Just Like Jesse Owens
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Civil rights icon, Ambassador Andrew Young and his daughter, Paula Young Shelton, deliver a powerful oral history about a special day in Andrew’s childhood that changed him forever. This story of race relations in the 1930s South is illustrated by bestselling Caldecott Honor winner Gordon C. James.As a boy, Andrew Young learned a vital lesson from his parents when a local chapter of the Nazi party instigated racial unrest in their hometown of New Orleans in the 1930s. While Hitler's teachings promoted White supremacy, Andrew's father, told him that when dealing with the sickness of racism, "Don't get mad, get smart." To drive home this idea, Andrew Young Senior took his family to the local movie house to see a newsreel of track star Jesse Owens racing toward Olympic gold, showing the world that the best way to promote equality is to focus on the finish line. The teaching of his parents, and Jesse Owens' example, would be the guiding principles that shaped Andrew's beliefs in nonviolence and built his foundation as a civil rights leader and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The story is vividly recalled by Paula Young Shelton, Andrew's daughter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Olympic success of Jesse Owens serves as inspiration in Young's childhood narrative, as relayed by his daughter Young Shelton. Before becoming a fixture of the civil rights movement, Andrew Young (b. 1932) was a middle-class Black boy in segregated New Orleans where, on the playground, "kids didn't care what color you were. What mattered most was how fast you could run and tag." Episodic scenes detail Young's family life; men in the neighborhood shouting what sounded like "Hi, Hitler!"; and a trip to the Orpheum Theater, where, from the "Colored Only" section, Young watches Jesse Owens, "a runner who looked like me, winning over and over and over again" at the 1936 Olympics in Germany. Seeing Owens win four gold medals "in front of a man who thought people like me were not as good as White people" galvanizes him to "play harder, work harder, and try harder... to be the best I could be." In hazy pastels, James creates a dreamlike backdrop for the historically resonant recollection. Creators' notes conclude. Ages 6–8.
