Book Release October 1, 2016
"We never said we were sorry for slavery. Saying we're sorry would be teaching tolerance from Kindergarden...and we do it poorly."
Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) January 09, 2017
On September 23, 1957, The nine Black high school students faced an angry mob of over 1,000 Whites in front of Central High School. The crowd were protesting the integration project. As the students were escorted inside by the Little Rock police, violence escalated, and they were removed from the school. The next day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the entire 327th Airborne Battle Group (1200 men) of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to escort the nine students into the school. By the same order, he federalized the entire 10,000-man Arkansas National Guard, in order to remove them from the control of Governor Faubus. What followed changed the way Arkansas, the south and the entire nation saw integration forever.
Jerome Mark Antil's childhood visit to Little Rock in 1953, witnessing Jim Crow for the first time inspired the novel. The racial tension on the news media today, motivated Antil to get the book finished in his lifetime.
By giving 2,500 free books, Antil is encouraging students to participate in his writing contest and be heard. He is also awarding prizes to students for writing. The judges will be Antil and one of the featured characters in the book - Alda Pitt - a black woman and childhood neighbor of Antil. "Alda is a retired school teacher whose family assisted me researching some facts of the 'cultures' of our growing up together in the early 1950s in upstate New York. The book with positive black and white male role models and strong black and white female role models has been featured on the front cover of Publishers Weekly and selected as a Bookmasters featured book for the Black History Month issue in Library Journal.
