This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson through prose and poetry. In 1968 she witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination--when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.
Tells the true story of Jackie Robinson's battle against prejudice while serving in the military during World War II, covering his court-martial for refusing to move to the back of an integrated bus.
Six days a week, slaves labor from sunup to sundown and beyond, but on Sunday afternoons, they gather with free blacks at Congo Square outside New Orleans, free from oppression. Includes foreword about Congo Square by Freddi Williams Evans, glossary, and author's historical note
A young boy ponders a variety of emotions and how different members of his family experience them, from his own blues to his father's grays and his grandmother's yellows
A series of poems written from the point of view of the poet Langston Hughes, offering an overview of key events and themes in his life
Once there was a time when the people of the earth did not have to tend the fields, for the Sun's daughters-Maize, Pumpkin, and Red Bean-walked among them, leaving lush crops wherever they stepped. But then headstrong Maize disobeyed her mother and was trapped by cold, lonely Silver, and the Sun vowed not to touch the earth again until Maize was returned. How the tiny pewee bird saved Maize and kept the people from starving is eloquently told in this tale, which, though based on an Iroquois legend, parallels the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter
Philip Reid was an enslaved African American who volunteered to work with the delicate plaster mold needed to create Freedom, the statue that stands atop the capital building in Washington, D.C
Presents a poem celebrating the African-American experience and what it means to be part of a strong, proud, and free people
Relates the story of the National Memorial African Bookstore, founded in Harlem by Louis Michaux in 1939, as seen from the perspective of Louis Michaux Jr., who met famous men like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X while helping there
After dancing to music on the radio before she goes to bed, a young girl learns how to sing scat when Louis Armstrong comes to her in a dream. Includes facts about Louis Armstrong and scat singing