Sarah's Long Walk

by KENDRICK, STEPHENKENDRICK, PAUL

• ISBN13: 9780807050194
• ISBN10: 0807050199
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2006-02-01
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

The never-before-told story of the African-American child who started the fight for desegregation in America"s public schools One fall day in 1848, on windswept Beacon Hill in Boston, a five-year-old girl named Sarah Roberts walked past five white schools to attend the poor and densely crowded all-black Abiel Smith School. Incensed that his daughter had been turned away at each white school, Benjamin Roberts resolved to sue the city of Boston on her behalf. Thus began what would be a more than one-hundred-year struggle that culminated in 1954 with the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate America"s schools. Today, few have heard of the Roberts case or of the black abolitionist printer whose love for his daughter started it all, but now, with Sarah"s Long Walk, readers can learn about one black community"s heroic struggle for equality. Sarah"s Long Walk recovers the stories of white and black Boston; of Beacon Hill in the nineteenth century; of twenty-four-year-old Robert Morris, the black lawyer who tried the case; and of all the people who participated in this early struggle to desegregate Boston"s schools. Stephen Kendrick and his son, Paul, have told Sarah"s story--previously a mere footnote in the history books--with color and imagination, bringing out the human side of this very important struggle. Sarah"s Long Walk is popular history at its best.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Brown and Before	xi
PART I A Star in the East
The Lawyer	3	(18)
The Slopes of Beacon Hill	21	(19)
Through the Vestry Window	40	(13)
First Class	53	(14)
``Mr. Prejudice''	67	(30)
PART II Equality before the Law
The Client	97	(20)
A Gathering Tempest	117	(15)
No Neutrals	132	(9)
A Brahmin of Black Beacon Hill	141	(12)
The Argument	153	(19)
A Doctrine Is Born	172	(13)
PART III Let Us Be Bold
Vigilance	185	(20)
New Alliances, New Divisions	205	(12)
So Close to Passing	217	(13)
September 3, 1855	230	(10)
Rock the Cradle of Liberty	240	(21)
Epilogue: Brown and Beyond	261	(13)
Notes	274	(15)
Acknowledgments	289	(3)
Index	292