28 Feb / With the Might of Angels: The Diary of Dawnie Rae Johnson, Hadley, Virginia, 1954 by Andrea Davis Pinkney
On the morning of her 12th birthday, Dawnie Rae Johnson – named for the new day rising when she was born – wakes to find a surprise under her pillow: a diary made by her 8-year-old brother Goober. The year will turn out to be crucial, not only for Dawnie, but for her family, her community, and even the nation. Exactly one day before Dawnie’s birthday, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision which ruled state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.
That fall in 1954, Dawnie became the first – and only – African American student to enroll in the local all-white school, Prettyman Coburn. Although two of Dawnie’s friends had also been chosen to enter Prettyman, their parents refused to send their children where they were clearly not wanted.
The Johnsons’ decision to seek a better education for Dawnie begets serious consequences. Dawnie’s father loses his job, her brother Goober – who today would be recognized as being along the autism spectrum – gets aggressively hassled, and the family’s longtime friends and neighbors criticize the Johnsons for being “uppity.”
Dawnie, too, wonders if staying at Prettyman is the right decision: “I miss just being at school, not being a Negro at school.” Struggles aside, she’s not without moments of ironic humor as she muses about the school’s namesake, “a rich Virginian who made his money in the pork rind business,” and quips that becoming a doctor hinges on her “attending a school built from the skin of pigs.”
Like the bus boycotts yet to come in Montgomery, Alabama, the community finally rallies around the Johnson family, giving up milk, cream, cheese, and more, from the local dairy whose owner makes his racism all too clear. In spite of both children and adults at school waiting to watch her fail, Dawnie is as tenacious as she is intelligent; she refuses to allow setbacks to last long enough to impede her progress toward success.
In addition to a story well told, Angels ends with almost 40 additional pages of historical notes about American life in 1954; numerous photographs of events, places, people who were pivotal during that time; biographical notes on “Real People Mentioned in Dawnie Rae’s Diary” including Harry F. Byrd, Claudette Colvin, and Thurgood Marshall; an explanation of “Negro History Week” which has since morphed into African American History Month; a “Civil Rights Timeline”; and an extended “About the Author” section that not only includes Andrea Davis Pinkney’s many accomplishments as a multi-award-winning, bestselling author and lauded Scholastic editor both, but also why she needed to write this integration story. Pinkney explains about being inspired by her family’s experiences with integration, including the “harrowing integration stories” of a Virginia cousin, as well as her own memories of being the only black student at her first school.
Indeed, truth only makes fiction that much more believable. With the help of Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, and a new best friend from New York who happens to be Jewish, Pinkney makes sure Dawnie gets exactly what she deserves.
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2007