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Civil Rights Activists and Author at BPL
Nationally known children’s author Cynthia Levinson will speak and sign copies of her new book We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March (Peachtree Publishers, 2012) at the Central Library, Thursday, February 23, at 6:30 p.m. In her book, written for young readers age ten and up, Levinson tells the story of four young civil rights activists who took part in the Birmingham demonstrations. Three of those activists, James W. Stewart (age 15 in 1963), Arnetta Streeter (age 16 in 1962), and Washington Booker III (age 14 in 1963), will join the author to share their memories.
Cynthia Levinson joins a long list of hundreds of authors who have researched books in the collections of the Birmingham Public Library (BPL) Archives. These authors spend hours, months, or even years working closely with Archives staff. Reflecting on her research, Levinson says, “The book would not have been so comprehensive or revealing without the expertise of the library staff. In addition to providing excellent photographs from the library's collection and background information on ‘Bull’ Connor, the Archives team led me to resources providing answers on confounding but essential issues. Dr. King's mission was to ‘fill the jails.’ But, what did that mean? Nowhere could I find data on the number of jail cells in Birmingham in 1963. The BPL collection included a report from the American Civil Liberties Union that pinpointed the figure. That, combined with arrest records available from other sources, dramatically conveyed the inability of adults to ‘fill the jails’ in April 1963 and the need to turn to children."
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Book Review
Selkirk’s Island: The True and Strange Adventures of The Real Robinson Crusoe
The subtitle of Selkirk's Island is, for once, not just a publisher’s come-on. For those like me who were entranced by the Daniel Defoe novel, this biography of Alexander Selkirk, the model for Crusoe, will be welcomed. Surprised that there was a Selkirk biography, I was even more surprised, when I looked into the matter, that there were several. This one seems to be the best. Among other things, it won Britain’s Whitbread award for biography in 2001.
My start with Selkirk was in the 1970s. The delightful People’s Almanac had a short piece on Selkirk that I read several times. Decades later, when I discovered the Souhami book at a library sale, it seemed too good to be true. They’d written an entire book on Selkirk? And later: Several books on him? But he’s still obscure, though he doesn’t deserve to be. Perhaps only the gigantic shadow of the character Crusoe has made Selkirk largely unknown. But Selkirk is equally fascinating. ...learn more
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