this item was great for my 10 year old who enjoys making up poetry herself

Debbie Louis brings the youth and experiences of the civil rights movement back to life and relevant to young students. Too often what is salient to professors and the people who lived the movement means nothing but "old history" to young people needing to learn the lessons of the past for the future. This book helps make that journey back real, useful and exciting. Also...a book with a broader perspective of the players and the stakes than more typical narrow accounts!

Debbie Louis should be thanked everyday for her contribution to understanding not only the struggle of oppressed people but the true relationship this country holds with its "citizens," who i prefer to call captives. Let it be known from the beginning that i see so-called "Blacks" and "African Americans" as African people colonized here in the United States. Other than percentage of population and living within the colonial "Mother Country" the African population in this country has the exact same relationship as others in a more "traditional" colonial setting. That is, African communities are largely separate from the dominant society, their labor is exported from their communities and used for the wealth of their captors, and African politicians are for the most part figure-heads and puppets. Therefore, as i read Louis' well written book on the Civil Rights Movement, i find that it helps people to recognize this relationship. Examples include; the way in which the movement was pacified by legislation (i.e. the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that created an illusion that exists to this day about African participation in the American electoral system), the true inspiration for white involvement in the movement and their subsequent early exit once Africans demanded more control over their organizations and direction and the cooptation of African leadership that aided in disintegration and dissolution of the movement. The book is written from first-hand experience and serves as a brilliant primary source for those wanting to learn the truth about this vital era and for those seeking a great research source. It has been an honor meeting the author and reading her work and i can only hope that people will read and learn from And We Are Not Yet Saved, because we certainly are not.