Hi Reader,

When I was creating From the Margins to the Center: A People's History of the United States Told Through Children's Books, I came across a movement I'd never heard of.

First, I noticed it in Ilyasah Shabazz's excellent novel about her mother's childhood, Betty Before X. (Shabazz's father is Malcolm X.) When young Betty moved to Detroit in 1945, a mentor from her church got her involved in the Housewives' League.

The League organized Black women to put economic pressure on businesses that operated in Black communities but only hired white workers. Their slogan was "don't buy where you can't work."

Later, I was reading She Loved Baseball, a picture book about Effa Manley, who co-founded a Negro Leagues baseball team in 1935. I read that even before she began pushing for justice for Black baseball players, she worked with Harlem's Citizens' League for Fair Play, which organized boycotts of stores that wouldn't hire Black salesclerks.

I suspected these two campaigns in different cities in different years must be part of the same movement. Sure enough, a little research taught me that the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movement emerged from the economic despair of Black communities during the Great Depression.

At a time when people could have given into hopelessness, they instead fought back.

The organizing that everyday people did in Black communities across the country during the 1930s and 40s helped lay the groundwork for the civil rights movement.

When kids learn Black history in school, there's often a big time gap between lessons on the end of slavery and lessons on the civil rights movement.

Sure, kids will learn how bad Jim Crow segregation was as an introduction to civil rights. But they probably won't learn about how Black people were organizing for justice and protesting inhumane conditions throughout history, not just during the 1950s and 60s.

This is one of the reasons why learning what Howard Zinn called "peoples history" is so important.

It's not just about telling the individual stories of people like Effa Manley and Betty Shabazz (though we should do that.) It's also about the big narratives that children learn.

💡Instead of a narrative that implies Black people quietly put up with segregation until the 1950s, kids learn that Black communities have resisted racism at all times.

⭐ Instead of a narrative that claims LGBTQ people didn't exist until recently, young people can learn about leaders from the past including Jane Addams, Langston Hughes, and Marlene Dietrich were part of the rainbow of Queer people.

🔑 Instead of a narrative that describes the land that is today called the United States as an "untamed wilderness" before Europeans invaded, people's history teaches the many complex ways that Native American nations carefully managed the land and created intricate trade routes.

If you want to leave behind the inaccurate, whitewashed history lessons you learned in school and offer your children a very different experience of history, I can help. I created From the Margins to the Center: A People's History of the United States Told Through Children's Books for families, educators, and community workers just like you.

Inside, you’ll find reviews of 240 engaging books for ages 5 to 14 that tell history from the perspective of People of Color, poor people, immigrants, women of all races, disabled people, LGBTQ folks, and religious minorities.

Here's what's included in the ebook:

Book reviews that are broken down by historical period (for example Abolitionism and the Civil War, Progressive Era movements, and the Great Depression.) There are book recommendations for periods as far back as Indigenous history before colonization and as recent as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In-depth book descriptions about the plot, historical connections, and other details to help you decide whether the book is one your kids will enjoy.

Bibliographical information including recommended ages, page numbers for chapter books, dates the book takes place in, whether an audio book is available, and the identities of main character and author.

Reading checklists for each time period: As you read through the guide, use these printable checklists for each historical era to note which titles are interesting to you. Then take your checklist to the library or bookstore.

You can download a sample of the ebook here.

Another reason that I treasure sharing people's history is that it has so much to teach us about understanding and resisting injustice today.

Our young people deserve to know about the countless people, communities, and movements that have spoken the truth, uplifted their dignity, and worked for justice in every time period.

Let's learn a different kind of history with our kids, so that they can have a different kind of future.

xo,

Rebekah

P.S. Get answers to frequently asked questions about From the Margins to the Center: A People's History of the United States Told Through Children's Books. You can even download a sample of the ebook. ​

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Rebekah Gienapp (she/her/hers) | rebekahgienapp.com | Connect on Instagram | Coffees for Gaza |

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