Sanderia Faye

It took me a while to get into this book, but it was well worth the effort for me. This story brings an unusual perspective (for me) to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Focusing on a 12-year-old black girl growing up in rural Arkansas, raised by her grandmother and great-grandmother, the story shows the resistance to civil rights activists, even when they come out of the community, the power of religion and its way to control and hold back rural communities, and the intricate power connections between the influential black and white leaders of such a small community. And the power of women.… (altro)

This is THE DEFINITVE BOOK of a child's view of the Civil Rights struggle in rural Alabama in the mid '60s. Sarah lives with her great Granny and her grandmother Muhdea in Meaby, where her highest concern is receiving her call to Jesus so she can be baptized. That is, until her mother Esther comes back from up North and decides to run for local office, with the assistance of SNCC. Sarah, at first indifferent to Esther's activism, changes when she is told that she'll be in the first integrated class in the Meaby school system. She also spends a day as a field hand and is cheated out of $2 by the nasty farm owner and town racist. The last straw is when Sarah goes to a neighboring town to try and register voters (SNCC pays $10, more than a day chopping soybeans, even if she'd gotten her full pay) and is completely discouraged by the defeated adults all around her. She becomes a full tilt fourth grade activist and a proud defender of the justice movement.

This is a painfully vivid look at the oppression of black people in the most backwards area of America. Yet Sarah, so lively, smart, and honest, represents true hope in its most valiant form.… (altro)