From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 5-9–Motivated by her naive, youthful acceptance of racial injustice as a white, privileged child in Birmingham, AL, McWhorter directs her compelling retrospective at readers who likewise may not realize that history swirls around them. After a prologue that describes the emergence and impact of segregation in the United States, chapters follow chronologically, highlighting pivotal events, people, successes, and failures of "The Movement." Against the backdrop of the constitutional and moral struggle between the White House and Southern politicians, the author recounts the flamboyant resilience of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the battered determination of student leader John Lewis, the nonviolent leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the sacrificial commitment of the Freedom Riders. She also explores J. Edgar Hoover's covert manipulation of the FBI, the power struggle between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the shift from nonviolence to Black Power and urban race riots, and the national political focus on the Vietnam War. Protests, marches, boycotts, and infamous tragedies are sequenced and analyzed as catalysts that fueled the movement. Collections that already own Ellen Levine's Freedom's Children (Putnam, 1993) and James Haskins's Freedom Rides (Hyperion, 1995) will be greatly enhanced by this title. Numerous archival photos add a powerful visual dimension to the text. This engaging, stirring narrative offers a balanced presentation of the heroism and idealism as well as the political turmoil surrounding and within the civil rights movement.–Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 6-8. McWhorter's critically acclaimed adult book Carry Me Home (2002) focused on the civil rights movement in Birmingham. In this compelling but challenging children's book, McWhorter tackles the national civil rights movement from Brown v. the Board of Education to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1963 McWhorter was a sixth-grader at a segregated Birmingham school, and throughout, this account is both factual and personal. She discusses her feelings as a white child in the South, and she focuses in on the many ways in which both white and black children were involved in the movement: the brave young people who desegregated schools throughout the South, the 1,500 Birmingham students who protested and were attacked by dogs and doused by fire hoses, and white students protesting integration. In the book's most wrenching photograph, two young white children stare at the camera as a black man hangs, lynched, in the background. The breadth and depth of McWhorter's book is exemplary. In addition to learning about King and Rosa Parks, children will read of SNCC, Fred Shuttlesworth, Bayard Rustin, and Autherine Lucy. Some of the more arcane issues such as disagreements between civil rights organizations are beyond the audience, and, unfortunately, there are no source notes. But tempering the complex social and historical information is an open design laden with photographs and a childcentric viewpoint that brings this important history close. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
In this history of the modern Civil Rights movement, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter focuses on the monumental events that occurred between 1954 (the year of Brown versus the Board of Education) and 1968 (the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated). Beginning with an overview of the movement since the end of the Civil War, McWhorter also discusses such events as the 1956 MTGS bus boycott, the 1961 Freedom Rides, and the 1963 demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, among others.The author uses interviews she conducted personally with

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this history of the modern Civil Rights movement, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter focuses on the monumental events that occurred between 1954 (the year of Brown versus the Board of Education) and 1968 (the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated). Beginning with an overview of the movement since the end of the Civil War, McWhorter also discusses such events as the 1956 MTGS bus boycott, the 1961 Freedom Rides, and the 1963 demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, among others.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Pulitzer Prize winner McWhorter (Carry Me Home) offers an illuminating, sharply focused look at the individuals behind the most dramatic and defining moments of the civil rights movement. Her introduction takes a personal tone, making her account accessible to young readers, and candidly reveals her perspective on the burgeoning movement as a privileged, white sixth-grader in segregated Birmingham in 1963: "I couldn't tell you then what civil rights meant, but grown-ups sounded so disgusted when they mentioned them that I figured they had to be bad words.... The oppression of African Americans around me did not strike me as having anything to do with my life." Yet nearly two decades of researching and writing this history enabled McWhorter to "cross `the color line' and honor the American heroes who had been on the right side of the revolution." Supplemented by concise, invitingly designed sidebars and photos ranging from appalling to uplifting, the narrative chronicles the people and organizations involved in the battle for freedom. Following a brief prologue, the author devotes a chapter to the fight's major milestones, beginning with the Supreme Court's Brown v. the Board of Education decision and the tragic death of 14-year-old Emmett Till, and including the courageous attempts of the Little Rock Nine and Ruby Bridges to attend newly desegregated schools (the author also describes what they achieved as adults), the anti-segregation efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (cofounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who contributes a foreword to this book) and the pivotal 1963 March on Washington. McWhorter adroitly shapes an emotion-charged, comprehensive account of a defining moment in American history. Ages 9-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Peg Glisson

McWhorter, who grew up a privileged white girl in Birmingham during the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties, has spent much of her adult life researching and putting into perspective that turbulent time. She integrates the personal and factual in this compelling and hard-hitting history of the movement from the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education decision through the 1968 shooting of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Moving chronologically, she details the issues of the people and the organizations spearheading the movement, candidly revealing the internal struggles between the major organizations and the "warts and wrinkles" of the more public figures. The real heroes, though, are the ordinary folk, and especially the children, some named and many unnamed, who kept the movement alive. In the epilogue, she concludes the movement retains its hold on us because it gives America meaning, revealing us at our worst, yet also showing the best of the human spirit, modeling how all peoples can lay claim to their right to the pursuit of happiness. Attractively designed, there are numerous sidebars, reprints of posters and newspaper pages, and many, many photographs, all of which will help the reader understand the era. She never sensationalizes the events, but she does allow emotion into her text. There are suggestions for further reading, but unfortunately there are no source notes. 2004, Scholastic, Ages 10 up.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-Motivated by her naive, youthful acceptance of racial injustice as a white, privileged child in Birmingham, AL, McWhorter directs her compelling retrospective at readers who likewise may not realize that history swirls around them. After a prologue that describes the emergence and impact of segregation in the United States, chapters follow chronologically, highlighting pivotal events, people, successes, and failures of "The Movement." Against the backdrop of the constitutional and moral struggle between the White House and Southern politicians, the author recounts the flamboyant resilience of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the battered determination of student leader John Lewis, the nonviolent leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the sacrificial commitment of the Freedom Riders. She also explores J. Edgar Hoover's covert manipulation of the FBI, the power struggle between the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the shift from nonviolence to Black Power and urban race riots, and the national political focus on the Vietnam War. Protests, marches, boycotts, and infamous tragedies are sequenced and analyzed as catalysts that fueled the movement. Collections that already own Ellen Levine's Freedom's Children (Putnam, 1993) and James Haskins's Freedom Rides (Hyperion, 1995) will be greatly enhanced by this title. Numerous archival photos add a powerful visual dimension to the text. This engaging, stirring narrative offers a balanced presentation of the heroism and idealism as well as the political turmoil surrounding and within the civil rights movement.-Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews