First published 2000
Jane Pittman sits with a history teacher in 1962, ready to tell her story. Born into bondage on a Louisiana plantation, she witnesses the Civil War's final days in 1864 as a young girl. Freedom comes, but Jane discovers that legal emancipation means little without true equality. She endures a century of Jim Crow laws, violence, and broken promises while raising children and building a community. The decades pass as Jane watches her people struggle against a system designed to keep them down. Now over 100 years old, she prepares to join a civil rights demonstration. The freedom she was promised as a child remains incomplete. Jane refuses to wait any longer. She will march for the rights that should have been hers all along.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, american, african-american, biography-memoir, 21st-century, african-american-historical-fiction, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, social-commentary
Setting: Louisiana, United States
Period: 1864, 1962
215 pages · Hardcover · Glencoe McGraw Hill
Content warnings: racism, slavery, violence