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March with Me by Rosalie Turner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I received a galley of Rosalie Turner's from her publicist who knew my interest in history. You can read my expanded review at

Rosalie Turner's March with Me is a fine attempt to open eyes and minds to the realities of the pivotal time in 1963 that shaped a lot of today's social structures. Through the thoughts and activities of two Birmingham residents, the story begins in that volatile May of '63 and extends into the 1970s to show the long-term emotional affects of the Civil Rights Movement. Turner's writing is fluid and the language well thought out to portray the vitality, despair and hope of the times. The main protagonist is Letitia, idealistic and naive, as she becomes involved in the historic Children's March. She and her older brother are eager for confrontation, while their parents and most adults are fearful of repercussions from any overt action against white authority.

While Letitia gets battered by fire hosing and the Birmingham Police riot squad, Martha Ann, her white, privileged contemporary, hears the news and wonders what it is all about. Her family doesn't live in the city, her father is a bigot, her mother doesn't work and has hired help...Letitia's mother does day work for this family several times each week.

The aftermath of the Children's March, compounded by the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing a few months later in which four girls were killed, garnered national and international support for the Movement. But author Turner doesn't delve the politics; she continues her focus on the emotional element of the events: how Letitia's attitude changes, how Martha Ann harbors questions, how families proceed with their lives. This is one of many strengths of the book.

For me, the 1975 ending to March with Me encompasses everything Rosalie Turner hoped to convey with this book. Letitia and Martha Ann are face to face and talk about those years gone by. To tell how it happens would be a spoiler, so I won't. :-) Suffice it to say the circumstance is dramatic and the interaction is poignant.

Of twelve Discussion Questions at the end of the book, I was particularly drawn to two: How do our attitudes toward race develop?, and What can an individual do toward racial and ethnic understanding an reconciliation? These seem to be the questions that shaped Turner's story. They are profound and will be answered differently by nearly every person who takes time to contemplate them. After reading March with Me people will contemplate, and through Turner's insightful presentation, they just might come up with positive answers.




View all my reviews

I borrowed three books from the library, all of which had great promise, but I couldn't finish any of them. The writing was fine, in fact quite good: sense of place in all of them was distinctive and pulled me into the scenes; characters were well developed, but in one book, I became aggravated with the protagonist, disliking decision-making that moved the story line--hence, I didn't like the story.

Another was billed as a mystery, and there were a couple of mysteries plotted in, but the major focus seemed to be the strong political overtones, with characters spouting their opinions and predictions. Often these were whimsically written and always gave insight into the governmental actions and reactions...BUT...all this politicking took place in a country I've never been to and was set 30 years in the past...AND...I wanted to read a mystery; this one didn't work.

The third book had multiple points of view and almost no dialogue. It was like a treatise of events, and I just couldn't get into it.

My evenings are spent reading for two to four hours before I go to bed. The past two nights I was struggling...trying to slog through these books..switching from one to another, hoping to be drawn in. (So glad these were from the library and I hadn't paid $ for them.) These are speed bumps to my reading, but to have three of them at the same time...well I was really bummed. I wondered if I was just distracted, tired, bored...something...that made these titles unappealing to me.

I returned those to the library and borrowed more titles. Already I'm engrossed in the first one I opened. No speed bumps so far.

I got up this morning with plans to sit down and write book reviews. But when I went online I found several things that took my attention. Most importantly, was an email from a review site saying they had reviewed my book, Hammer Come Down. I had forgotten I had sent a copy of the book to this site. And, lo and behold, it was given a five star review.

I decided I needed to get a copy of this review up on the . The review site also asked for information about me to put on their page (I still have to do that). After redoing the reviews page on my website, I had to upload it and also change the front page of the website to show that there was a new review. At any rate I didn't get to writing reviews on books I have read. I shouldn't be complaining considering I got this really nice review.

is considered a professional review site, but I didn't pay for this review. I did offer to review someone else's book. But that wasn't a condition for getting a review. I think that's why I had forgotten I had sent a copy of the book to them. It was quite some time ago, and if you aren't paying for a review, it can take a long time before the review comes about. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

Whatever, I was very pleased to get the review. I still have to list it at Amazon.com, mention it at Google+, and the other places that my name and the book are on the Internet.

Now it's nearly noon. I still want to write a few reviews today; but there are some soccer games on this afternoon that I intend to watch, so the reviews will have to wait until this evening. :)

   I've completed my goal for the 2012 Reading Challenge. Fifty-five books.

I'm still reading. Working away at my TBR pile. I could reach 60-read books by the New Year.

I wonder if those will count toward next year? Ha! Wouldn't want them to, anyway.

The GR Giveaway for Hammer Come Down has ended.

Congratulations to William (Poinciana, FL), Jennifer (Tigard, OR), and Kyle (Pittsburgh, PA) who were selected by the GR algorithms to win a copy of this title.

I will mail the books within the next 36 hours.

Thanks to all who entered the givewaway and to those who added the title to their TBR list. Don't forget to give it a rating and review after you've read it.

Cheers!

I was lucky enough to win a copy of The Weapon in a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Giveaway.The Weapon is Heather Hopkins' first Thriller, and it is full of action and intrigue. Hopkins' education includes a degree in business, and this shows in the setting of this face-paced novel. The protagonist, Veronica Stone, is a financial wiz and high-tech entrepreneur who has built a fantastic international business. Her own tech innovations make headlines worldwide. Although she's incredibly successful, a tech genius, and beautiful, to boot, she is burdened by the drive to always be on top, to attain more and more acclaim. This leads her into an unhealthy liaison with some international nasties.



By the time Veronica realizes she's made the wrong move, she in too deep, framed for an attempt to kill the U.S. President, and the target of her recent creation--an application of a Cold War weapon--a devastating way to spread a wasting disease throughout society and especially on top officials. The creators expect to use this to take over the governments and bring themselves to world power.



Veronica is chased through several countries, but her masterful abilities (did I mention she's a martial arts expert?) and wit help her survive.



The Weapon is persuasive. Hopkins is a very good writer, and the characters are richly drawn and believable, which adds to the tension of the story. I cared about Veronica and her plight, and her friends and family.



The ending hints at a sequel. I look forward to it.

I have to redo my bios and profiles; time to cut "writer" out of them. It seems I'm not really writing anymore. I read books, give presentations, create photo art, but creating fiction alludes me. I had a great idea for a short fiction piece, and when I settled down to write it—poof!—it was gone. Even this entry had more substance when it was in my head.





Yet when I think about making this bio revision...it's okay. I'm fine with it; thirty years is long enough. Time to move on.

I'm pleased to have the American Historical Fiction, now available in print.

OVERVIEW:

This novella is set in the 1840s at the end of the Second Seminole War, and details the great American dream of all pioneers who settled the western lands. But these are black pioneers. Black-Seminole: Tru, free-born in the Everglades and recently orphaned; his two younger siblings, Toby and Kate and his teenage Calusa wife, Tall Deer.



These stalwart, industrious folk have been driven West and are caught up in politics and expansion in Indian Territory. They strive and survive in what we think of as the "American Way" even when they aren't recognized as Americans--or Seminoles--or free. Yet they persist.

Electronic versions of the title are available for and

I traveled to Havre, Montana the week before Thanksgiving, and gave a Humanities Montana history presentation at MSU-Northern. It was a great time with an attentive, appreciative audience. I was pleased.



The presentation, gives information about how people of the Northern Rockies lived in the centuries before they had horses. It is also the history behind my book, Spotted Flower and the Ponokomita. And I received surprise, special reviews of this book while I was in Havre!



The school district Indian Education director had given a copy of this book to a sixth-grade teacher; she started reading it to several classes. After the evening presentation (for adults) she handed me a large envelope--filled with three 11" x17" pages of student reviews! I've since posted copies of them on the Spotted Flower where the various comments are more legible.









These are the kind of perks that can't be quantified.

Thanks to the creative teacher, Jackie Kannberg, who I'm certain is inspiring students to their best potential.

© 2001 Kae Cheatham and mostly published in The Portland Observer, 7 Feb. 2001



"Go West, young man, go West." Horace Greeley popularized this John B.L. Soule phrase in 1851, and Greeley also insisted that the western lands should be "reserved for the benefit of the white Caucasian race." But at the time he was calling for white men to go west, the West contained a sizable population of men who were black, and a growing population of black women.


Black women inhabited farms, towns and cities from the Gulf coast to northern California. The beginning of the 19th century saw Mississippi river towns, such as St. Louis, which had been under French rule, with significant populations of free French-speaking blacks. From 1817 and into the 1840s, untold numbers of blacks, slaved and free, emigrated to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) when the Five Civilized Tribes were forcibly removed from the southeastern states. During this time of westward expansion, black women also trekked along in servant capacity to entrepreneurs and pioneers moving to Arkansas, Texas and the western Territories. Texas was home to thousands of black women. Most were slaves, some were also free--former Spanish slaves. Wherever military forts were established, officers moved west with their families and domestic servants. By the 1870s, black women nurses, wives and teachers, mostly connected with the black military, joined this population, while black women from southern states lead the way to Kansas as "Exodusters" to escape the persistent backlash of the Reconstruction South.

History information, however, followed the sentiments expressed by Greeley and for more than a century, the mystique of carving out a niche in the massive western landscapes was restricted to white males. It has only been in the last thirty years that blacks have begun to appear in western history. Texts have bloomed with information about the black soldiers who served on the western frontier. Then came the admittance that black cowboys also existed--not just a few, but many. It is estimated that more than 5,000 black cowboys worked the cattle drives from the 1860s to 1890s.

As the renaissance of history continued, women have been credited for their part in settling the West. At first only white waifs, wives and bawdy girls were mentioned, but recent presentations have begun exploring the broader aspects of women's role in the westward expansion. The information about women now includes women of color.

The west coast has a particularly proud heritage as black women aided the region's spectacular rise of culture and wealth. In 1859 California (just eight years after Greeley's narrow-focused urging), the women of Sacramento's black community began a school--a school whose pupils won medals of achievement from the Sacramento Board of Education. The majority of the twenty-five to thirty students were black and female.

Where did this black community come from? More than 2,000 free black men had hurried to Old California to take part in the Gold Rush, and some sent for their families. California, like Texas, had a small population of former Spanish slaves and mixed-blood blacks from before the arrival of Americans. Again, the whites who came west brought their slaves. Many of those servants took advantage of territorial laws and sought their freedom.

One such person was Biddy Mason who, as a slave, had herded her master's cattle West. Her three daughters were with her, and when their owner planned to return to Virginia in 1856 (presumably to sell his slaves), Mason and her family won a legal battle for their freedom and stayed in southern California. Mason, a skilled midwife and herbalist, built an empire by investing in real estate. She was one of the first women of color, under American rule, to own a home. By the 1870s, she was a wealthy woman, but never forgot the hardships she had suffered. Her home was always open to people who needed shelter, no matter their race; she helped found the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles; she established charitable operations during the 1880 flood.

Biddy Mason died in the 1890s, but nearly a century later, her good works were remembered by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who dedicated a large tombstone to her memory. Many of her descendants still live in the Los Angles area, and Biddy Mason Day began in 1989.

Philanthropists and rags-to-riches stories usually get recorded, and there are several black women who fill this category. Among them, along with Biddy Mason, is Clara Brown, who made several fortunes in Colorado Territory real estate in the mid-19th century and helped hundreds of blacks settle in the Central City region. Businesswoman-activist Mary Ellen Pleasance was co-founder of the first Bank of California, developed shelters for abused women and aided fugitive slaves.

Several black western women did not amass a fortune, but created such a unique impression, they are remembered even today. Elvira Conley started her western life as a successful laundress in rough-and-tumble Sheridan, Kansas. Among her friends were Wild Bill Hickok and other notables of the late 1860s. Cathey Williams moved West as a girl with her mother and sisters. Lured by military pay and adventure, she changed her name to William Cathey, and for two years served as a Buffalo Soldier, earning a medal for bravery. And no one could forget Stagecoach Mary Fields, who stood at over six feet tall. She traveled West in 1884 to aid Ursuline nuns and settled in Cascade, Montana Territory, where she became a driver for Wells Fargo, one of the state's first postmasters, and was noted for her ability to hold her liquor.

Many of the intrepid souls who ventured West, no matter their color, are remembered only because western culture thrives today from their effort. Horace Greeley's bigoted ambition for the western territories was thwarted even as he spoke, and the strength of character, inventiveness and vision that formed the West can be credited to blacks as well as whites, to women as well as men.

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I came across this article I wrote eleven years ago while going through some files. Most of it was published in the Portland Observer, and I think it's in the Articles section of my Web site. It's worth another run-out, especially since the two books I've published in print this month ( Hammer Come Down: Memoirs of a Freedman and On Promised Land ) both deal with blacks in the Old West.



Several excellent nonfiction books have been published in the last decade that offer an in-depth look at black women in the west. Just typing those words into a search engine provides abundant information. I'm headed there next month to do more research (I'm already overextended this month).