In 1854, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Jennings, an African American schoolteacher, fought back when she was unjustly denied entry to a New York City streetcar, sparking the beginnings of the long struggle to gain equal rights on public transportation. One hundred years before Rosa Parks took her stand, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Jennings tried to board a streetcar in New York City on her way to church. Though there were plenty of empty seats, she was denied entry, assaulted, and threatened all because of her race--even though New York was a free state at that time. Lizzie decided to fight back. She told her story, took her case to court--where future president Chester Arthur represented her--and won! Her victory was the first recorded in the fight for equal rights on public transportation, and Lizzie's case set a precedent. Author Beth Anderson and acclaimed illustrator E. B. Lewis bring this inspiring, little-known story to life in this captivating book.
This book is an extensive monographic study of Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001), one of the most remarkable poetic voices in England in the second half of the twentieth century. Briefly linked with the poets of "The Movement" in the 1950s, Jennings soon gained her poetic independence and high esteem on the English literary scene. Primarily a prolific lyricist and religious poet, she also published critical prose bespeaking her fascination with the potential of poetry and its capacity to reach out toward transcendence. The monograph takes into consideration a substantial body of Jennings's poems in the attempt to relate them to the poet's Christian beliefs and her profound spiritual experience. It shows how in Jennings's life and creative output the credo of her faith is interwoven with the ars poetica of her craft. The analysis calls attention to Jennings's emphasis on the intrinsic link between poetry and mysticism and her deep-seated conviction of the unique power of poetic language. The book discusses religious inspiration in Jennings's poems and explores her perception of the words of poetry as inextricably linked with the divine word and viewed in the perspective of the Roman Catholic notion of sacrament. Sacramental awareness is not only seen as a conspicuous property of Elizabeth Jennings's religious profile and an attribute of her thinking, but it is also adopted as the principal and indispensable frame of reference for the analytical and critical discourse presented in the book.
In 1854, traveling was full of danger. Omnibus accidents were commonplace. Pedestrians were regularly attacked by the Five Points’ gangs. Rival police forces watched and argued over who should help. Pickpockets, drunks and kidnappers were all part of the daily street scene in old New York. Yet somehow, they endured and transformed a trading post into the Empire City. None of this was on Elizabeth Jennings’s mind as she climbed the platform onto the Chatham Street horsecar. But her destination and that of the country took a sudden turn when the conductor told her to wait for the next car because it had “her people” in it. When she refused to step off the bus, she was assaulted by the conductor who was aided by a NY police officer. On February 22, 1855, Elizabeth Jennings v. Third Avenue Rail Road case was settled. Seeking $500 in damages, the jury stunned the courtroom with a $250 verdict in Lizzie’s favor. Future US president Chester A. Arthur was Jennings attorney and their lives would be forever onward intertwined. This is the story of what happened that day. It’s also the story of Jennings and Arthur’s families, the struggle for equality, and race relations. It’s the history of America at its most despicable and most exhilarating. Yet few historians know of Elizabeth Jennings or the impact she had on desegregating public transit.
Starred reviews hail Streetcar to Justice as "a book that belongs in any civil rights library collection" (Publishers Weekly) and "completely fascinating and unique” (Kirkus). An ALA Notable Book and winner of a Septima Clark Book Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. Bestselling author and journalist Amy Hill Hearth uncovers the story of a little-known figure in U.S. history in this fascinating biography. In 1854, a young African American woman named Elizabeth Jennings won a major victory against a New York City streetcar company, a first step in the process of desegregating public transportation in Manhattan. This illuminating and important piece of the history of the fight for equal rights, illustrated with photographs and archival material from the period, will engage fans of Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin and Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous. One hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Elizabeth Jennings’s refusal to leave a segregated streetcar in the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan set into motion a major court case in New York City. On her way to church one day in July 1854, Elizabeth Jennings was refused a seat on a streetcar. When she took her seat anyway, she was bodily removed by the conductor and a nearby police officer and returned home bruised and injured. With the support of her family, the African American abolitionist community of New York, and Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Jennings took her case to court. Represented by a young lawyer named Chester A. Arthur (a future president of the United States) she was victorious, marking a major victory in the fight to desegregate New York City’s public transportation. Amy Hill Hearth, bestselling author of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, illuminates a lesser-known benchmark in the struggle for equality in the United States, while painting a vivid picture of the diverse Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan in the mid-1800s. Includes sidebars, extensive illustrative material, notes, and an index.
On a gray day at a gritty flea market, Caroline stumbles upon an unlikely treasure-jars and jars of buttons in a dazzling kaleidoscope of colors. She is reminded of something she has made herself forget-she too has a jar of buttons, an inheritance from her mother, which Caroline has put on the back of a shelf, out of sight, out of mind, out of her life. That night, Caroline takes the jar down from the shelf. Intending only to look at the buttons, she opens the lid . . . and pours out her family's secrets. THE BUTTON COLLECTOR unfolds with a series of vignettes in which each button reveals a piece of the complicated history of Caroline's family. A tragic accident has forever altered the relationship between Caroline, her mother Emma, and her cousin Gail. Caroline sifts through the joys and anguishes of the past, bringing both herself and the reader to the realization that memories-like buttons-can sometimes be used to fasten together something we have left undone by mistake.
Selected Poems draws on all the books Elizabeth Jennings published before Growing-Points. It represents the poet's own distillation of the first two decades of her writing - the poems which established her as one of the most passionate and precise of our writers, a woman of humane values, religious vision and natural sympathy. 'The outstanding thing about Jennings's poetry,' wrote Douglass Dunn, 'is its wisdom, hard-earned from grief and religious faith.' And Peter Levi says, 'She is one of the few living poets we could not do without.'
Represents the poet's own distillation of the two decades of her writing - the poems which established her as one of the passionate and precise of our writers, a woman of human values, religious vision and natural sympathy.
Homecoming By Elizabeth Jennings Frederica is overstressed, overworked and underpaid. She lands in idyllic Carson's Bluff sick after eight weeks on the road. The high-flyer is forced to stick close to Carson's Bluff-and its mayor and sheriff, Jack Sutter-while she recovers. Life is sweet and stress-free in Carson's Bluff and its citizens want to keep it that way. After a week in the town, and a week in Jack's company, so does Frederica. A heartless multinational conglomerate is working to wipe out the relaxed way of life in Carson's Bluff. Pity the conglomerate is owned by Frederica's uncle. Pity she's the person spearheading the campaign to take over the town. Pity her adversary is Jack Sutter. Frederica enters into a high-stakes game of chance against her uncle to preserve Carson's Bluff's way of life-and her own happiness.
