Summary

The book opens with a two-page spread featuring the lyrics to a song titled “Woke Up This Morning,” which reflects on the concept of freedom and determination (8-9). Chapter 1 introduces the memoir’s author and subject: Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who was born in Selma, Alabama, in 1950, and had been to jail nine times by the time she turned 15. She sets the scene of the American south, where society was racially segregated. She grew up amongst other African-American families in the 1950s and early 1960s in the George Washington Carver Homes, where the members of the community looked out for one another.

“Crazy white folks” like the Ku Klux Klan were determined to keep society segregated, and they acted violently and yelled racial slurs (14). Lynda describes how her father was kind and caring, making sure that not a day went by where she and her...