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Because They Marched: The People's Campagin for Voting Rights That Changed America

Because They Marched: The People's Campagin for Voting Rights That Changed America

Reviewed by: Phyllis Fuchs - Retired librarian, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: October 7, 2014

Review

This book is a highly readable account of the Selma voting rights campaigns of the 1960's filled as it is with photos, drawings and lively quotes from the marchers. The campaigns led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a significant achievement in the civil rights history of the United States. A photo essay in picture book size, the book has eighty pages in eight chapters and includes a time line, source notes, a selected bibliography, index, and most notably, an epilogue that emphasizes the author's focus on bringing important persons and events in the history of the United States to young people. The epilogue makes this book especially timely by clearly describing the striking down of a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. Recommended to school and public libraries and to all readers of about fourteen years through adult.

Overall Book Score: excellent