The years following World War I are a shameful chapter in American history. Whites were afraid that soldiers of color who had risked all defending this nation would demand equality. The second coming of the KKK took the hooded gang solidly mainstream. Blacks were lynched on the flimsiest of pretenses. Bloodthirsty race massacres took place in cities like Chicago and Tulsa. Even childhood was no protection for youth of color.
Kwame Alexander's Black Star is set in those turbulent years.
Charley (12) lives to play baseball. She knows that it's a real stretch for a girl to aspire to play professionally. But in the summer she and chums Willie and Henry spend as much time as they can in a field near her church. They think it's supremely unfair that they can't set foot on the real baseball field on the other side of a bridge. People of color have been assaulted for being on the wrong side of the bridge at night.
One day a bully, Cecil, aggravates Charley into agreeing to a game between their teams. But the day of the game the church picnic takes over their field. Rather than calling off the game they sneak over the bridge.
Alexander's narrative in prose gives a real sense of time and place and growing up in a very turbulent and dangerous time. In his note from the author he says, "This is a novel inspired by history, based on the lives of folks I've read about and imagined--some famous, others, like I said, made up. There are also people and places here that resemble my family, my heritage. You see, Black history is more than a time-line of "firsts" and "inventions." It's also about the regular families that lived, laughed, loved, danced, worked, failed, hoped, cried, and died just like everybody else."
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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