With the Might of Angels (25 page)

Negro History Week was created by historian Carter G. Woodson to bring national attention to the achievements of black people in America. Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because it marks the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

Negro History Week became Black History Month in 1976, and in recent years has been renamed African American History Month.

Here are important civil rights events that would have happened during Dawnie Rae’s lifetime.

1954 May 17
The Supreme Court rules against segregation in public schools in the landmark case
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1955 August 28
Emmett Louis Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Mississippi, is lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman. The crime draws widespread media attention.

December 1
Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama, refuses to give up her seat to a white man at the front of a segregated bus. This act of bravery ignites the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. African Americans refuse to ride city buses for more than one year. After a Supreme Court ruling on December 21, 1956, Montgomery, Alabama, buses are desegregated.

1957 January–February
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is established with the help of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who becomes the SCLC’s first president. The SCLC promotes nonviolence as a means for social change.

September
The Little Rock Nine, a group of black students in Little Rock, Arkansas, enroll in Central High School, an all-white school. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus prevents the students from entering the school. The students are allowed to enter when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends the National Guard to protect them.

1960 February 1
Four African American college freshmen sit at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. They refuse to leave the counter until they are served. As a result, the Greensboro sit-ins begin, and spark sit-ins throughout the nation.

April
Activist Ella Baker helps form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Shaw University in North Carolina. The group’s purpose is to help young people organize peaceful civil rights demonstrations.

1961 May 4
Thousands of student volunteers begin “Freedom Rides” throughout the South. To
test laws that prohibit segregation, these young people, black and white, travel on buses together. The students must endure violence. They are supported by SNCC and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).

1962 October 1
James Meredith is the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. James is met by angry mobs. President John F. Kennedy sends 5,000 federal troops to help.

1963 April 16
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writes his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after being arrested and put in jail during a protest in Birmingham, Alabama. His letter outlines the meaning of justice.

August 28
Nearly 250,000 people gather at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his world-famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

1964 July 2
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws racial segregation in public places.

Andrea Davis Pinkney is the
New York Times
best-selling and award-winning author of many books for children and young adults, including picture books, novels, works of historical fiction, and nonfiction.

She is the author of several notable titles, including the historical fiction novel
Bird in a Box
and the nonfiction picture books
Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down,
a Parents’ Choice Award winner and winner of the Carter G. Woodson Award for historical works for young people;
Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride,
a Jane Addams Honor Book and
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year; the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book
Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
;
Duke Ellington,
a Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor Book; and
Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation,
winner of the Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award. Andrea was named one of the “25 Most Influential
People in Our Children’s Lives” by
Children’s Health Magazine.

She lives in New York City with her husband and frequent collaborator, award-winning illustrator Brian Pinkney, and their two children.

About writing
With the Might of Angels,
Andrea says, “I come from a long line of civil rights activists, the closest to me being my late father, Philip J. Davis. In 1959 Dad was selected as one of the first African American student interns in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was later named by the White House as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of labor and director of the office of federal contract compliance.

“In this role, Dad became the prime author of federal affirmative action legislation. Additionally, he advised several presidential administrations on the legalities of fair labor practices for African Americans and women.

“When I was six years old, Dad enrolled me in first grade at an all-white elementary school, where I was the only black student. (Mom was a teacher at a school in another district, so it was Dad’s job to escort me to Mrs. Lewis’s class.)

“Recently, in speaking to my mom about my
experience of going to an all-white grade school, I asked if Dad had any involvement in the legislation surrounding school integration or the
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court ruling. Mom’s first answer was no, but she then dug through Dad’s personal belongings and memorabilia from his days on Capitol Hill, and found a weighty three-ring binder from a civil rights conference Dad had attended. The notebook’s cover was marked
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION — ‘Confronting the Promise.’
The gathering of civil rights leaders commemorated the fortieth anniversary of
Brown v. Board of Education.
It had been held in Williamsburg, Virginia, and focused on school integration in the state of Virginia.

“Dad’s family is originally from Culpeper, Virginia, and he was always very proud of this. He took great care in learning about Virginia’s history, politics, and the legacy of African Americans in Virginia.

“I pored over the binder’s pages, a comprehensive collection of materials Dad had saved, including news articles, litigation documents, magazine editorials on school integration, copies of archival photographs, state maps, and more.

“The notebook was divided into tabbed sections. There was one entitled ‘The Virginia Experience,’ which contained an assortment of articles about school integration written in the mid 1950s and early 1960s. These were published in
U.S. News & World Report,
the
Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek,
and other publications.

“(Like Dawnie’s daddy, my own father was an avid reader of newspapers and periodicals. And, he collected documents and papers that were of special interest to him.)

“The pages in Dad’s binder whopped me on the head like a two-by-four — they told such a compelling story!

“Though I’d attended the all-white elementary school more than a decade after the
Brown v. Board of Education
decision, I still felt a keen sense of loneliness and isolation as the school’s only black student. I didn’t experience the torment Dawnie did, but was plagued by a phenomenon I’ve come to call ‘anxious apartness.’

“As a child, I could not fully understand or articulate these feelings, but they were very real.

“Dad’s collection of materials and my own school experience compelled me to craft a school integration story for today’s readers.

“Dawnie Rae Johnson’s diary is a fictionalized account of the events surrounding school integration in the state of Virginia. Dawnie’s narrative is inspired by several harrowing integration stories, including that of my own cousin John Mullen, who, as a direct result of the
Brown v. Board of Education
ruling, integrated Homer L. Ferguson High School in Newport News, Virginia. I also spoke to others who shared similar struggles and triumphs at school.

“Integration at the Fort Myer military base in Virginia serves as the model for this book’s fictional town, Hadley, which, for the purposes of this story, is set in Lee County, a real county in the state of Virginia.

“In order to align the dates of Dawnie’s diary with the day upon which the
Brown v. Board of Education
ruling happened, I’ve begun her story in May 1954.

“Though most schools did not integrate at that time, I felt it important to directly link the
Brown v. Board of Education
decision with immediate school integration, so that young readers could connect the two. Also, setting the diary narratives in 1954–1955 enabled the story to include pivotal civil rights and historical events that occurred
during that time, and that had a direct effect on school integration.

“Although this diary is a work of fiction, many of the events cited actually happened on the dates they occur in the book. These include the
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court ruling, the appointment of Governor Thomas B. Stanley’s Commission on Public Education, the formation of the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus protest of young Claudette Colvin, the premiere of
Sports Illustrated
magazine, and the folding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The facts about Jackie Robinson are also true.

“While the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr., at Dawnie’s church is fiction, young Martin visited many different churches throughout the South, where he encouraged members to become registered voters and active members of the NAACP. He also preached the importance of nonviolence.

“In 1954, Martin became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. It was at this time that his career as a preacher and civil rights leader began to gain public recognition.

“The Sutter’s Dairy Boycott is also fictional, though in December 1955, Martin Luther King, Jr., led the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, ignited by Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a segregated city bus.

“Although I was the only black student at my very first grade school, my experience was not nearly as harsh as Dawnie’s. I’ve often asked myself if I could have endured what Dawnie suffered. Thankfully, like Dawnie, I am rooted in a strong family whose loving arms got me through the loneliest times.

“I wrote this book to remind young readers of the great privilege they enjoy — that of attending any school they wish, with classmates of all races — and to show them that even in the harshest situations, hope can shine through the darkest days.”

Like Dawnie Rae, I was blessed “with the might of angels” in the creation of this book. Special thanks to Katherine Wilkins, reference librarian, Virginia Historical Society, whose careful attention to the details involving school integration and legislation in the state of Virginia helped me solidify and round out the facts in Dawnie’s narrative.

I thank my cousin John Mullen, whose colorful recounting of his own integration experiences in Newport News, Virginia, gave life to Dawnie’s story and that of her family. Thanks, too, to Rhonda Joy McLean, who integrated her school in Smithfield, North Carolina, and who generously shared her memories with me.

Thank you, all my friends and colleagues at Scholastic for inviting Dawnie Rae Johnson into the Dear America fold, and for fostering a love of history through the Dear America series.

Elizabeth Parisi, special thanks to you for designing such an engaging book cover. Thanks, too, to artist Tim O’Brien for your portrait depicting Dawnie with beauty and dignity. Thank you, Elizabeth Starr Baer, for your amazing copyediting talents and your eagle-eyed fact-checking of the material.

Rebecca Sherman, my agent, and Lisa Sandell, my editor, you are both angels without whose might I could not have written this book. I thank you for your keen editorial insights, and for the care with which you each helped me polish Dawnie’s story.

Thanks to Mom, for being the keeper of memories, and for somehow always managing to pull the right rabbit from the right hat, at the right moment.

Finally, thanks to the angels who live under the same roof as I do — my daughter, Chloe, and son, Dobbin, who listened to Dawnie’s story for months and offered invaluable suggestions for making her real.

Finally, a loving thank-you to my brightest angel of all, Brian Pinkney, for reading each and every one of this diary’s entries, for laughing in all the right places, and for helping me bring power and grace to Dawnie Rae and the Johnson family.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:

Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.

Cover background: High School, Library of Congress (LC-D4-71582).

George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit outside the Supreme Court, AP Photo.

Sign for Colored Dining Room on an outhouse, Esther Bubley/Bettmann/Corbis.

“Colored Only” sign on water fountain, Bettmann/Corbis.

One of the Little Rock Nine, being verbally abused as she attempts to enter the school, ullstein bild/The Image Works.

Soldiers of 101st Airborne Division push white students away for the safety of the Little Rock Nine, in Central High School, SZ Photo/The Image Works.

Black students attempt to enter North Little Rock High School, Clyde Priest/Bettmann/Corbis.

A black girl protected by a National Guardsman as she enters Little Rock High School, Topham/The Image Works.

Two black students entering Norview Senior High in Norfolk, Virginia, AP Photo.

A black student in class in Norfolk, Virginia, ibid.

Police officers escorting black students out of the Jackson Public Library, Jackson, Mississippi, ibid.

Four black students sit-in at lunch counter to protest segregation, Jack Moebes/Corbis.

Tension at a segregated lunch cafeteria as black students ask for service, AP Photo.

March on Washington for civil rights, August 28, 1963, Wally McNamee/Corbis.

Thurgood Marshall, foreground, left, walking out of the Supreme Court, Donald Uhrbrock/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Jackie Robinson, Roger-Viollet/The Image Works.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his office with photo of Mahatma Gandhi, Bob Fitch/Take Stock/The Image Works.

Rosa Parks, Paul Schutzer/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Mary McLeod Bethune with Eleanor Roosevelt, Topham/The Image Works.

Claudette Colvin, AP Photo.

Ruby Bridges, ibid.

Map by Jim McMahon.