MARCH FORWARD, GIRL by Melba Pattillo Beals.  New York:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2018) 214p. ISBN 978-132888212-7 hc. $16.99   YA 323.092 BE

One of the original “Little Rock Nine” who attended a white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas from in 1957, Beals grew up in segregation.  Whites and blacks had separate schools, neighborhoods, drinking fountains, and churches.  Blacks were out of slavery, but still employed and underpaid by whites, denied the same quality of education as whites, and expected to be subservient to whites.  Beals narrates stories of her childhood and her family’s decision to send her to Central High School’s first year of integrated classes.  The group of nine students was escorted to and from school by soldiers from the 101^st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky until the end of the school year.  At that time, the Ku Klux Klan threatened the lives of the students, so their families sent them out of state to finish school.  This group was finally recognized with Congressional Gold Medals in 1999 for their bravery in the fight for equality. 
Lynette Suckow, Superiorland Preview Center, Marquette, MI