Schwartz, Heather E. Locked Up For Freedom: Civil Rights
Protesters at the Leesburg Stockade, 55 pages.
Millbrook (Lerner), 2017.
$34. Content: PG
Schwartz brings to light an overlooked episode in the 1960’s
Civil Rights Movement. While several
books have been written about the Birmingham Children’s March, nothing has been
previously written about the teenaged girls who protested in Americus, Georgia
in the famous summer of 1963, which ended with over 30 of them being spirited
away to an old Civil war stockade, with all of them confined to one cell meant
for four, with no fresh water, lice filled mattresses, and permanently clogged
toilets. Some of the girls were there
for as long as two months, and none of the girls’ parents knew where they were. Later it even came to light that they were
never actually charged. It was only
after photographs of the girls emerged that they were finally released.
Sorry for the long summary, but I despair that as a nation
we are no farther along now than we were then.
Schwartz includes a nod to the civil rights problems of today. I will happily be adding this to my
collection.
MS – ADVISABLE.
Cindy, Library Teacher.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment