Mississippi Bridge Rises
above Virginia Challenge
A Henrico County, Virginia, materials-review committee in late April affirmed a March school-board vote to retain on school-library shelves a young-adult novel about life during Depression-era segregation. “I understand the parent’s concern, but [Mississippi Bridge] wasn’t written to offend,” board member Stuart P. Myers said in the May 2 Richmond Times Dispatch. “For children to understand the civil rights era, they must understand what took place before,” agreed Beverly Lammay, the school district’s educational specialist for library information services.
“The language is rough for a 4th-grader,” complainant Arcelia Jackson had told the school board February 27. “There’s nothing positive in it. It’s riddled with prejudice.” Jackson’s 9-year-old daughter checked the book out of Donahoe Elementary School library in Sandston. The 62-page novel by Newbery Medal–winning African-American author Mildred D. Taylor tells the story of a young black man who tries to save white passengers in a bus accident, despite being ordered earlier to give up his seat to “white folks.”
Posted May 14, 2001.
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