Difference between revisions of "Remember: The Journey to School Integration"

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==References==
 
==References==
[[Category:Black Racism in Fiction Novels]]
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[[Category:Black-Targeted Racism in Fiction Novels]]

Latest revision as of 09:14, 15 March 2021

Remember Book Cover

Remember: The Journey to School Integration is a fictional story with historic background and photographs depicting students during the period of integration written by By Toni Morrison. This book awarded Coretta Scott King Award. [1] Toni Morrison is a master storyteller. Her momentous novel Beloved won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. She became the first black woman who received the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1993. She is currently the Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. This book is her first historical work for children. [2]

Plot

Toni Morrison’s look at school desegregation in the 1950s and the civil rights movement that followed is all about people: those who put themselves on the line to correct injustice, to change the way things were, and to challenge accepted values, as well as everyone who benefits from those changes right now. The photo and extra content welcome us to place ourselves into this period of progress and see how it felt. [3] Assembling in excess of 50 photos portraying segregation, school scenes, and occasions preceding and following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education, Morrison, writes that "because remembering is the mind's first step toward understanding," her book is intended to take readers "on a journey through a time in American life when there was as much hate as there was love." [4]

Controversy

Morrison is careful to provide younger readers background on what happened during the Civil Rights struggle. Every one of the three segments starts with data giving setting to the photos. The first segment—“The Narrow Gate”– opens with an image of black children in a segregated school and another little girl standing and reading out loud. The content close to the photograph says,“The law says I can’t go to school with white children. Are they afraid of my socks, my braids? I am seven years old. Why are they afraid of me?” Most of the other images in this section show assorted segregated classrooms. It finishes up with a photograph of two girls strolling along a railroad track to class in Topeka, Kansas. This image is followed by the book’s second section, called “The Open Gate,” which has a topic about attempts at integration. There is first a picture of the New York Times’ first page reporting the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. On the facing page is a picture of the Supreme Court. Some of the pictures are disturbing. Three white men chasing a black man down a street. A little white boy in a Klan outfit inclining out a vehicle window. Two students fighting on a sidewalk. A white restaurant owner, his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, throwing water on protesters. White crowds haranguing black students. The book’s third segment, “The Open Gate,” also includes pictures of demonstrations of dissent and white counterprotest that were important for the Civil Rights movement, however an undeniably cheerful note arises as we move towards the book's conclusion. This is the section that includes photos of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. [5]

References

  1. Remember: A Journey to School Integration. History Explorer. Retrieved February 1 2021.
  2. Remember by Toni Morrison. Houghton Mifflin Books. Retrieved February 1 2021.
  3. Remember by Toni Morrison. Houghton Mifflin Books. Retrieved February 1 2021.
  4. REMEMBER: The Journey to School Integration. Publisher Weekly. Retrieved February 1 2021.
  5. Toni Morrison’s “Remember: The Journey To School Integration.”. Buckeymuse. Retrieved 1 February 2021.