Heroic black girls and the fight for school desegregation — New Orleans and beyond

You’ve might have heard of Ruby Bridges, Tessie Prevost and other heroic girls who helped desegregate schools. But there’s much more to that story. Professor Rachel Devlin (formerly at Tulane University, and now at Rutgers University in New Jersey) has written a new history of school desegregation in the United States. "A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools" reveals how girls and women led the fight for interracial education throughout the country. 

On Saturday, June 9, Devlin will be in conversation with Professor Nikki Brown who specializes in African-American and African diaspora history and women's history at the University of New Orleans. The event begins at 4 p.m. at the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum, 1235 Deslonde St. in New Orleans. Brown is the author of "Private Politics and Public Voices: African American Women’s Activism from World War I to the New Deal” (2007) and "From Homer Plessy to Hurricane Katrina: Photographing the African American Freedom Struggle in Louisiana” (coming in 2019).

Community Book Center will be onsite selling copies of Devlin's book. For more information, visit the Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/611519759208044/.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.