Teaser Tuesday With a Twist: WE ARE ONE: THE STORY OF BAYARD RUSTIN

TEASER TUESDAY WITH A TWIST
(rules for myself)

Grab a history book.

Find a passage I love.

Share a few teaser sentences.

Choosing a book for this week's teaser was no problem. However, selecting just one incredible passage was more difficult. In the end, I decided to play off yesterday's post in which Augusta Scattergood reviewed Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

Also yesterday, this book arrived on my doorstep.

We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin
by Larry Dane Brimner

And what a story it is! In 1942, thirteen years before Claudette Colvin refused to give her bus seat to a white person there was this incident.

From the book: (The ellipses indicate omitted sentences)

Then on a trip from Louisville to Nashville in 1942, something happened.

Bayard boarded a bus and took the second seat. Seeing him, the driver told Bayard to move....

"I believe I have a right to sit here," Bayard said...

Bayard considered the child sitting across from him. How many more years was that little white child going to suffer the injustice of thinking that blacks were inferior?

He became steadfast in his determination to remain in his seat.

At every stop, Bayard refused.

Sometimes life cooperated so completely! Baryard had long been reading about Mohandas K. Gandhi and his philosophy of direct nonviolent action in India's struggle for independence. Exasperated, the driver called ahead to the police and, just outside Nashville, four officers dragged Bayard off the bus and began beating him.

Like Gandhi, Bayard did not resist. Instead, he shielded the blows. "There is no reason to beat me," he calmly explained. "I am not resisting you."

There is so much more to Bayard's story - decades of nonviolent action. I want to share much more of this but for now, I'll simply say that author, Larry Dane Brimner has given readers a magnificent gift.

Brimner and We Are One - won the 2008 Norman A. Sugarman Award for the most outstanding biography published in the United States in the last two years.

CLAUDETTE COLVIN: TWICE TOWARD JUSTICE

Just in time for non-fiction Monday, Augusta Scattergood drops by with a review for a book that has thrilled the children's book world.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
By Phillip Hoose (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009)

I don't read as much non-fiction for kids as I used to. Or as I'd like to. As a school librarian, working with teachers and students who thrived on good books, I appreciated it when a writer published terrific informational books kids loved to read and students and their teachers were also able to use for research. And although I’m no longer a working librarian, it’s hard to give up the mindset: I’m always thinking about how a “true” book might be used in the classroom and whether the author’s research stands up to scrutiny.

Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice passed all my tests, including the readability factor. I devoured it in one sitting.

I grew up in the South of the 60s. I knew a bit about the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, but like many other events of the time, much was left out of the story I’d been told. Yes, Rosa Parks, sometimes known as the godmother of the Civil Rights movement, is the name most associated with starting the boycott. But what this new book shows readers is that more than one person had a hand in this history-changing event. Many people, both black and white, stood up to the injustices they witnessed. And a young girl, much less well-known than most of the names associated with the Montgomery boycott, also refused to give up her seat on the bus.

Phillip Hoose learned about Claudette Colvin while researching an earlier book, We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History. He tracked her down and eventually convinced her to grant him fourteen interviews. Much of the book is told in her words, her own personal history of the time.

The sidebars alone might constitute an entire lesson plan for teachers. A facsimile of a handwritten list attributed to NAACP secretary Rosa Parks shows contributions made by churches to Colvin’s case. A photograph of the “Rex Theatre for Colored People,” accompanied by a ticket bought for a mere 15¢ in the mid 1950s, illustrates Claudette’s text about the Jim Crow laws that were so pervasive in downtown Montgomery when she was growing up. Newspapers, photographs, descriptions of the town and the players in the boycott— so much detail, so many fascinating facts to pour over. This book is a gem.

Deservedly, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice has been bestowed with awards and high praise. A Newbery Honor, a National Book Award, too many “best” lists to mention.

In 2005, Colvin returned to her high school in Montgomery to speak to students. She tells them

“I made a personal statement, too… Mine was the first cry for justice, and a loud one. I made it so that our own adult leaders couldn’t just be nice anymore. Back then, as a teenager, I kept thinking, Why don’t the adults around here just say something?... I knew then and I know now that, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it… You have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.’

And I did.”

Phillip Hoose’s book illuminates a troubled time in our country’s history by detailing the impact of one significant event, the Montgomery Bus protest of 1955 and 1956.With this book, through the eyes of its leaders and a few ordinary people, young readers have a fresh perspective, new insights and information to interpret the Civil Rights movement.

I'm so grateful to Augusta for reviewing this for us. BTW - there's a gripping excerpt at the MacMillan website.

BOOK TRAILER: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

On Monday Augusta Scattergood will be my guest here, sharing her review of the National Book Award and Newbery Honor winning,Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (by Phillip Hoose).

Meanwhile you can meet both Phillip Hoose and Claudette Colvin herself in this engaging video.


And since (unless you live in Hawaii) there is snow in your state, you may as well enjoy another video while you are at it. This is Phillip Hoose accepting the National Book Award with Claudette Colvin at his side. I really love that this was not one of those fluttery OMG acceptances. I love the quiet dignity of their walk to the lectern. I love that this man sought out history and shared a little known history maker with us. I think I have a new literary hero. Not because of the award but because of the respect that oozes from Phillip Hoose's pores.

Phillip Hoose and Claudette Colvin, 2009 National Book Awards Dinner from National Book Foundation on Vimeo.