Evictions? Voting Rights? Echoes of American History

Since today is the "last day" of BLACK HISTORY MONTH, I should hurry to get this review posted, right?  

WRONG! 

The spotlight that this themed month offers on critical aspects of American history involving Black Americans is more than welcome, but my concern has always been that the topics, historic figures, and focus of attention are narrowed to this particular (shortest) month of the year. While teaching, I was aware of many teachers who had a set of lessons and/or collection of books that were routinely used during February, then packed away until the next year's students flipped that calendar page. 

Better than nothing? Yes. 

Sharing some otherwise neglected or intentionally hidden history? Yes.

Inadvertently teaching students that the rest of the year will be (conveniently?) directed toward a familiar and falsely narrow version of America and its past?  Yes.

This is why I've actively addressed this concern of mine since I created this blog more than a decade ago. Theme months of any kind, but ESPECIALLY Black History Month, results in a double-edged sword.

Even so, I am intentionally sharing this remarkable new picture book I received from CALKINS CREEK/Astra Books (with no promise of a review) because it serves as such an important asset in the lives of young readers. In this case, the publishers have indicated that the target audience is middle grade and teen readers. And YES, picture books are for all ages!

Calkins Creek/Astra books, 2022

EVICTED: The Struggle for the Right to Vote is written by Alice Faye Duncan and illustrated by Charly Palmer, each an award-winning creator of outstanding books in their own right. In this case the title alone seems to be ripped from the pages of current news headlines, but in fact depicts a time and place in our shared history that few have learned about, even during this dedicated theme month.

The cover illustration also indicates the personal, specific individuals who are the little-known heroes of this nonfiction and deeply researched account. Using intense, impressionistic brush strokes and colors, Palmer's cover are and interior illustrations manage to convey both the strength and suffering of one of the "tent city" families who suffered indignities and denial of their rights to vote while maintaining family and community unity. 

In the 1950s, Fayette County, Tennessee was the third largest land area in that state and the third poorest county in the entire country. That is directly tied to the fact that more than two-thirds of the population of that county were Black sharecroppers, managing to maintain homes and families despite the inequities and imbalance of a sharecropper's life. They dealt with the expenses, round-the-clock demands, and endless risks of a farmer's life, with the added burden of landowners' meager compensation, control of funding, and outright cheating. 

Although it was legal for all adults to vote, only thirty Black citizens were registered in that county at that time. Outrght threats, fires, and lynchings ensured that white rule prevailed. In 1959, though, when a local sharecropper's trial enflamed the spirit and dignity of the wider Black population, a movement that came to be called the FAYETTE COUNTY TENT CITY MOVEMENT to acquire and use voting rights eventually contributed to the passage of the federal VOTING RIGHTS ACT. 

I don't usually begin my comments with such explanatory content, but I'm convinced that MANY other readers here have never heard of this part of American history. I had not. When the author was gifted a photographic book about this movement that featured specific individuals and families who helped to achieve eventual success, she resolved to create a portrait of them and their story in an appropriate book for younger readers. This is the result of her decision and actual visits, interviews, and research about that neglected chapter of our shared history. 

The account is preceded by several annotated/illustrated spreads providing Palmer's portraits of key figures of that time and change. Then a one-page direct address to readers from the author summarizes what the Movement was about and what it accomplished, at what sacrifices to the participants. The last line on that introduction is this:

"Record their conquering civil rights struggle for generations to come. Remember it. Pass it on."

The movement was inspired by a trial of a local preacher, who had escaped to the north to avoid being lynched, only to be returned for trial years later, in 1959. He was convicted and served his time. But the jury was all white, because jurors were drawn from the ranks of registered voters, and Black people were prevented from registering. As mentioned earlier, it was at risk of life and family's lives to even attempt registration. This realization launched leaders who set out to register black voters.

With page turns that reveal the unfolding story through individual specific voices of victims, organizers, participants, and others who eventually supported the movement, this account comes to life with drama and intensity. Readers are drawn into the lives and emotions of the adults and children who held fast to their intention to exercise their rights as American citizens, regardless of the cost. Some who are profiled took part in school integration with all the risks that triggered.

"Outsiders" came to support the movement as it stretched from months to years. Even so, the wheels of political change turn slowly and the changes they rightly demanded were slow in coming. Even so, or perhaps as a result of their prolonged strength and resilience, laws did change and lives improved. 

Except for this... 

Many Americans are convinced that the Civil Rights laws of the sixties meant things are changed and everything is better now. Nice and neat, all wrapped up in a pretty bow. In a way, as convenient and comfortable a thought as the packing away of Black History Month books and lesson plans on February 28 each year. But more than half the states in our country are actively passing laws to restrict access to voting, and eviction remains a punitive practice that is driven by economic benefits to the landowners. Not as much has changed as needs to. Added to that legislative effort are countless bills/laws that are intentionally meant to "BAN" books like this from classrooms because they might bring up some "feelings" among some students. 

The much-distorted and politicized CRITICAL RACE THEORY complaints would keep discussions of Black history out of schools. Well, CRT is a post-graduate course of study in law schools, not in elementary, middle grade, or high schools. But a consequence of this exaggerated and distorted effort might keep young Americans from learning about their country's history and the importance of FREEDOM to exercise rights for EVERYONE.

That author message is not only intended to keep a piece of history alive, though that should be done. Reading this should also enliven young people to learn, to act, to recognize and support today's individual leaders and local heroes, like the ones finally documented in this account. I am so grateful to have had a chance to read this historic account, and to share it with other readers here. I follow many reviewers, seek out information about new releases, and hear about picture books from many sources. Even so, this title had not reached my attention. That, as with the loss to history of the original story, is an enormous problem. I urge everyone to find and read and promote this book. I intend to do that. And while you are at it, join my little effort to assure that sharing BLACK HISTORY is a year-round effort. Every year.