Lynda Blackmon Lowery’s conversational tone is engaging and compelling as she shares her experiences as a young teen in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Beaten badly on Bloody Sunday in Selma in early March of 1965, she went on to be the youngest person on the march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights later that month. Lowery includes memories of her activism leading up to those events—she was jailed nine times—providing context and deeper understanding of her passion and commitment. Her courage did not preclude her from being fearful, and this is part of what she honestly details. A beautifully designed book also includes striking full-color graphic illustrations by PJ Loughran and archival black-and-white photographs. The volume concludes with an accounting of and tributes to those who died in the struggle in Alabama in early 1965 and more information about fight for voting rights, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and ongoing challenges to it. (Age 11 and older)

A memoir of the Civil Rights Movement from one of its youngest heroes

A Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book
Kirkus Best Books of 2015
Booklist Editors' Choice 2015
BCCB Blue Ribbon 2015

As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

Straightforward and inspiring, this beautifully illustrated memoir brings readers into the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, complementing Common Core classroom learning and bringing history alive for young readers.