Reviewed by Edi Campbell
Review Source: Cotton Quilts
Book Author: Carol Anderson, Tonya Bolden
We Are Not Yet Equal is an adapted version of Anderson’s White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Anderson, an African American woman, is the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University who researches public policy in relation to race, justice, and equity. Bolden, also an African American woman, has written award-winning children’s nonfiction, including No Small Potatoes (illustrated by Don Tate; Knopf), Facing Frederick: The Life of Frederick Douglass, A Monumental American Man (Abrams) and Cause: Reconstruction America, 1863 – 1877 (Knopf) .
I’ve not read White Rage and am unable to compare We Are Not Equal to the grown-up version. I do know that We Are Not Yet Equal presents history to young people in a way that privileges the African American experience. Anderson and Bolden provide insights to people, events, and situations that are told from a black perspective.
The trigger for white rage, inevitable, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up. A formidable array of policy assaults and legal contortions has consistently punished black resilience, black resolve. (p. xv)
While Anderson and Bolden are detailed in their presentation of events, they do not attempt to provide a thorough account of U.S. history. Rather, they develop significant events that are often overlooked. While history books often linger on the Civil War battles, these authors explain how freedmen (previously enslaved blacks) lost any opportunity to gain the rights of a citizen during Reconstruction. In reading their explanation of how Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was deconstructed in the courts, readers will come to understand why schools now are more segregated than ever. Continue reading on Cotton Quilts.
We Are Not Yet Equal by Carol Anderson, Tonya Bolden
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing on August 6, 2020
Genres: Banned Books, Young Adult
Pages: 304
Reading Level: High School
ISBN: 9781526632050
Review Source: Cotton Quilts
Also by this author: How to Build a Museum, Crossing Ebenezer Creek, Cause
Publisher's Synopsis: This young adult adaptation of the New York Times bestselling White Rage is essential antiracist reading for teens.
An NAACP Image Award finalist
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A NYPL Best Book for Teens
History texts often teach that the United States has made a straight line of progress toward Black equality. The reality is more complex: milestones like the end of slavery, school integration, and equal voting rights have all been met with racist legal and political maneuverings meant to limit that progress. We Are Not Yet Equal examines five of these moments: The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with Jim Crow laws; the promise of new opportunities in the North during the Great Migration was limited when blacks were physically blocked from moving away from the South; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to laws that disenfranchised millions of African American voters and a War on Drugs that disproportionally targeted blacks; and the election of President Obama led to an outburst of violence including the death of Black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri as well as the election of Donald Trump.
Including photographs and archival imagery and extra context, backmatter, and resources specifically for teens, this book provides essential history to help work for an equal future.
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