Book Description
for Lifting as We Climb by Evette Dionne
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Reading this illuminating history of the women's suffrage movement in the United States underscores how often the perspective and participation of African American women is missing from other accounts. Beginning with the history of enslavement and its impact on voting/voting rights in general in the United States, this work goes on to document the initial ties and tensions between the abolition and voting movements in the wake of emancipation (were votes for Black men or white women more critical?) and the racism that Black women faced in the women's suffrage movement. As it chronicles Black women's struggle and work for voting rights across the abolition, women's suffrage, and civil rights movements, many sidebars introduce African American women who played critical roles in these efforts. Despite disappointing design elements (matte pages, sometimes grainy black-and-white photos, sidebar placement and font choice) the insightful content of this work is essential. A lengthy bibliography, source notes, and index conclude the volume. (Age 12 and older)
CCBC Choices 2021. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2021. Used with permission.