Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary Elizabeth Bush Partridge, Elizabeth. Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary. Viking, 2009 72p. illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-670-01189-6 $19.99 R Gr. 6-10 Just about any reader who has set eyes on the iconic photographs of the 1965 Montgomery marches is familiar with the line of civil rights leaders, hands held and arms linked, with expressions of calm or even joyous determination. Less often seen, though, are the pictures of the kids who marched right behind them—teens, yes, but also those who hadn't reached the double digits. Here Partridge brings them to the front of the line, interviewing veterans of the Selma-to-Montgomery marches who participated as children and several of whom suffered the same brutality and incarceration as the adult marchers. Firsthand accounts and a day-by-day organization result in a text taut with immediacy, and large black-and-white photographs that highlight the young protesters sing as loud as words. The focus on children and teens offers Partridge an entry point for examining a spectrum of attitudes toward the marches: parental ambivalence (and often outright terror) concerning their children's participation, children's defiance of their parents' wishes in service of a higher cause, and the eventual participation of many adults who felt shamed by the kids for their own lack of courage and commitment. Index, source notes, and a meaty bibliography will recommend this to report writers, but the brevity and powerful storytelling will win a broader audience: "As battered, coughing children staggered home, furious fathers grabbed their guns…. The .32 or .38 shotguns they had were no match for automatic rifles and ten-gauge shotguns. There were at least two hundred guns out there filled with buckshot." It won't take much imagination for readers to picture themselves entering the fray. Copyright © 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois