Celebrate Women’s History month with these five young adult books about women involved in civil rights and equality movements.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
Written by Phillip Hoose
Nine months before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. Just a year later, she challenged segregation for the second time as a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle.
Fighter in Velvet Gloves: Alaska Civil Rights Hero Elizabeth Peratrovich
Written by Annie Boochever and Roy Peratrovich Jr.
In 1945, Elizabeth Peratrovich’s speech about her childhood and experiences as a second-class citizen led to the passing of America’s first civil rights legislation.
I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up For Education and Changed the World (Young Readers Edition)
Written by Malala Yousafzai
The youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner tells her story from her childhood in a once-peaceful region of Pakistan to the young woman who became an international symbol of peaceful protest.
She Came To Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
Written by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
While many know the story of Harriet Tubman as the famed conductor on the Underground Railroad, She Came to Slay provides more of the fascinating truth of her life. For instance, Tubman was the first woman to lead an armed expedition during the Civil War, worked as a spy for the Union Army, and was an advocate for the aged.
She Stood For Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
Written by Loki Mulholland, Angela Fairwell, and illustrated by Charlotta Janssen
As a white teenager in the South during Segregation, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland placed herself on the front lines of the Civil Rights struggle. Readers will learn about her experiences as one of the Freedom Riders who was arrested and put on death row at the Parchman Penitentiary. Mulholland was also the first white person to join the 1963 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins.