Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters

Ten important African-American women in the historic struggle to win freedom and civil rights. Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. Other women such as Biddy Mason and Dorothy Irene Height are in the history books but are less familiar. They span the 18th and 19th centuries, from

Sojourner Truth, born into slavery 1797, to Shirley Chisholm, born in 1924 and living today.

the stories of the women are helpful information. It can help with the teaching of what all women of all races had to go through.

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LibraryThing member jamiesque

Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters is a book valuable for its condensed collection of pioneering African American Women throughout the United States. The women were carefully selected by Andera Davis Pinkney to represent an influencial group of women who span American history

from Sojourner Truth born in 1797 to Shirley Chisholm in 1924. Each biography serves as a brief synopsis of the subjects moved forward by the current of how and why civil rights shaped their lives, and in turn, how these women paved the way for others. There are ten biographies in total, eleven if you count 'This Little Light of Mine,' the introduction by Pickny in which she describes her family's involvement with the civil rights movement, their influence on her, and how that perspective urged her to write this book and shead light on the struggle for racial and gender equality.
Each vignette is only a couple pages, thus serving better as a brief intorduction to these extrodinary women, hopefully prompting furhter study and investigation. In the back of the book there are two meager pages of further suggested reading. The book fails to offer much depth, nor does it provide a new perspective or information. However, despite adhearing to tried and established fact and format, the last sentence of the book, whether intentional or not, poses a question which warrents further consideration, conversation and and research. "Shirley [Chisholm] was right: America was changing." Using the book as a guide, it would be beneficial to ask students to examine not only how the United States has changed in regards to policies and attitudes towards once marginalized populations, but also is that attitude still evolvinging and in what ways. Are there still groups fighting for their rights? Who are the leaders of today and against whom or what are they fighting?

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LibraryThing member Kathdavis54

It would be hard to write this book. There are so many important people in African American history, how would anyone choose just a few women to write about? Andrea Davis Pinkney has taken this challenge and to me it falls a little flat. When I knew the story a woman she was discussing, the

narrative felt too familiar and I learned nothing new. When I knew nothing about a woman Pinkney was detailing, it felt too short and rushed. I would probably only use this as a jumping off point for research with students. It is not something that would give them enough information to really dig deeper.

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LibraryThing member engpunk77

Absolutely perfect in length and reading level for a very short, in-class biography unit at the middle school level. Perfect for Black History Month. If you have one copy, it'd be fun to pass around, each student choosing a different woman on which to focus, get a class set, or even better, a few

copies for small reading groups to pass around, each student focusing on a different woman and sharing with the group.

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LibraryThing member carrier3

Andrea Pinkney is from the African American Authors for Children slide of this week’s lecture. I was drawn to the artwork of the cover, but the copy I found at my library has a different, but equally powerful, image of a black woman breaking the chains of another’s shackled hands. It opens with

a passage from the author set in Washington D.C. in 1963. Apparently she was one month from being born, and her parents were listening to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech”, her father at the actual rally, and her mother watching in on television. Throughout this passage, the reader is familiarized with the names associated with the African American struggle in the US- the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, and Dorothy Height, and we learn that the author has an emotional connection to this material because she experienced it.
Throughout the book we learn the stories of 10 African American women in history who have shown the courage to defend their civil rights against inequality, oppression, prejudice, and fear: Sojourner “Bella” Truth, Biddy Mason, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Josephine Baker, Dorothy Irene Height, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm.
This compilation would be valuable in expressing and teaching about diversity in the classroom because it speaks to African Americans and women. Though the treatment of slaves is not anything our children will have to personally experience, they will feel empathy when they read of little girls being beaten and sold from their families. Hopefully children will feel inspired from these stories to stand up for themselves and each other.

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LibraryThing member nbmars

Stories of ten important women are given here: Sojourner Truth, Biddy Mason, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Josephine Baker, Dorothy Irene Height, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm. Each biography is preceded by an oil painting by illustrator

Stephen Alcorn highlighting that woman's accomplishments.

Awards for this book include Coretta Scott King Honor (Author, 2001) and ALA Notable Children's Book (2001).

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LibraryThing member wichitafriendsschool

The lives of ten brave women -- including Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Shirley Chisholm, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer - are part of an incredible story about courage in the face of oppression; about the challenges and triumphs of the battle for civil rights; and about speaking out for what

you believe in--even when it feels like no one is listening.

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