broke out against them and was shown on national TV. What did it all mean? Everyone appeared to understand the issues but me it seemed. I felt as if I was the only one standing on the corner waiting for the bus to arrive.

But we were all grappling with our own realities then. A neighborhood friend's brother, Allan, died in Vietnam. Wake-up call. In college, I campaigned for Robert Kennedy and gathered with him and others in Portland in May 1968. One month later he was assassinated in California. Wake-up call. It was only months before in April that King, too, had been assassinated. Wake-up call. When I later married, and found myself coping with racial discrimination in Mississippi and Georgia, wrestling with the unfairness of blatant prejudice on the job and housing segregation, reality slapped me in the face once again.  

Rereading King's speech, I can see that his message of freedom and brotherhood is as vital today as it was then. There are discords of disunity in the U.S. that continue to exist, but we have made progress as a nation and a people. King would be proud of just how far we have come. (Today is also President Obama's second inaugural address). But would he not also say there are battles yet to be won--not just in the struggle for racial equality, and urge us to not be afraid to be ourselves, to stand up for our beliefs? Could it be that our dream for a better way or life might just be the solution for someone else, or even the nation . . . or the world? Yes, there are risks to be had, we might say. Assassins claimed the lives of three powerful leaders who spoke their minds and inspired many in the 1960s, and there were others. But dare we take this freedom of speech lightly? I think not.

Today countless school children across the U.S. will recite Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech in his memory, and rightly so!

Copyright 2013 © Sharon Himsl