Elster, Jean Alicia

"Follows the story of [the] author's . . . maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Jackson. Born in Tennessee in 1890, Dorothy May was the middle daughter of Addie Jackson, a married African-American housekeeper at one of the white boardinghouses in town, and Tom Mitchell, a commanding white attorney from a prominent family. Through three successive generations of African-American women, Elster intertwines the fictionalized adaptations of the defining periods and challenges--race relations, miscegenation, sexual assault, and class divisions--in her family's history"--.

In 1937, twelve-year-old Patsy and her family travel from Detroit to Tennessee to visit her grandmother. They leave in a first-class train car and Patsy is shocked to discover that they must change seats and ride in the cramped "colored car" when they get further south. When Patsy returns home she examines her experience in the colored car and the subtle injustices her family faces in Detroit.

As he reads about Mary McLeod Bethune, a boy learns to hold onto his dream of going to college and works to make it happen, despite the teasing of his friends.

Presents sixteen primary and secondary documents that argue opposing points on the causes of the Civil War, secession, and the war's outcome, and includes a chronology and further reading list.

Presents a collection of essays that provide arguments for and against the death penalty in the United States, using both primary and secondary sources to support each position--speeches, court cases, newspaper accounts--it examines the way the attitudes toward the death have changed, or remained the same, throughout history.