I was inspired to write Fearless Freedom after watching a show, on Oprah back in 2011, about the Freedom Riders on their 50th anniversary. The Freedom Riders were a group of black and white people, mostly college students who rode through the South to test the Supreme Court rulings that ended segregation on interstate busses and trains and in their terminals. One of the Freedom Riders busses was bombed and another group of riders was beaten bloody in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite the violence, the Freedom Riders persevered and by the end of the summer of 1961, hundreds of people were freedom riding all over the South.
One of the guests on that day Oprah had been a young girl at the time and she recalled being trapped inside a civil rights meeting held at a church that was surrounded by an angry mob. I wondered how she felt. Why did she go to the meeting? Was she afraid? What did she think about the mob?
In 1963, I was nine years old, living in Philadelphia. I remember watching images of children on television blasted by firefighters’ hoses and chased by ferocious police dogs. It was hard to believe that was happening to children like me, in my country.
I have always admired the bravery of civil rights activists, but the courage of the children protesters was hard to imagine. I wanted to write about them and I found my story in the Children’s Crusade that took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.
I read everything I could find about the Children’s Crusade and traveled to Birmingham to conduct research at the archives of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I even got to speak with women who were teen protesters in the Children’s Crusade.
Since I love history and tend to daydream about the past, it was easy to set my story in the early sixties, especially since I had been there. It was fun to remember transistor radios and Buster Browns.
I also remember watching the March on Washington on television and wishing I was there. Through writing Fearless Freedom I got to go. That’s one reason why I love writing. I get to go places and do things without leaving my house.