Tag: Civil Rights Movement

Call Me Miss Hamilton: An Interview with Creative Team Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford

Civil Rights activist Miss Mary Hamilton was found to be in contempt of court after she demanded that an Alabama judge address her with the same honorifics used to address white people. Her case ultimately went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in her favor in 1964 and brought about a permanent change in courtrooms nationwide.

Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman’s Case for Equality and Respect combines powerful free verse from award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford and striking scratchboard illustrations by Jeffery Boston Weatherford to honor this unsung heroine. Read on to hear what inspired the this family team to tell Miss Hamilton’s story and what surprised them on along the way!

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The Civil Rights Movement and the Power of Teen Girl Activists

By Carol Hinz, Editorial Director of Millbrook Press and Carolrhoda Books

I was fascinated from the moment author Heather E. Schwartz first mentioned a group of black teen girls protesting for their civil rights in Georgia in 1963. These teen girl activists were locked up in a Civil War-era stockade in Leesburg, Georgia. What stood out the most to me was their incredible strength and resilience. Heather’s book Locked Up for Freedom: Civil Rights Protesters at the Leesburg Stockade tells the story of these teen activists for readers in fifth grade and above. Read More