The Girl From The Tar Paper School

Barbara Rose Johns was a Black high school student compelled to attend classes in a truly inadequate physical building: the roof leaked and the rooms were cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and the reason for this is because the walls were, for pity's sake, made of tar paper. (You know, tar paper? The stuff you use on a roof underneath the shingles, or perhaps for a temporary shelter?)

The local school board kept promising that they would build a facility for the Black children that even remotely came close to the brick building which had been serving White children for several years, but nothing ever came of that.

Barbara was a serious student, and this situation bothered her. She was also religious, and so she prayed about what she should do. And that is why, without notifying or in any way involving any adult whatsoever, she organized a walkout of all of the students in her high school. "They can't throw us all in jail," she reasoned.

She wasn't a rabble rouser. She went on, in fact, to become a public librarian. But she had to do something, and she did what it took.

The case that was started on her behalf became part of the class-action lawsuit I grew up knowing as Brown v. Board of Education. She is one of my heroes.

(Also, this book does a fantastic job of telling the story through words and pictures. Highly recommended.)