Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

In 1965, the Carters, an African American sharecropping family with thirteen children, took public officials at their word when they were offered “Freedom of Choice” to send their children to any school they wished, and so began their unforeseen struggle to desegregate the schools of Sunflower County, Mississippi. In this true account from the front lines of the civil rights movement, four generations of the Carter family speak to author and civil rights activist Constance Curry, who lived this story alongside the family—a story of clear-eyed determination, extraordinary grit, and sweet triumph.

A clarion call for educators, parents, and anyone who has a stake in a better tomorrow to transform schools into places where learning and collective healing can flourish, this book takes listeners on a journey from Oakland to Ohio and from New York to Iowa City and beyond. Morris describes with candor and love what it looks like to meet the complex needs of girls on the margins. In doing so, she offers a collection of gems from educators who are attuned to the patterns of pain and struggle, and who show how adults working in schools can harness their wisdom to partner with students and help the girls they teach find value and joy in learning.

Simple Justice is generally regarded as the classic account of the U.S. Supreme Court's epochal decision outlawing racial segregation and the centerpiece of African-Americans' ongoing crusade for equal justice under law.

The 1954 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education brought centuries of legal segregation in this country to an end. It was and remains, beyond question, one of the truly significant events in American history, "probably the most important American government act of any kind since the Emancipation Proclamation," in the view of constitutional scholar Louis H. Pollak. The Brown decision climaxed along, torturous battle for black equality in education, making hard law out of vague principles and opening the way for the broad civil rights upheavals of the 1960s and beyond.

Simple Justice is the story of that battle. Richard Kluger traces the background of the epochal decision,from its remote legal and cultural roots to the complex personalities of those who brought about its realization. The result is a landmark work of popular history, graceful and fascinatingly detailed, the panoramic account of a struggle for human dignity in process since the birth of the nation.

The powerful exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools.

“When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it.”