Scan barcode
A review by komet2020
FRESHWATER ROAD by Denise Nicholas
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
FRESHWATER ROAD is a novel that explores the experiences of Celeste Tyree, an African American woman in her late teens, a student at the University of Michigan, who had left Ann Arbor to work as a volunteer in Mississippi during the 'Freedom Summer' of 1964 as part of the 'One Man One Vote' project to encourage and help African Americans there to register to vote.
Mississippi in the summer of 1964 was a forbidding, fearsome, and at times violent place for African Americans, where the prevailing white power structure kept a tight rein on them, reinforcing in every conceivable way the prevailing ethos of white people as superior to Negroes, and Negroes as inferior, lesser beings better ruled by white people.
From the moment Celeste arrived in Mississippi in early summer and had been given an orientation in Jackson (the state capital) to what her mission would entail over a 2-month period, she is made starkly aware of what daily life in Mississippi is for Negroes. She would face arrest on a couple of occasions and be shot at one night in the home in Pineyville, where she stayed with a Mrs. Geneva Owens, an elderly, deeply pious widow. Celeste would teach the local Negro (African American) children at a 'freedom school' in the local, Negro church, as well as help educate the African American adults in the community who wanted to be registered to vote, notwithstanding the many obstacles the whites had set for close to a century, which prevented (through intimidation and murder) almost all African Americans in Mississippi from exercising their constitutional right to vote.
At the same time, while Celeste is facing all of these challenges, back in Detroit her father, Shuck, an ex-numbers man now running his own bar and living in his own home in the affluent northwest section of the city, is worried about his only daughter. Rather than tell her father face-to-face of her plan to go to Mississippi, Celeste posted him a letter informing him of her intentions shortly before she travelled south. The novel provides a contrast between Celeste's experiences and Shuck's anxieties and concern for his daughter over the 2 months she spent in Mississippi. All in all, this proved to be a very gripping and revelatory novel.
Reading FRESHWATER ROAD has given me - who was born in the autumn of 1964 in Michigan - a deep respect and admiration for those student volunteers, black and white, who risked their lives to go to Mississippi during 'Freedom Summer' to help bring democracy and voting rights to the African Americans there. Every American now living today needs to know about "Freedom Summer" and the sacrifices that were made not quite 60 years ago to help put an end to the oppressive yoke of Jim Crow segregation in the Deep South.
Mississippi in the summer of 1964 was a forbidding, fearsome, and at times violent place for African Americans, where the prevailing white power structure kept a tight rein on them, reinforcing in every conceivable way the prevailing ethos of white people as superior to Negroes, and Negroes as inferior, lesser beings better ruled by white people.
From the moment Celeste arrived in Mississippi in early summer and had been given an orientation in Jackson (the state capital) to what her mission would entail over a 2-month period, she is made starkly aware of what daily life in Mississippi is for Negroes. She would face arrest on a couple of occasions and be shot at one night in the home in Pineyville, where she stayed with a Mrs. Geneva Owens, an elderly, deeply pious widow. Celeste would teach the local Negro (African American) children at a 'freedom school' in the local, Negro church, as well as help educate the African American adults in the community who wanted to be registered to vote, notwithstanding the many obstacles the whites had set for close to a century, which prevented (through intimidation and murder) almost all African Americans in Mississippi from exercising their constitutional right to vote.
At the same time, while Celeste is facing all of these challenges, back in Detroit her father, Shuck, an ex-numbers man now running his own bar and living in his own home in the affluent northwest section of the city, is worried about his only daughter. Rather than tell her father face-to-face of her plan to go to Mississippi, Celeste posted him a letter informing him of her intentions shortly before she travelled south. The novel provides a contrast between Celeste's experiences and Shuck's anxieties and concern for his daughter over the 2 months she spent in Mississippi. All in all, this proved to be a very gripping and revelatory novel.
Reading FRESHWATER ROAD has given me - who was born in the autumn of 1964 in Michigan - a deep respect and admiration for those student volunteers, black and white, who risked their lives to go to Mississippi during 'Freedom Summer' to help bring democracy and voting rights to the African Americans there. Every American now living today needs to know about "Freedom Summer" and the sacrifices that were made not quite 60 years ago to help put an end to the oppressive yoke of Jim Crow segregation in the Deep South.