The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement

by Teri Kanefield (Author)

The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement
Reading Level: 4th − 5th Grade
Before the Little Rock Nine, before Rosa Parks, before Martin Luther King Jr. and his March on Washington, there was Barbara Rose Johns, a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing the unfair conditions in her racially segregated high school, Barbara Johns led a walkout--the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.--jumpstarting the American civil rights movement. Ridiculed by the white superintendent and school board, local newspapers, and others, and even after a cross was burned on the school grounds, Barbara and her classmates held firm and did not give up. Her school's case went all the way to the Supreme Court and helped end segregation as part of Brown v. Board of Education.
Barbara Johns grew up to become a librarian in the Philadelphia school system. The Girl from the Tar Paper School mixes biography with social history and is illustrated with family photos, images of the school and town, and archival documents from classmates and local and national news media. The book includes a civil rights timeline, bibliography, and index.

Praise for The Girl from the Tar Paper School
"An important glimpse into the early civil rights movement."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Based largely on interviews, memoirs, and other primary source material, and liberally illustrated with photographs, this well-researched slice of civil rights history will reward readers who relish true stories of unsung heroes."
--The Bulletin of The Center for Children's Books
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Hardcover
$19.95

Publishers Weekly

Kanefield (Rivka's Way) reveals Barbara Johns as an unsung civil rights pioneer in this biography for middle-grade readers. As the architect of a student strike in the segregated American south of the 1950s, Johns drew attention to the substandard school conditions she and fellow African-American classmates endured, often in classrooms with tar papered walls. "When it rained, the roofs leaked.... Some students sat under umbrellas so the ink on their papers wouldn't run." In piecing together this account of the courageous, outspoken Johns and the strike at Virginia's Moton High School, the author mines several sources, including Johns' handwritten memoir and interviews Kanefield conducted with Johns's family and friends. Numerous archival and contemporary photos appear throughout, and sidebars cover segregation, the KKK, and other relevant topics. While Johns' innovative, nonviolent protest against racial inequity didn't play out as expected, it did end up a part of the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, helping bring an end to school segregation. This stirring tribute to Johns is an important addition to any student collection of civil rights books. Ages 10-14. (Jan.)

Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

Starred Review

Gr 6 Up--This is the story of a Farmville, Virginia high schooler, who, in 1953, led a student strike for a better-built school on par with the building for white students. Although she was known as a quiet, reserved student, Johns was so incensed about the terrible conditions in which she and her classmates were required to learn that she engineered the exit of the principal from her school, mocked up a call to assembly, and then led students out on strike. She contacted the NAACP, which counseled that students return to class. When they refused, the organization told Johns that it would support only movements for integration. Students then worked to get an agreement to request integration from their parents and the broader black community. Once the community aligned behind integration as the eventual goal and a lawsuit was filed, students returned to class. The suit filed on behalf of the Farmville students ended up in the Supreme Court, one of the four cases that comprised the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Beautifully and clearly written, this story of a teen who refused to be deterred in her pursuit of educational equality is matched by period photos-many of them located only after significant effort, as the Johns's home was burned-and primary source quotations. A "Civil Rights Timeline," solid end notes and source notes, and a sound index round out this excellent look at the roots and the breadth of the Civil Rights Movement.--Ann Welton, Grant Elementary School, Tacoma, WA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Teri Kanefield
Teri Kanefield is a lawyer and a writer. She holds an MA in English with an emphasis in fiction writing from the University of California, Davis, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her family in San Francisco, California.
Classification
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9781419707964
Lexile Measure
1100
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Harry N. Abrams
Publication date
January 20, 2014
Series
-
BISAC categories
JNF007110 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Social Activists
JNF007020 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Historical
JNF007120 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Women
Library of Congress categories
History
African Americans
Civil rights workers
United States
Civil rights movements
20th century
Women
Race relations
Virginia
Segregation in education
Powell, Barbara Johns
Women civil rights workers
Jane Addams Children's Book Award
Winner 2015 - 2015

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