The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement

Kanefield (Rivka’s Way) reveals Barbara Johns as an unsung civil rights pioneer in this biography for middle-grade readers. As the architect of a student strike in the segregated American south of the 1950s, Johns drew attention to the substandard school conditions she and fellow African-American classmates endured, often in classrooms with tar papered walls. “When it rained, the roofs leaked.... Some students sat under umbrellas so the ink on their papers wouldn’t run.” In piecing together this account of the courageous, outspoken Johns and the strike at Virginia’s Moton High School, the author mines several sources, including Johns’ handwritten memoir and interviews Kanefield conducted with Johns’s family and friends. Numerous archival and contemporary photos appear throughout, and sidebars cover segregation, the KKK, and other relevant topics. While Johns’ innovative, nonviolent protest against racial inequity didn’t play out as expected, it did end up a part of the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, helping bring an end to school segregation. This stirring tribute to Johns is an important addition to any student collection of civil rights books. Ages 10–14. (Jan.)