Race Relations/Civil Rights

Sebestyen, Oudia - Words by Heart (162 pages) A young black girl struggles to fulfill her papa’s dream of a better future for their family in the southwestern town where, in 1910, they are the only blacks.

Smothers, Ethel - Moriah’s Pond (111 pages) While she and her older sisters are staying with their great-grandmother, 10-year-old Annie Rye learns about prejudice first hand when a local white girl causes Annie’s sister to be unjustly punished.

Tate, Eleanora - Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! (237 pages) The children of Gumbo Grove Elementary School discover the contributions of many famous Afro-Americans during Black History Month.

Taylor, Mildred –

• The Friendship (53 pages) Four children witness a confrontation between an elderly man and a white storekeeper in Mississippi in the 1930’s.
• Mississippi Bridge (62 pages) During a heavy rainstorm in 1930’s rural Mississippi, a ten-year-old white boy sees a bus driver order all the black passengers off a crowded bus to make room for late-arriving white passengers and then set off across the raging Rosa Lee River.
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (276 pages) This Newbery Award winning book tells the story of a black family living in the South during the 1930’s who is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand. The sequel to this book is Let the Circle be Unbroken.
• The Well: David’s Story (92 pages) In Mississippi, in the early 1900s, ten-year-old David Logan’s family generously shares their well water with both white and black neighbors in an atmosphere of potential racial violence.

Wilkinson, Brenda - Not Separate, Not Equal (152 pages) Malene, one of a group of six blacks to integrate a Georgia public high school in the mid-sixties, experiences hatred and racism, as well as the beginnings of the civil rights movement.

Winslow, Vicki - Follow the Leader (215 pages) In 1971 in a small North Carolina town, 11-year-old Amanda must deal with being bussed to a newly integrated, formerly all-black school and being separated from her best friend, who has chosen a private school.