The Rock and the River by Kekla MagoonIn 1968 Chicago, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs is caught in a conflict between his father's nonviolent approach to seeking civil rights for African Americans and his older brother, who has joined the Black Panther Party.
"It's just breakfast," I said. "Isn't it?"
See page 169 for an essay entitled "Why the Free Breakfast?" Huey P. Newton is credited with the concept of the free breakfast. This article, dated October 4, 1969 says that "the Black Panther Party is about educating the people to the fact they have a right to the best that modern technology and human knowledge can produce. THE WORLD BELONGS TO ALL THE PEOPLE..."
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1 comment:
...The characters are well drawn and the complexities of the relationships between Roland Childs and his two sons are moving. The episodes of violence are graphic, but necessary to move the plot forward, and Magoon portrays well the tension between the Panthers and the Civil Rights Movement. An author's note provides further historical context. While the image of the Black Panther Party is somewhat idealized, this is an important book about a historical reality that has not been dealt with in juvenile fiction.
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