Voices from the March on Washington

August 1, 2014

Gr 5 Up-In this collection of 70 short poems, Lewis and Lyon introduce the 1963 March on Washington through the perspectives of those who took part. The participants, young and old, come from all over (a group of students from Spelman College, an Iowan farm girl, an unemployed college graduate, and a six-year-old riding atop her father's shoulders), and they express a variety of feelings: wide-eyed optimism, frustration, cynicism, and apprehension. The first poem, "Reflection," a concrete poem in the shape of the National Mall's reflecting pool, sets the stage by noting that many of the 250,000 marchers are drawn by "unfulfilled promises," while in "Crossing the Potomac," a marcher affirms, "We'll turn the other cheek/like the Good Lord said, but we have come/for our rights and we won't turn back." The book contains plenty of detail and references to actual people, including the organizers (A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin), the speakers, and singers Marian Anderson, Mahalia Jackson, and Joan Baez. Many Southern marchers, accustomed to Jim Crow laws, drink alongside whites at public water fountains for the first time. The poems keep the action moving forward, as the marchers arrive, assemble, and are inspired by the significance of the peaceful demonstration. Supplemental matter helps track fictional voices and real individuals. This well-crafted introduction to the Civil Rights era deserves a wide audience, as these poems, with their plain-spoken, honest emotions, offer insight into the past, and inspiration to continue the struggle.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
Lewis and Lyon join forces for a fictionalized account of one of the pivotal moments in U.S. civil rights history. Adult readers may recall Aug. 28, 1963, a searing summer Wednesday, as the occasion on which hundreds of thousands gathered in the nation's capital to participate in the March for Jobs and Freedom. Better known as the March on Washington, this landmark occasion is often remembered for the epic "I Have a Dream" speech Martin Luther King Jr. delivered that day, along with galvanizing remarks and performances from other civil rights leaders and well-known African-American artists. Later, the March would be recognized for its critical role in helping to facilitate passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. While Lewis and Lyon include all of that historical import, what sets their account apart is less their rendering of the event's fabled leaders than the varied "voices" in the throng who traveled from all over as "the day swelled to keep faith with its promise / of distressing the assured and assuring the distressed." Through over 70 largely first-person poems, the poets rekindle the spirit of the fight for racial equality in the United States with imagined voices of young and old, black and white, educated and underprivileged, supporters and detractors and drive home the volume's theme of taking personal responsibility in helping this country "steer toward justice together." A powerful yet accessible guide to "one day in 1963 [that] [b]elongs to every age." (authors' note, guide to participants, bibliography, websites, further reading, index) (Poetry/fiction. 10 & up)

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Starred review from September 1, 2014
Grades 6-12 *Starred Review* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. The historic August 28, 1963, march on Washington drew 250,000 people to the nation's capital and wrote a new chapter in the history of the civil rights movement. Now poets Lewis and Lyon have written their own chapter in this collection of original poems that examine and celebrate the occasion and its aftermath in a variety of voices, both real and imagined. The coauthors pose three questionsWho were the marchers? Why did they risk their lives to be there? How were they changed by that day?and answer them in eloquent verse, both free and rhymed. The imagined voices memorialize the splendid variety of the people who marched, among them Ruby May Hollingsworth, 6, a first-grader from Mountain Home, Arkansas; Emma Wallace, 23, a farmhand from Seymour, Iowa; and, from Amarillo, Texas, Raymond Jarvis, 25, an out-of-work store clerk with a BA degree in business administration. From any perspective, however, the march was history in the making, and this collection is a fitting memorial to it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)