SILVER RIGHTS

by Curry, Constance

• ISBN13: 9781565120952
• ISBN10: 1565120957
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-01-10
• Publisher: Algonquin Books

Summary

With an introduction by Marian Wright Edelman. This is a true story from the front lines of the civil rights struggle--the story of the Carter family of Sunflower County, Mississippi. African-American sharecroppers and the parents of thirteen children, Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter accepted their school district's 1965 "Freedom of Choice" offer at its face value and enrolled their seven school-age children in the formerly all-white schools of tiny Drew, Mississippi. SILVER RIGHTS tells what happened to them next. As noted civil rights activist and Children's Defense Fund president, Marian Wright Edelman says in her introduction, "This deeply moving book chronicles the pain and poverty in the lives of sharecroppers, their extraordinary grit, courage, and endurance." "We should be grateful to and inspired by the lives of the Carter family."--Booklist; "A book teeming with loud voices and heat and faith, and backbreaking work and timeless courage and honor."--Melissa Fay Greene, author of PRAYING FOR SHEETROCK. A LITERARY GUILD SELECTION.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
Marian Wright Edelman
Preface	xix
Part I: Choices
We Thought They Meant It	3	(20)
Take Care of My Kids	23	(21)
Advancement for Colored People	44	(12)
Let It Shine All Over the Delta	56	(19)
Part II: Sunflower Seeds
A Nice-Lookin' Li'l Ole Boy	75	(16)
I've Got Needs	91	(16)
Part III: The Intolerable Burden
She Wouldn't Let Us Say We Wished We Had Never Been Born	107	(25)
Down Here Is the Lion's Den	132	(17)
I Felt So Proud	149	(9)
Really in the Dumps Now	158	(23)
Well Here I Am, Hello Again	181	(8)
We Just Left	189	(16)
Part IV: Blues Ain't So Sad
Can't Touch This	205	(11)
The Best Thing About Matthew	216	(13)
My Own Personal Religion	229	(16)
Acknowledgments	245	(4)
Index	249