This Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality

In the 1950s fourteen-year-old Jo Ann attends a black high school in Clinton, Tennessee until the white Clinton High School must follow the law requiring desegregation of schools. Jo Ann and eleven other black students—the Clinton 12—attend the all-white high school where she initially feels welcome but when word of the desegregation spreads, intimidation and violence follow, black students and their families feel unsafe, and the National Guard is called in to keep the peace when the town is in turmoil. This award-winning memoir, written in verse, explores complex issues of racism, equality, and costs of advocacy, and can spark discussions of equality, courage, heroes, and advocacy.