The history of humankind is peppered with the stories of men and women who have done their best to take away the rights of certain groups of people. Thankfully, the exploits of such individuals have been balanced, at least a little bit, by the actions of brave and selfless men and women who have fought hard to obtain equal rights for all people.
In today's poetry title the stories of some of these civil rights leaders are told.
When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Right Leaders
J. Patrick Lewis
Illustrated by five notable illustrators
Poetry Picture Book
For ages 6 to 8
Chronicle Books, 2013, 978-1-4521-0119-4
For centuries human societies have been rife with
injustices and inequalities. Often change only happened when “The poor and
dispossessed take up the drums / for civil rights – freedoms to think and
speak, / Petition, pray and vote.” Often these uprisings, when the meek voices
of the many became a roll of thunder, where led by one person, a person who
dared to step forward and risk everything to speak out against injustice.
In this
remarkable book J. Patrick Lewis presents readers with poems about seventeen
people who fought “for the equal rights of mankind.” Many suffered deeply for
daring to stand against the status quo, and some even died for their
convictions.
On these pages
we meet Aung San Suu Kyi who has fought for the rights of the Burmese people for
decades. Often she was under house arrest, not allowed to see her friends and
family members. For her courage she was awarded many prizes, included the Nobel
Peace Prize “for defending / the rights of my people” against the generals who
would oppress them. When she “refused food to protest my detention,” the
general, her enemy “stuffed himself on mangoes / and banana pudding.”
Like Aung San
Suu Kyi, Mitsuye Endo was held captive by her own government. A simple typist
“nothing more,” she was taken to a Japanese internment camp after the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. She had committed no crime and yet she was treated
like a criminal. Many of the internees accepted their captivity without a
murmur, but Endo did not. She spoke out and challenged the government’s right
to imprison her and other patriotic citizens based on their ancestry.
Another person
who spoke out against injustice was Harvey Milk, who dared to say that people
who were gay should not have to hide who and what they are. He even became a
“city father” so that he could contest the laws that “kept / boys and girls
from living lives / that Life would not accept.” He felt that he had to do his
part to fight against the “small-mindedness” that causes so much suffering.
Readers will be
greatly moved by J. Patrick Lewis’s poems, some of which are written in the
first person. Each one is a gem, a reminder that our rights should never be
taken for granted. Somewhere someone had to fight for them.
At the back of
the book readers will find further information about the seventeen activists
who are featured in the book.
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