Last weekend, I read Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961 by Larry Dane Brimner. It's a non-fiction book about thirteen diverse ("men and women, young and old, black and white") volunteers who traveled on buses from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana in an effort to fight for civil rights in the South in a peaceful protest. While segregation was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, this decision was regularly ignored in the South. Although the freedom riders' journey starts smoothly, they are significantly challenged the deeper into the South they go, encountering opposition and violence.
This book was a relatively quick read as I finished it in one day, but I found it to be very enlightening. While my social studies classes in grade school covered many events of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, this event was not covered in great detail. I definitely learned a lot by reading Twelve Days in May. The treatment of the freedom riders was terrible and frightening at times, and I commend their bravery. The author, Brimner, references books and newspaper articles and uses images to tell the real life story. I also really liked the journal format, how the author went day by day, to share what happened. In the back of the book, there is a bibliography, source notes, picture credits, a list of more civil rights titles by the author, and an interview with the author. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
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