A Limited Portrayal: Depictions of the American Civil Rights Movement in Award-Winning Children’s Picture Books

Abstract

This article explores depictions of the American Civil Rights Movement in award-winning children’s picture books published between 2010 and 2018. Specifically, we focused on 25 books chosen by the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) for inclusion on their yearly book lists. We included books about events or figures of the long Civil Rights Movement as well as notable African-American “firsts” or famous cultural figures whose experiences with racial discrimination and/or engagement with activism during this time period were depicted. Using qualitative content analysis, we explored the extent to which books expanded or limited six common and inaccurate narratives of the movement. Ultimately, we found that the majority of award-winning books we analyzed present a limited portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement, often depicting racism as confined solely to the South, failing to depict sexism against women within the movement, reducing the demands of the movement to solely desegregation, and presenting heroes of the movement rather than collectives. While we see many of these books as limiting, we close with suggestions for using these texts in ways that can expand students’ understandings of the Civil Rights Movement.