Coretta Scott King Honor–winning author Tonya Bolden chronicles the life of an intrepid lawyer and civil rights pioneer.
Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent white Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy to enforce bus integration. She was also among the first Black women to enter the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and was one of the first ordained female ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Tracing Roundtree’s life from her childhood in Jim Crow North Carolina through her adulthood, Tonya Bolden illuminates a little-known figure in American history who believed the law should serve the people, and places her firmly in the context of twentieth-century civil rights and African American culture.---from the publisher
224 pages 978-1324003175 Ages 9-12
Keywords: biography, women, African American and Black non-fiction, Black Girl books, African American author, social activist, civil rights, American history, African American history, lawyer, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, Social Studies Curriculum
