7. Why do you think Mr. Peterson assigned Evelyn to mentor Colleen? What did they have in common? What did they learn from each other?
8. During the school year, Colleen was frequently the only white person in a group. Think of a situation in which you were the “only” one in a group. Were you comfortable? Why? Why not?
9. When the segregated schools were combined, the black high school students lost their positions on student council, the football team, and the cheerleading squad. The novel focuses on the seniors who lost other school social opportunities and risked losing the privilege to graduate. Did you expect the student demonstration to remain nonviolent? Why did it?
10. Frank feared that he and his family might be hurt, even killed, as retribution for his revealing his suspicions about his father’s death. Did you think his effort to protect his family was courageous, or did he take the easy way out by giving Mr. Peterson the evidence he’d hidden?
11. The midyear overnight closure of the black school and its mandated integration into the white school was enforced through the illegal continued use of a Freedom of Choice plan. Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision issued in 1954, wasn’t fully successful in enforcing school desegregation. Five years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it took the threat of financial loss to integrate the schools. Are more laws necessary to enforce integration and civil rights today?
SELECTED TITLES
FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
In a Silent Way by Mary Jo Hetzel. $16.95, 978-1-63152-135-5. When Jeanna Kendall—a young white teacher at a progressive urban school—becomes involved with a community activist group, she finds herself grappling with issues of racism, sexism, and oppression of various shades in both her professional and personal life.
The Rooms Are Filled by Jessica Null Vealitzek. $16.95, 978-1-938314-58-2. The coming-of-age story of two outcasts—a nine-year-old boy who just lost his father, and a closeted young woman—brought together by circumstance.
Class Letters: Instilling Intangible Lessons through Letters by Claire Chilton Lopez. $16.95, 978-1-938314-28-5. A high school English teacher discovers surprising truths about her students when she exchanges letters with them over the course of a school year.
American Family by Catherine Marshall-Smith. $16.95, 978-1631521638. Partners Richard and Michael, recovering alcoholics, struggle to gain custody of Richard’s biological daughter from her grandparents after her mother’s death only to discover they—and she—are fundamentalist Christians.
Shelter Us by Laura Diamond. $16.95, 978-1-63152-970-2. Lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom Sarah Shaw is still struggling to find a steady happiness after the death of her infant daughter when she meets a young homeless mother and toddler she can’t get out of her mind—and becomes determined to rescue them.
Again and Again by Ellen Bravo. $16.95, 978-1-63152-939-9. When the man who raped her roommate in college becomes a Senate candidate, women’s rights leader Deborah Borenstein must make a choice—one that could determine control of the Senate, the course of a friendship, and the fate of a marriage.
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