Call Me Miss Hamilton by Carole Boston Weatherford

Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman’s Case of Equality and Respect
by Carole Weatherford Boston; Illustrations by Jeffery Boston Weatherford
Millbrook Press, an imprint of Lerner Group, Inc. 2022.

In her latest picture book biography, award-winning author, Carole Boston Weatherford writes of Miss Mary Hamilton, a civil rights activist during the 1960’s. Her sparse text is compelling and together, with Jeffery Boston Weatherford’s scratchboard illustrations, makes this a powerful book.

Everyone deserves respect. To be addressed as Miss, Mrs, or Mr. 

Mary Hamilton was taught respect by her parents, by the nuns in her catholic school, and college. Yet, even in states that outlawed segregation, where African Americans were barred from many places, whites addressed African Americans “out of their names.” Grown men were called “boy;” grown women called “girl” or “auntie.” 

Mary believed that by addressing someone by proper titles showed courtesy and respect.  

In 1960’s Mary joined the Freedom Riders. She was jailed many times. In Alabama, she was held in contempt of court for five days for refusing to answer when a white prosecutor called her Mary instead of Miss Hamilton. In 1964, Mary took her case to the United States Supreme Court and won. “The highest court in the land ruled in Mary’s favor, deciding everyone in court deserved respect.”

Call Me Miss Hamilton includes an author’s note, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

Click here to read an interview with Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford. 

A must have for all libraries, school and public. 

Another contender for ALSC/ALA awards. 

Our review of Speak Up, Speak Out! by Tonya Bolden

 

Speak Up, Speak Out!: The Extraordinary Life of "Fighting Shirley Chisolm"            by Tonya Bolden                                                                                                     Forward by Stacey Abrams                                                                                              National Geographic, 2022                  

With her remarkable ability to grab readers attention at the first sentence, award-winning author, Tonya Bolden has penned another must-read biography. The subject of her latest is “Fighting Shirley Chisholm”, “the first Black woman from a major political party to run for president of the United States” in 1972. Shirley Chisholm “was the candidate of and for “the people of America,” the workaday folk who make up most of the nation.” Chisholm wanted to bring a new era into American politics. Her idea was to have an America free of poverty. Politicians to this day are struggling to find a way to make this a reality.

In nineteen chapters, Bolden traces Chisholm’s childhood and her involvement in local politics until she would become America’s first Black woman in Congress. Born Shirley “Shirls” Anita St. Hill to immigrant parents on November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, NY, Shirls was well aware of the limited job opportunities to Black people. 

Her top campaign pledges when running for congress in 1968 was: 

Job creation.

Job training programs.

Better Housing.

More day care centers.

Throughout her life, Shirls, a force, was an outspoken pioneer who shattered racial and gender barriers, who worked tirelessly for underserved communities who were ignored when it came to jobs, education, housing, and care for their children. Sworn in to office January 1969, Shirs would remain in Congress until February 1983. After which, she would teach at Mount Holyoke College, but retired from public life in 1993, siting ill health. Following several strokes, Shirley Chisholm died on January 1, 2005. 

What moved me in reading Speak Up, Speak Out! was what Bolden writes in the Foreword. She states, “How we imagine ourselves in the world often depends on what we know of our past.” For me, a white woman, I believe it is my responsibility to read widely, to learn all aspects of history, especially about those who seek to divide our nation, how acts of violence are committed against others for purely selfish reasons. Power and money makes people think they have the right to take from others without so much as an apology or a reckoning. By being informed, I hope my actions work to acknowledge, apologize and then vote accordingly to ensure everyone has equal rights. 

This well-researched, well-documented biography, Speak Up, Speak Out! is a must have for all libraries, school and public, and a must-read for all.

In this interview, Shirley Chisholm share about her experience as a Black woman in Congress, click here. 

Posted by Louise

Speak Up, Speak Out! by Tonya Bolden Blog Tour

Welcome to the Speak Up, Speak Out! by Tonya Bolden Blog Tour!

To celebrate Black History Month and the release of Speak Up, Speak Out!: The Extraordinary Life of Fighting Shirley Chisholm by Tonya Bolden (January 4th), 5 blogs across the web are featuring posts from the book and author, as well as 5 chances to win!

Author's Note

by Tonya Bolden

Writing a biography of Shirley Chisholm was a natural fit for me, a native New Yorker who lived for a time as a tot on Clifton Place in Bed-Stuy, who spent her wonder years in Harlem and did the rest of her growing up in the Bronx.

I was a kid when Shirley ran for the New York State Assembly in 1964 and when she ran for Congress in 1968. I was a teenager when she ran for president in 1972.

What I most remember about her during those days was her clear, clipped, bold voice. I was short on details, but I knew that she was a phenomenon, a force. When she ran for president, I remember being boggled, astonished—thinking, Wow!, and feeling so proud! For a Black girl to see a Black woman embark on such an endeavor—go where no Black woman had ever gone before—how could I not feel a surge of pride?

Making her historic announcement at Concord Baptist Church on January 25, 1972: "I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America."

When Shirley left Congress in 1982, though I still didn’t know all that much about her, I definitely understood that she was among the Black women who paved the way for me: for me to not hold back from any endeavor, any passion because I was Black and female.

In a way, with Speak Up, Speak Out! I’m saying, “Thank you, Shirley Chisholm!”

*****

While researching Shirley’s extraordinary life, I discovered other Black female political trailblazers from my hometown—women who, in a way, paved the way for Shirley.

For example, there was Bed-Stuy activist Ada Jackson, known as the “Fighting Lady of Brooklyn.” In 1944, when Shirley was in college, Jackson ran (unsuccessfully) to represent the 17th AD in the New York State Assembly. She was the American Labor Party candidate, as she was when she ran again (and lost again) in 1946.

There was also the Republican Maude Richardson, co-founder of the CBCC of which Shirley was a member. Like Jackson, twice in the 1940s Richardson ran unsuccessfully to represent the 17th AD in Albany. In 1950 she became the 17th AD’s first Black co-leader.

Another example: In 1954, when Shirley was at the start of her career with Mac Holder’s Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League, former singer and dancer Bessie Buchanan, Democrat, became the first Black woman elected to the New York State Assembly, representing a district in Harlem.

By the way, when Shirley was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1964, another Black woman, civil rights attorney Constance Baker Motley, made history as the first Black woman elected to the New York State Senate. But she wasn’t there for long. This daughter of Caribbean immigrants resigned in early 1965 after the New York City Council tapped her to fill a vacancy for Manhattan Borough president, a first for a woman. And in 1966 Motley made history again—the first Black woman federal judge.

Before I began work on Speak Up, Speak Out!, I knew that Shirley wasn’t the first Black person or the first woman to run for president— seeking to make that someday come. I knew, for example, of the radical white woman Victoria Woodhull, who in 1872—nearly 50 years before women had the vote nationwide—ran for president as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party (which nominated Frederick Douglass for VP, but he never accepted). I also knew about Dick Gregory, Black activist-comedian, who in 1968 was a write-in presidential candidate for the Freedom and Peace Party.

But I didn’t know about George Edwin Taylor. In 1904 this Black newspaperman and community organizer then of Ottumwa, Iowa, ran for president as the candidate of the National Negro Liberty Party (also known as the National Liberty Party).

Nor had I heard of the white woman Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the House of Representatives (1940-49) and the U.S. Senate (1949-1973). In 1964 Smith sought to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

Exploring Shirley’s life opened me up to so much history!

But there were frustrations along the way. COVID-19 lockdowns prevented me from accessing certain material, such as all of Shirley’s papers at Brooklyn College. But I did my best to make the most of what I could access, from her memoirs and other books to digitized newspapers and immigration records to other documents. These included censuses and her beloved dad’s World War II draft registration card where I learned details like the name of the bag company for which he worked, and where he claimed that he was born not in British Guiana, but in Barbados.

Barbados: Where his dear Shirls once fed chickens and other animals, hauled water from a well, enjoyed so many hot, sunny days, stunning white-sand beaches, clear-clear turquoise water, and palm trees sent swaying by a breeze.

Barbados: Where her grandmother told her time and again, “Child, you’ve got to face things with courage.”

That is something a grown-up Shirls most certainly did.

—Tonya Bolden, New York City, 2020

Tonya Bolden has authored, edited and co-authored more than 40 books. Her work has garnered numerous awards, including the Coretta Scott King Honor, the James Madison Book Award, the NCSS Carter G. Woodson Honor, the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C.’s Nonfiction Award, the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, the Virginia Library Association Jefferson Cup Award and the Cleveland Public Library Sugarman Award.  Lauded for her skilled storytelling, impeccable research and lively text, Tonya lives New York City. 

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

• One (1) winner will receive a hardcover of Speak Up, Speak Out! by Tonya Bolden

• US/Can only

• Ends 3/6 at 11:59pm ET

• Check out the other stops on the tour for more chances to win!

Visit the other stops on the Speak Up, Speak Out! Blog Tour

February 21st - Pragmatic Mom

February 22nd - The Nonfiction Detectives

February 23rd - Ms. Yingling Reads

February 24th - Daddy Mojo

February 25th - Mom Read It

Carter Reads the Newspaper written by Deborah Hopkinson

Carter Reads the Newspaper

Written by Deborah Hopkinson; Illustrated by Don Tate

Peachtree. 2018

Grades 2 and up

“Carter G. Woodson didn’t help people escape from slavery, start a bus strike, or lead a movement of millions. Yet without him, we might not have Black History Month. This is his story.”

In this picture book biography, Hopkinson tells the inspiring story of Carter G. Woodson, the man who has been cited as “the father of Black History Month.” 

Carter G. Woodson was born in 1875 in Virginia. His parents had been born into slavery and they shared their stories with Carter. Growing up, he didn’t have much schooling, but he did learn to read. His father believed in being an informed citizen, so though he himself was unable to read and write, he had Carter read him the newspaper. “Reading the newspaper gave Carter his first glimpse of the wider world.”

The seed of wanting to learn more about the legacy of his people was deepened while working in the coal mines for three years. While attending Harvard, after a white professor claimed, “Black people had no history” that Carter took up the challenge to prove that professor wrong.

In 1926, Carter established Negro History Week. 

Hopkinson shows that one person can change history.

Tate’s mixed media illustrations complement the text.

Back matter includes an author and illustrator’s note, a list of Black leaders pictured throughout the book, a timeline of Carter G. Woodson’s life, and source notes for quotes.

A perfect book to share when kicking off Black History Month.

The publisher sent me a copy of this book to review