Long before the Montgomery Bus Boycott 16-year-old Barbara took a courageous stand for civil rights when she led fellow students to boycott their segregated high school in the town of Farmville, Virginia.

Here's a photo of the high school for white students in Farmville in 1951, it had had plenty of classrooms and a gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary, and other resources.

Barbara's younger sister Joan Johns Cobb describes the situation at the school for black students.

The school we went to was overcrowded. Consequently, the county decided to build three tarpaper shacks for us to hold classes in. A tarpaper shack looks like a dilapidated black building, which is similar to a chicken coop on a farm.... In winter the school was very cold. And a lot of times we had to put on our jackets. Now, the students that sat closest to the wood stove were very warm and the ones who sat farthest away were very cold.... When it rained, we would get water through the ceiling. So there were lots of pails sitting around the classroom. And sometimes we had to raise our umbrellas to keep the water off our heads. It was a very difficult setting for trying to learn.

The author of the new book THE GIRL FROM THE TAR PAPER SCHOOL, Teri Kanefield says Barbara Johns risked her life, "but she wasn't afraid. She truly believed she was on the right side" the morning she stood up at a school assembly, asked the teachers to leave the auditorium and then asked her fellow students to walk out in protest.

Barbara was a quiet, studious girl. But the morning of April 23, 1951, she took off her shoe and pounded it on the podium to get her point across. "Don't be afraid, just follow us out," she said.

That day, when the curtains opened it was my sister on stage rather than the principal. I was totally shocked, said Joan Johns Cobb. I remember sitting in my seat and trying to go as low in the seat as I possibly could because I was so shocked and so upset. I actually was frightened because I knew that what she was doing was going to have severe consequences. Read more...

Tomorrow is the 60th Anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on Brown Vs Board of Education. Today the Christian Science Monitor reports that since then, any gains in racial integration in American schools have mostly been reversed. 

Thanks to Newbery Honor Author Kirby Larson for inviting me to her blog today to talk about my experience writing PURE GRIT.

"The temporary nature of safety and the permanence of pain are underlined in this compelling book." One of the first reviewers to write about Pure Grit wrote that sentence above. Every time I read it, my eyes fill with tears. The first few words zing deep in my psyche. They touch what is most tender, and yet most strong. They apply to the ups and down of book reviews, sales numbers, revision and all the rest of the writing life. Read more... 

Are you smarter than a U.S. Marine? Take this  quiz and find out.

And from Children's Book Almanac: May has been designated both Personal History Month and Latino Book Month. Both experiences can be found in one of the most remarkable autobiographies of the last twenty years, Francisco Jiménez's The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. Read more...

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My best,

Mary

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