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Notable Picture Books in the High School Classroom A Framework

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Tami Charles is the New York Times bestselling author of All Because You Matter, and numerous books for children and young adults. Her middle grade debut, Like Vanessa, earned Top 10 spots on the Indies Introduce and Spring Kids' Next lists, three starred reviews, and a Junior Library Guild selection. Her latest titles include YA novel-in-verse, Muted, which was a Buzzfeed Top 40 pick for 2021, and lyrical picture book, My Day with the Panye.When Tami isn't writing, she can be found presenting at schools both stateside and abroad.

* I attended Newark Public Schools, where my mother was a teacher, vice-principal, and eventually principal at my elementary school. Talk about TORTURE! (but I survived)

* Once upon a time, I was in an all-girl R&B singing group. We performed on BET, for the Apollo summer showcase, and had a song on the radio that played at like 2 in the morning when everyone was sleeping. We didn't make it to the grand stage, but those were the times of my life!

* Traveling (looking to add Italy to the list soon)

* Empanadas = life. If you don't like them, we can't be friends.

* I love anything written by Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Rita Williams-Garcia, Edwidge Danticat, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, and Meg Medina. Swoon!!!

* Spiders, Cave Crickets, Raw Onions ( destroy them ALL!)

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Tami Charles is the New York Times bestselling author of All Because You Matter , and numerous books for children and young adults. Her middle grade debut, Like Vanessa , earned Top 10 spots on the Indies Introduce and Spring Kids' Next lists, three starred reviews, and a Junior Library Guild selection.

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Historical Paintings of the Haitian Revolution

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Historical Paintings of the Haitian Revolution

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Talking Fry Bread with Kevin Mailliard Interview

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Talking Fry Bread with Kevin Mailliard Interview

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Talking 'Fry Bread' With Author Kevin Maillard

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Virtual Storytime: FRY BREAD with Kevin Noble Maillard

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Mapping

We strive to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the world in a way that goes beyond colonial ways of thinking in order to better represent how Indigenous people want to see themselves.

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Native Land is a resource to learn more about Indigenous territories, languages, lands, and ways of life. We welcome you to our site.

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Kwame Alexander reads aloud The Undefeated

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Kwame Alexander reads aloud The Undefeated

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In The Undefeated, artist Kadir Nelson illustrates generations of black American heroes "emerging from the shadows."

"It begins with Jesse Owens literally jumping out of the darkness into the light ..." Nelson says. "By the time we get to toward the middle and end of the book those shadows have disappeared and the brilliance and excellence of the subjects have completely emerged into the bright light."

The text of the book is a poem Kwame Alexander wrote in 2008. Alexander's second daughter, Samayah had just been born, and Barack Obama had recently won election as the first African-American president of the United States. "This poem was my tribute to both," Alexander writes.

The poem inspired Nelson. "I thought it was very powerful ..." he says. "A beautiful poem that spoke to excellence, and perseverance, and triumph amidst adversity. It was an ode to the sung and unsung heroes in history."

Interview Highlights
On illustrating Alexander's poem
I don't necessarily have to illustrate other people's works ... I'll take on a book or project written by someone else when the words really speak to me ... [when] I can add something to it that is unique to the work that I do. This is one of those texts that really spoke to me; it was beautifully written and I felt it was a really great pairing of words and pictures of an author and an artist.
On how he came up with the illustration for "The ones who survived America by any means necessary"
I just really think about people in my family, people that I know, who are the unsung heroes. The people throughout history who we don't necessarily know - who we may never know - but all their contributions to the story of America are just as important.
On leaving one page blank for those who didn't survive
It's a moment of silence. It's a moment of pause to provoke thought about all of those who didn't make it ... and all of those voices who have been silenced, all those voices who we have not known, have not seen, have not heard. This is a spread that is really speaking to them.
On the way he depicted the transatlantic slave trade
The subject matter is very difficult. It's not pretty. So even though I'm an artist and I try to create images that are visually pleasing, it was important that this subject be portrayed in the way that I think it should be. It's striking, it's unsettling, and it also gives you pause. This really happened.
On finding a visual style that feels true to his subjects
Whether it's a book, whether it's a stamp, or an album cover, my approach is always the same: I want to be able to connect with the subject matter. I have to step in the shoes of whoever I'm portraying and create artwork that is reverent toward toward the subject.
On dedicating the book to his grandmother, and whether she's portrayed in it
We don't see her face, but at the same time, you know, I look at that family on the second spread ["the ones who survived America by any means necessary"] and I'm reminded of my grandmother. ...

My grandmother, she is from the Deep South and she married my grandfather who was a white American and they moved to the north and created a whole life for themselves. ... I come from a family of ancestors who were sharecroppers. ... I look at what she was able to do to push her family forward and create a life for the whole family ...

I see her face in all these faces - I see her face in that family, I see her face in Harriet Tubman or in Zora Neale Hurston. All of these heroes who have drawn upon something greater than themselves and created beauty out of something that was not beautiful.
Justine Kenin and Emily Kopp produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Beth Novey adapted it for the Web.

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This Is For 'The Undefeated': A New Picture Book Celebrates Black Brilliance

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In The Undefeated, artist Kadir Nelson illustrates generations of black American heroes "emerging from the shadows." "It begins with Jesse Owens literally jumping out of the darkness into the light ..." Nelson says. "By the time we get to toward the middle and end of the book those shadows have disappeared and the brilliance and excellence of the subjects have completely emerged into the bright light."

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There is no doubt about it--Native children's literature and YA literature, fiction and nonfiction, is having a moment. Every time we turn around, there's another wonderful book at the library or the publication details are announced or there's an exciting blog or interview. Of course, we feel kinship with all Native books meant to lift us up, and give others authentic representation of every nation and culture. Some Indigenous authors are distant cousins--like Cynthia Leitich Smith, who is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and recognized this by including a Seminole character in RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME. But when we first heard about FRY BREAD and Kevin Noble Maillard, that was something else. When we discovered he is a member of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey band and African American, that was something else altogether.

Ashleigh, 13: I keep reading this book, over and over. My mom has read it--by herself and then aloud to me and Vi, showing us the illustrations like a librarian at story time, lol. We all love it. Even my auntie who came over saw a few pages and said, "That book is done right!"

Alexis, 19: Let's explain how the book is organized. There are twelve (or maybe thirteen) poems that begin, "FRY BREAD IS..." Most of them are two-page spreads. Each one corresponds to a section in the back matter, which, unlike most books, seems essential to read. Here is an example, FRY BREAD IS FOOD.

Charlie, 17: That one seems pretty obvious. But look closer. Because some of those ingredients aren't standard for every fry bread cook. "Flour, salt, water/ Cornmeal, baking powder/ Perhaps milk, maybe sugar." Mr. Kevin says this in the back matter:

Perhaps the use of cornmeal in my recipe in a Southern influence that reflects the blending of African American and Native American cultures in family.

Oh yass! How did that get out of my head and into a book?

Langston, 13: Right from the beginning, there are all these different looking kids. That one has blond hair and the other has tight cornrows. It's surprised me. I mean, I haven't looked at all the books you have...

Michael, 18: It's different for real. I couldn't help wish one was in a wheelchair like me. Because of that, I couldn't feel the full embrace like the rest of you. I still think it's an amazing book. The kind of thing Indigo would have liked and we keep asking for.

Alexis: In terms of intersectionality. I have to say, I've loved many of the books we've reviewed. But sometimes it seems like the publishing norm of female, cisgender, straight, abled, neurotypical writer/MC that white women fall into is also a trap for Native women who don't have other marginalizations (including race). I understand wanting to write the book you needed to see as a kid. But it's different times, and if you hold the mirror out toward us, millennials, it's crazy diverse. This book honestly reflects that, without feeling like it's appropriating anyone's identity. That's an accomplishment. Because some little kids just seem non-binary, it works on that level too.

Ashleigh: Let's look at another page. FRY BREAD IS TIME. "On weekends and holidays/ Supper or dinner/ Powwows and festivals/ Moments together/ With family and friends." I so love these illustrations by Ms. Juana!

Charlie: It's fun to find all the Seminole references in the book. It's like WHERE'S WALDO? FRY BREAD IS ART has coil baskets, the little handmade dolls we all know, which they sell at Big Cyprus, and, of course, patchwork patterns that are on other pages in the book too. Mr. Kevin points out the father's wrist tattoo with Seminole symbols: "The large zigzags are lightning, and the double crossed letter "ts" are trees." I missed that one! When we DMd with Mr. Kevin, he said the blanket in FRY BREAD IS YOU is his favorite. Sweet!

Michael: There is a very interesting map the children are standing on in FRY BREAD IS PLACE. You might almost think it's the US--but not. There are no lines dividing land. That totally struck me, and like so many things we haven't seen it before. I like the different way the kids use the space--reading or stretching--it's theirs without all those markings. It almost made me cry. Thank you, Ms. Juana, for this image.

Alexis: Let's discuss the one controversial point. I've heard some Native people are conflicted and upset about this. Mr. Kevin chose to list not only the 573 federally recognized Native American tribes in the US, but also 67 state recognized tribes. Many of those are legitimate. If you look up all of them, some of them are pay a fee to be an Indian scams. Does the inclusion of these groups legitimize the scammers and make it harder to call out all the pretendians? I worry about it.

Keep your perfume!

Charlie: I want to say two things about this. All of us sitting here do not have the same tribal status for different reasons. Mr. Kevin addresses issues at the back of the book that many Native people don't want to touch. "The racial aspect of being Native American differs from the political status of tribal membership, which is so different and complicated across Native country. Not all American Indians are enrolled as citizens of a tribal government. Some have never enrolled in any tribe, while some have been forcibly disenrolled."
Langston: Whoa, he's talking about Black Natives.

Charlie: There are others who have been disenrolled. But, yes, this has happened to many Black Natives. Including in the Seminole Nations of Florida and Oklahoma. Other tribes too.

Alexis: I get that, and no, people don't want to talk or write about it much. My Grandpa Joe had a close connection with Ft. Pierce. But how is that relevant to including shady tribes?

Charlie: I said I had two things to say. I straight up asked Mr. Kevin about this. He said I could quote him.

On the tribal inclusion: I knew going in that some people would not approve of some of the names on the list, but that really shows that, like fry bread, there is no central agreement about what it means to be native in Indian Country. I welcome the disagreement! I'm sure there are some people out there that don't think some of the names on the federal list should be included, but it's not my job to vet and go through a recognition application for each one of these groups.

That's the choice he made. You can take it or leave it. He told me: "You can't ever go wrong with being inclusive, I think."

Alexis: I like the book and respect the author, but I can't totally accept that.

Michael: I was raised one way, but I think I'm becoming more inclusive when I see different sides. Leaving someone out is the worst. I feel that as a Native disabled dude.

Ashleigh: My family loves this book. I see what Alexis is saying, but I recommend this book to everyone. I feel Seminole pride and I'm glad so many people are buying and sharing it!!!!

Langston: Can this page bring us together, FRY BREAD IS HISTORY?

Michael: Little bro, you got it right your first time! That is a page we can all relate to without getting salty. Do you want to read it to everyone?

Langston: Um, okay. "The long walk, the stolen land/ Strangers in our own world/ With unknown food/ We made new recipes/ From what we had."

Charlie: Wow.

Alexis: The man who wrote something like that has my admiration. The book is economical (Mom's word) in the best sense. The poems say a whole lot in three to six lines. The illustrations fill the page but are so clearly defined--you can follow each character from page to page. And then the back matter drives it home. Maillard and Martinez-Neal work perfectly as a team. It's the whole package. Even the squareness of the book somehow seems right.

Michael: Do you recommend it?

Alexis: With some reservations.

Charlie: No reservations here.

Langston: Not me. It's cool--he fam.

Ashleigh: We are family, and community. We can allow some people to be upset or worried, but also jump up. I'm jumping!

*This was a "we don't all agree on everything" review. Thanks to our adult mediators--Charlie's dad Abe and Alexis' mom Gail. Also library lady Ms. Ann, who is a real Libra with the scales balancing everyone!

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FRY BREAD, by Kevin Noble Maillard, Illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal--a group review

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There is no doubt about it--Native children's literature and YA literature, fiction and nonfiction, is having a moment. Every time we turn around, there's another wonderful book at the library or the publication details are announced or there's an exciting blog or interview.

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The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the Indian Removal Act and its after-effects, including government documents, manuscripts, printed ephemera, and maps. Provided below is a link to the home page for each relevant digital collection along with selected highlights.

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Research Guides: Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents in American History: Digital Collections

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The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the Indian Removal Act and its after-effects, including government documents, manuscripts, printed ephemera, and maps. Provided below is a link to the home page for each relevant digital collection along with selected highlights.

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BRANDON - The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the gay rights movement, might introduce some adults to a chapter of American history that they don't know.

Thanks to Brandon author Rob Sanders, for the first time there's a book for children that tells that story. Published in April, Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution is a handsomely illustrated picture book for kids ages 5 to 8. It is Sanders' eighth children's book; he'll publish his ninth, Ball & Balloon, in August. His earlier picture books include 2018 Florida Book Awards gold medal winner Rodzilla.

Sanders, 60, teaches at Mintz Elementary School in Brandon. "I teach fourth grade, but I'm moving to second grade next year," Sanders said during an interview at a Brandon bookstore.

Born and raised in Springfield, Mo., Sanders has taught in Hillsborough County schools for 16 years. Does he still love teaching? "I do most days. The kids are always great."
How long have you been writing books, and how did you get started?
I've been publishing books for about 11 years. My students guilt-tripped me into it. When I would read to them, they'd say, "Where are your books?" So I took that challenge. I'm now at eight books published and five more coming out in the next couple of years.

The kids are excited when my books come out. We publish some of their work, too. I tell them that publishing is the final stage. They turn it in and say, "I'm done," and I say, no, actually.
What did you do before you became a teacher?
I started out working for 15 years in educational publishing for the Southern Baptist Convention. I published a lot with them. In a lot of ways, it was a great job. But I was outed and fired.

I had been thinking about leaving for years - how was I going to get out of this? It was kind of a golden handcuff, because it was a good job. But the atmosphere was so conservative. I was in my 40s and had been coming out to my family and friends, and I felt comfortable with that. So a year later I was in Florida, helping my sister care for our mom.
Your first five books were fictional picture books, but with the last three you've switched to nonfiction, writing about the history of the gay rights and civil rights movements for children. What led you to that shift?
I always loved nonfiction. Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag was inspired the night of the Supreme Court decision (on marriage equality). The White House was washed in rainbow colors, and I thought, a lot of my students have no idea what that flag means. I wrote the first draft that night. Then I had to do the research!
What reactions to the books have you seen from students and adults?
I've read my books to all my students and never asked for permission, but with Pride I thought it was a good time to have a conversation with the (school) district, with supervisors, principals, libraries: What do you think? What should I do? The feedback was positive. There were some words of caution, but no one said, "Don't do it."

I wrote a flier to parents giving them the option to opt out of the reading. Only three of my 44 students were opted out. One parent made a lot of phone calls, even to the state, and so my reading was delayed three weeks. The book was already in schools all over Hillsborough County; I was the only person not able to read it.

This year I just read Stonewall to my students and let them discuss it. Student reaction is always interesting. The hardest thing for a teacher is to hush up and not direct the conversation.

With Pride, I had one student who said, "My church doesn't believe gay is right." I was so primed to answer that, but I sat back. Another student said, "Well, my church doesn't believe that way." And they talked. It was a reality check among the fourth-graders.

With Stonewall, students were saying, "My auntie is gay" or "My uncle got married to a man last year." And of course some of their parents are gay. A book that references their own families always appeals to them.
What are the challenges of writing about potentially controversial history for young readers?
My kids always really love reading stories about civil rights, women's rights, farm workers. They're thrilled by success, and they're incensed by injustice. Kids believe equality is for everyone.

This is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, but it had never been done in picture-book format. It was a struggle to figure out how to make it accessible.

I ended up writing about the history of the Stonewall Inn itself. It was originally two buildings that were horse stables. The book is their view of history, until the night they became history. I was always focused on the buildings, but it wasn't until late in my drafting that the buildings actually began telling their story as "we." It's the idea of "If these walls could talk."

There are so many different stories there, and I couldn't tell them all. They say history depends on where you're standing. Focusing on the buildings allowed me to focus not just on the riots but on the history of the neighborhood.
Were you concerned about describing a riot in a children's book?
These are kids who every month have a lockdown drill on what to do if there's an active shooter, starting in pre-K. Violence unfortunately is part of our world. I would like to protect my kids from all of it. But learning about violence in history is less traumatic than living in a violent world. I think not teaching history would be controversial.
Are any of your upcoming books about LGBTQ history?
I have two nonfiction books coming early next year. One is about a transgender Civil War soldier, Albert Cashier. The other one is about Mayor Pete (Buttigieg). I was asked to write it about two months ago, so I researched it and wrote it and it's gone to the illustrator. Pete, by the way, is not the first openly gay candidate for president. (Gay rights activist Fred Karger ran for the Republican nomination in 2012.) In 2021 I'll have Two Grooms on a Cake: America's First Gay Wedding. It was in 1971, so it will be published on the 50th anniversary. I love a good anniversary.
Your Pride Contact Colette Bancroft at cbancroft@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8435. Follow @colettemb. Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution book was inspired by your personal reaction to history. Did you find you had a personal connection to Stonewall?
I would have been 10 years old that night. I would have been asleep in my bed. It was my mother's 40th birthday. It just struck me that there were people fighting for the rights of the person I didn't even know I was yet. What we do today can have powerful effects on kids in the future.

By Rob Sanders; illustrated by Jamey Christoph

Random House Books for Young Readers, 40 pages, $17.99

Rob Sanders will be a featured author at the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading on Nov. 9 at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

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Brandon author Rob Sanders talks about 'Stonewall,' his picture-book history for children

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BRANDON - The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the gay rights movement, might introduce some adults to a chapter of American history that they don't know. Thanks to Brandon author Rob Sanders, for the first time there's a book for children that tells that story.

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Kids Talk Back to BrainPOP on LGBT Rights (full)

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Collection Summary

The Stonewall Uprising Interviews Collection is comprised of 48 raw interviews from the American Experience documentary of the same name. The documentary discusses the Stonewall riots, a six-day period beginning on June 28, 1969, during which the LGBTQ+ community protested against a police raid on a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, NYC. Stonewall Uprising discusses societal attitudes towards the gay community and early activism for gay rights prior to the riots, as well as the riots' legacy, which includes the creation of a movement for gay rights, greater cohesion among the LGBTQ+ community, and the establishment of the first gay pride parades. Interviews took place with community leaders, activists, and authors, including Martha Shelley, a Stonewall veteran, activist for gay and lesbian rights, and one of the first four members of the Gay Liberation Front; Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City; Virginia Apuzzo, a gay rights activist and former Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force; Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector of the NYPD Morals Division; and Dick Leitsch, an activist and the first gay reporter to write about the Stonewall riots.

Collection Background

The Stonewall Uprising interviews were conducted in 2011 for the American Experience documentary of the same name, with Kate Davis and David Heilbroner serving as the documentary's directors. American Experience, PBS' flagship history documentary series, premiered in 1988 and is produced at WGBH in Boston. In 2017, the WGBH Media Library and Archives digitized the Stonewall Uprising interviews and in 2018 submitted them to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

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The Stonewall Uprising Interviews Collection is comprised of 48 raw interviews from the American Experience documentary of the same name. The documentary discusses the Stonewall riots, a six-day period beginning on June 28, 1969, during which the LGBTQ+ community protested against a police raid on a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, NYC.

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Constant Raids at Gay Bars

The 1960s and preceding decades were not welcoming times for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. For instance, solicitation of same-sex relations was illegal in New York City.

For such reasons, LGBT individuals flocked to gay bars and clubs, places of refuge where they could express themselves openly and socialize without worry. However, the New York State Liquor Authority penalized and shut down establishments that served alcohol to known or suspected LGBT individuals, arguing that the mere gathering of homosexuals was "disorderly."

Thanks to activists' efforts, these regulations were overturned in 1966, and LGBT patrons could then be served alcohol. But engaging in gay behavior in public (holding hands, kissing or dancing with someone of the same sex) was still illegal, so police harassment of gay bars continued and many bars still operated without liquor licenses-in part because they were owned by the Mafia.

Gay Rights Before Stonewall

The first documented U.S. gay rights organization, The Society for Human Rights (SHR), was founded in 1924 by Henry Gerber, a German immigrant. Police raids forced them to disband in 1925, but not before they had published several issues of their newsletter, "Friendship and Freedom," the country's first gay-interest newsletter. America's first lesbian rights organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, was formed in San Francisco on September 21, 1955.

In 1966, three years before Stonewall, members of The Mattachine Society, an organization dedicated to gay rights, staged a "sip-in" where they openly declared their sexuality at taverns, daring staff to turn them away and suing establishments who did. When The Commission on Human Rights ruled that gay individuals had the right to be served in bars, police raids were temporarily reduced.

The Stonewall Inn

The crime syndicate saw profit in catering to shunned gay clientele, and by the mid-1960s, the Genovese crime family controlled most Greenwich Village gay bars. In 1966, they purchased Stonewall Inn (a "straight" bar and restaurant), cheaply renovated it, and reopened it the next year as a gay bar.

Stonewall Inn was registered as a type of private "bottle bar," which did not require a liquor license because patrons were supposed to bring their own liquor. Club attendees had to sign their names in a book upon entry to maintain the club's false exclusivity. The Genovese family bribed New York's Sixth Police Precinct to ignore the activities occurring within the club.

Without police interference, the crime family could cut costs how they saw fit: The club lacked a fire exit, running water behind the bar to wash glasses, clean toilets that didn't routinely overflow and palatable drinks that weren't watered down beyond recognition. What's more, the Mafia reportedly blackmailed the club's wealthier patrons who wanted to keep their sexuality a secret.

Nonetheless, Stonewall Inn quickly became an important Greenwich Village institution. It was large and relatively cheap to enter. It welcomed drag queens, who received a bitter reception at other gay bars and clubs. It was a nightly home for many runaways and homeless gay youths, who panhandled or shoplifted to afford the entry fee. And it was one of the few-if not the only-gay bar left that allowed dancing.

Raids were still a fact of life, but usually corrupt cops would tip off Mafia-run bars before they occurred, allowing owners to stash the alcohol (sold without a liquor license) and hide other illegal activities. In fact, the NYPD had stormed Stonewall Inn just a few days before the riot-inducing raid.

The Stonewall Riots Begin

When police raided Stonewall Inn on the morning of June 28, it came as a surprise-the bar wasn't tipped off this time.

Armed with a warrant, police officers entered the club, roughed up patrons, and, finding bootlegged alcohol, arrested 13 people, including employees and people violating the state's gender-appropriate clothing statute (female officers would take suspected cross-dressing patrons into the bathroom to check their sex).

Fed up with constant police harassment and social discrimination, angry patrons and neighborhood residents hung around outside of the bar rather than disperse, becoming increasingly agitated as the events unfolded and people were aggressively manhandled. At one point, an officer hit a lesbian over the head as he forced her into the police van- she shouted to onlookers to act, inciting the crowd to begin throw pennies, bottles, cobble stones and other objects at the police.

Within minutes, a full-blown riot involving hundreds of people began. The police, a few prisoners and a Village Voice writer barricaded themselves in the bar, which the mob attempted to set on fire after breaching the barricade repeatedly.

The fire department and a riot squad were eventually able to douse the flames, rescue those inside Stonewall, and disperse the crowd. But the protests, sometimes involving thousands of people, continued in the area for five more days, flaring up at one point after the Village Voice published its account of the riots.

Stonewall's Legacy

Though the Stonewall uprising didn't start the gay rights movement, it was a galvanizing force for LGBT political activism, leading to numerous gay rights organizations, including the Gay Liberation Front, Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

On the one-year anniversary of the riots on June 28, 1970, thousands of people marched in the streets of Manhattan from the Stonewall Inn to Central Park in what was then called "Christopher Street Liberation Day," America's first gay pride parade. The parade's official chant was: "Say it loud, gay is proud."

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama designated the site of the riots-Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and the surrounding streets and sidewalks-a national monument in recognition of the area's contribution to gay rights.

Photo Gallery

HISTORY Vault

Sources

A History of Gay Rights in America. CBS.
LGBTQ Activism: The Henry Gerber House, Chicago, IL. NPS.gov.

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1969 Stonewall Riots - Origins, Timeline & Leaders

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The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, took place on June 28, 1969, in New York City, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a local gay club. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes.

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Critique of trans women's erasure in the text.

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Critique of trans women's erasure in the text.

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June in Pride Month and I'm a long-time Latinx lesbian and we've got some history to cover. I've been out for the majority of my life. I'm out to friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, students, my sons' friends and families, the checkout people at the grocery store, all the contractors I try and get to come back to the house to actually do the work that we'd like to pay them for, and our dog. I'm even out to the Subaru dealership guys - although that not a shock to anyone.

In fact, I'm about as out as I can be and this is a focused, calculated act of defiance and activism. We are enmeshed in a homophobic, racist, sexist, ablest, classist society that is staunchly in favor of and designed to support and affirm a White, male, able, middle-class, Christian, straight ideal.

What is sometimes most distressing is how people who are privilege adjacent align themselves with the dominant group instead of lifting up communities that are oppressed and minoritized. I define privilege adjacent as someone who is one degree removed from the idealized White, male, able, middle class, Christian, straight idealized identity. When I address identity I am referring to the ways Dr. Beverly Tatum talks about it in The complexity of identity: Who am I in which she specifies "race or ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, and physical or mental ability".

This kind of privilege adjacent behavior is seen in the racism enacted by White feminists when they uphold and protect Whiteness. It is seen in the ways Latinx men vote for White male candidates thus upholding maleness. And, it is seen in the LGBTQIA community's racism, sexism, and transphobia. The White LGBTQIA community often actively erases, omits, disregards and generally tosses under the bus BIPOC people across the spectrum, including but not limited to bi- and pan-sexual people, as well as gender outlaws (Kate Bornstein, 1994/2010/2016) which include trans, gender fluid and everyone else not accounted for on the imagined and idealized gender binary.

The LGBTQIA community has a lot to learn and repair. I was hoping some of that education and repair work would be seen in Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution by Rob Sanders and Jamey Christoph (Random House, 2019).

But, no. This isn't the book to do that work. Instead, it is yet another fiction that provides a gay, White, cis, straight appealing, male community a pat on the back. Instead of lifting- up the trans women of color, and the butch women and femme men who were at the forefront of the riots, this book presents a more palatable image.

The author and illustrator decided to enter into the story of the Stonewall riots using the buildings as the narrators. The personified buildings provide a brief history of Greenwich Village from the 1840s when the area was used to board horses, through an unknown time of immigration, taking a dip into the 1930s with artists, and finally landing on "gays and lesbians. They were men who loved men, and women who loved women" in the 1960s (p.11). This is the first, but certainly not the last opportunity that the authors take to enforce a strict gender binary. The men are masculine appealing in a sort of Abercrombie & Fitch metro-sexual way, whereas the women remind me of Marlo Thomas from That Girl!

On the next page (p. 13-14) there might be a Black trans woman or maybe a drag queen embraced by a young White man. She is centered and surrounded by a sea of Whiteness. Again, the authors choose to use "gay" as an all encompassing word.

On page 19-20 the issue of unjust laws begins, and the text states that the police "stormed through our doors, lining up the men and women inside, demanding IDs, detaining some, arresting others." The text doesn't hint at, allude to, show or address the beatings, bribes, or all the other corruption and violence that the police perpetuated during that time (and continue today).

Finally, on pages 21 and 22, the text reads " 'Why don't you do something?' yelled one woman as she was forced into a police car." The illustration is a short, thin, wasp waisted woman with brown hair wearing a v-neck t-shirt, in handcuffs, getting into a police car.

Not a lot of folks have a clear understanding or recollection of what happened that night in 1969. They were busy making history. I know this, when I lived in San Francisco during the late 80s I heard about Stonewall from LGBTQIA elders who were there (or claimed to be) while I stuffed envelopes, folded quilts, and sat around bars having brunch. I always heard about two Black women ... Stormé DeLarverie and Marsha P. Johnson as the grandmothers of the gay rights movement. (Full disclosure, I never knew Stormé's last name until I started researching for this review).

Stormé DeLarverie was a bi-racial stone butch from Louisiana. She performed in nightclubs and worked as a bouncer. She was not petite or slight, and she sure as hell wasn't wasp waisted and cooperative. According to Julia Robertson's HuffPost article "She was androgynous, tall, dark, handsome and legally armed." She got tired of taking punches, so she literally fought back that night.

Marsha P. Johnson a "trans activist" according to Julia Jacobs' NY Times article. Marsha and Sylvia Rivera (HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT HER!?!?!?) have also been credited with throwing the first bricks of the riot. Again, both of these women are women of color and both are missing from this book. (That isn't exactly true. There is one photograph included in the back matter that shows these two powerful trans women of color sharing an umbrella during a protest.)

After the police car pages where the book either erases or misrepresents Stormé, and blithely moves on to capture a very #AllGaysMatter sort of vibe. But, according to many articles, as well as the folks I talked to way back in the 80s, that wasn't the case. The people leading the fight were lesbians, especially butch lesbians, drag queens, and trans men and women. Many, not all, were BIPOC. These were the people who were there to protect, to rise up, and to start the revolution that lead the way for me to live as an out Latinx lesbian with a life partner, two kids, a dog and a literal picket fence.

History is White-, straight-, and male-washed in the country. Even LGBTQIA history is written to actively erase the contributions of people of color, trans, bi, butch and femme in favor of a more palatable White, heteronormative mimicry. Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution by Rob Sanders and Jamey Christoph (Random House, 2019) falls into that same trap.

This is the beginning of PRIDE. Learn some history. Think about the voices you hear over and over and who is missing. Stormé, Marsha, and Sylvia deserve to be known and celebrated for being the truly badass women they were. I hope they get the picturebook they deserve, but this is not that book.
My Response, June 8, 2019 11:41 pM
I needed to delay my response to the authors comments for a few reasons, including but not limited to the fact that I have other work, family, dog, and BBQ obligations. I was frustrated by the Mr. Sanders response. Frustrated, but not surprised.

Mr. Sanders writes that he was "careful not to tell any one story" but that is exactly what this book does. By omitting and avoiding "any one person" he and the illustrator have, once again, erased the actual women responsible for raising their voices and sparking the riots.

The author says "The book was vetted by eight diverse members of the LGBTQ community." And that may be true, but I have questions about this vetting process. Were these people friends and family? Were these readers children's literature scholars that focus on representation of mis- and under-represented communities? Were the paid sensitivity readers? Were the recommendations given in a transparent manner, such as, "This erases Black and Latinx trans women as main actors in the movement." Were the recommendations given to the illustrator? Were the recommendations followed or put aside as too troublesome or unimportant?

Mr. Sanders is both proud that this is the first picturebook and defensive that not every book can be everything. I'm not asking for it to be everything. I am critiquing the active erasure of BOIPOC women. This defense that not all books can be everything is all too familiar. Black/Indigenous/People of Color are always told to wait. We are unwilling to wait any longer. The erasure of names and identities in the LGBTQIA community in favor of a White hetero-palatable, woman is an action.

These creative choices continue a long standing tradition of erasure of BIPOC people from history. It continues the erasure of trans and butch women from LGBTQIA history. White is not neutral. Hetero-normative is not neutral. None of the choices made by the author, illustrator, editor, and publisher are neutral.

References

Bornstein, K., & Bergman, S. B. (2010). Gender outlaws: The next generation. Seal Press.

Jacobs, J. (2019). Two Transgender Activists Are Getting a Monument in New York. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/arts/transgender-monument-stonewall.html

Robertson, J. D., & ContributorAuthor. (2017, June 4). Remembering Stormé - The Woman Of Color Who Incited The Stonewall Revolution. HuffPost. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/remembering-stormé-the-woman-who-incited-the-stonewall_b_5933c061e4b062a6ac0ad09e

Tatum, B. D. (2000). The complexity of identity: Who am I. Readings for diversity and social justice, 2, 5-8.

I welcome your comments.
Please know I will not publish or respond to anonymous comments.

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June in Pride Month and I'm a long-time Latinx lesbian and we've got some history to cover. I've been out for the majority of my life. I'm out to friends, family, acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, students, my sons' friends and families, the checkout people at the grocery store, all the contractors I try and get to...

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An interview with Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson on ESPN’s TheUndefeated

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An interview with Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson on ESPN’s TheUndefeated

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https://www.nga.gov/audio-video/video/undefeated.html#:~:text=The%20Undefeated%20Kwame%20Alexander%2C%20poet%2C%20educator%2C%20host%20and,Young%20Readers%2C%20in%20conversation%20with%20artist%20Kadir%20Nelson