She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland

Gr 3–5—Focusing on Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, a lesser-known civil rights activist, this title is a brief portrait of her life, her actions, and the civil rights movement. From the time she was a child, Mulholland, a white Southerner, came to understand the injustice of "separate but equal," motivating her to cross the Jim Crow line to stand with African Americans to demand equality. At age 19, she became involved in the Freedom Rides of 1961. She knew the risks and knew she was a marked woman for becoming a "race traitor." She was harassed, imprisoned, and attacked but still persevered in her activities. Further involvement in the civil rights movement included participating in sit-ins, the March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery March. Her unwavering belief in equality gave her tremendous inner strength. Quotes from Mulholland portray her as someone who never thought of herself as a hero, only someone who could make a difference. ("Anyone can make a difference. It doesn't matter how old or young you are. Find a problem, get some friends together, and fix it.") Primary source documents and photos and other culturally relevant artifacts accompany the text. Collagelike illustrations that imagine parts of her life (for instance, Mulholland as a child seeing for the first time what a schoolhouse for black children looked like—in contrast to her whites-only school) are peppered throughout, and while eye-catching and mood evoking, they are not as useful as the photographs and other documents.