On March 2, 1955, a young African American woman boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., took her seat and, minutes later, refused the driver’s command to surrender it to a white passenger. “It felt like Harriet Tubman was pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth was pushing me down on the other shoulder,”… Read more »
The Amazon book editors named Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice one of the 100 Biographies & Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime. What fine company Claudette is in. Have a Goodreads account? You can cast your vote for your favorite biographies, autobiographies and memoirs!
Recently I visited the Washington Middle School for Girls, in Washington DC. The appearance was arranged through An Open Book Children’s Literacy Foundation, a non-profit organization formed “to improve literacy among disadvantaged children and teens in the greater Washington, D.C. area by giving schools and students books and access to authors and illustrators.” I was… Read more »
Our many thanks to the righteous folks at The Robert H. Jackson Center for keeping the honorable Supreme Justice’s civil rights legacy alive. The center honored Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice with state-wide book donations to schools in New York and an essay contest. Phil was happy to be on hand to congratulate… Read more »
Every student knows the Rosa Parks story. When students discover there was a teenager before Rosa and a teenager that was silenced, their sense of injustice is piqued. The students connect with Claudette Colvin because they know what it feels like to be ignored or dismissed because of their age. Katherine Rosario spoke nicely about… Read more »
Our thanks to Bloggity Blog Blog for the post More Than Just a History Lesson for encouraging a taste of Civil Rights History in English class… “Although I know that there will be English teachers who won’t like to teach a book like this and see it better fit in a history class, we as… Read more »
“Did you know that someone before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person? Did you know that someone was a fifteen year old girl” So begins the wonderful review of Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Ms. Hughes who teaches 6th Grade Reading at Wilde Lake Middle… Read more »
Pleased that Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice and We Were There Too: Young People in U.S. History are included in the University of Delaware’s Freedom Project: Teaching American History program this year. Phil Hoose will be speaking to educators there on July 26, 2011. The goals of the TAH Freedom Project are (1) increased teacher… Read more »
I hoped that Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice would change the way we talk about the Montgomery bus protest. I think it has. It isn’t just that then 15-year-old Claudette Colvin took great risks and suffered great consequences before Rosa Parks famously did exactly what she did nearly a year later. It is, that as… Read more »
As this African American History Month comes to a close and the book celebrates its second anniversary with a paperback release, it is gratifying to see Claudette’s name so often mentioned alongside that of Rosa Parks. Even the White House dog, Bo mentioned Claudette’s contribution in his blog: “While it was clearly Rosa Parks’ destiny to… Read more »