Risking Everything and Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader edited by Michael Edmonds
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. Lives of iconic civil rights leaders are well known. This book chronicles grassroots organizers who aren’t icons, but equally important. 44 documents provide history regarding thoughts and attitudes of the time period. Affidavits versus Klan ledgers (prayer included) provide a voice for activists and the opposition. The compelling documentation in this book was preserved by the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs by Pearl Cleage
Would you share a diary that chronicles twenty years of your life with the world? Despite her daughter’s insistence that she burn the diaries, Cleage fluidly details her journey through the stages of womanhood from 1970-1990. During Cleage’s “epic” we meet famous and ordinary people. Childbirth, love, politics, and feminism inform Cleage’s choices, mistakes, and discoveries. Luckily for the reader, Cleage’s perilous journey is a display of pure artistry.
Michelle @ Villard Square