Silver Rights: The story of the Carter family's brave decision to send their children to an all-white school and claim their civil rights - Softcover

Constance Curry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156004798 ISBN 13: 9780156004794

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1996

Synopsis

This “sure-to-be-classic account of 1960s desegregation” (Los Angeles Times) tells the inspiring story of the Carters, black Mississippi sharecroppers who sent their children to integrate an all-white school system. “Silver Rights is pure gold!” (Julian Bond). Introduction by Marian Wright Edelman.

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Alice Walker has observed that the expression civil rights when pronounced by older black country people becomes silver rights and that she always felt that those older blacks imparted "music" to the term. This idea is the backdrop Curry uses in this study about the Carters, a Mississippi family of sharecroppers. Matthew and Mae Bertha demonstrated great courage in their involvement in the civil rights movement, most importantly by defying the odds for survival when they enrolled 7 of their 13 children in the Drew, Mississippi, school system. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated that states integrate their schools. Mississippi's interpretation of that law was "freedom of choice" papers, which allowed parents to designate the schools they wanted their children to attend. The Carters' determination to ensure that their children would receive a top-notch education was the beginning of their long, hard, and initially lonely road to integrating the schools and playing an important role in the Mississippi civil rights movement. We should be grateful to and inspired by the lives of the Carter family, particularly since the civil rights agenda is increasingly under attack. Lillian Lewis

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0156004798
• ISBN 13: 9780156004794
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288