Voices from the March on Washington

Praise

★ ”Lewis and Lyon join forces for a fictionalized account of one of the pivotal moments in US civil rights history. . . Through over 70 largely first-person poems, the poets rekindle the spirit of the fight for racial equality in the United States with imagined voices of young and old, black and white, educated and underprivileged, supporters and detractors and drive home the volume’s theme of taking personal responsibility in helping this country ‘steer toward justice together.’ . . . A powerful yet accessible guide to ‘one day in 1963 [that] [b]elongs to every age.'”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ ”Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it ‘the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.’ . . . Now poets J. Patrick Lewis and George Ella Lyon have written their own chapter in this collection of original poems that examine and celebrate the occasion and its aftermath in a variety of voices both real and imagined . . . From an perspective, however, the march was history in the making and this collection is a fitting memorial to it.”—Booklist, starred review

“In this collection of 70 short poems, Lewis and Lyon introduce the 1963 March on Washington through the perspectives of those who took part. . . This well-crafted introduction to the Civil Rights era deserves a wide audience, as these poems, with their plain-spoken, honest emotions, offer insight into the past, and inspiration to continue the struggle.”—School Library Journal