One Crazy Summer

Here is another book to consider reading during Black History Month.  Written primarily for the nine- through twelve-year-old reader, One Crazy Summer presents a different perspective of the San Francisco Bay area of the late 1960's.  Hippies are barely mentioned, as author Rita Williams-Gracia weaves her story through an African American neighborhood in Oakland, California, the city which birthed the Black Panther Party.

Peaceful resistance was not the only movement that brought civil rights issues to the forefront during the 1960's.  One such movement, mainly associated with militancy and armaments, was the Black Panther Party, which called for revolutionary action and armed militia to protect citizens of African American communities from brutal encounters with police.  But the Black Panthers did more than just throw Molotov cocktails into police buildings and provide armed protection for its communities.  It was also an organization that provided meals and other services to the poor--a point that rarely makes its way into history books--probably because it is not part of the group's "manifesto."

In her book, One Crazy Summer, author Rita Williams-Garcia does not write about the Black Panther movement, but uses it as a background feature that contributed to changes in the lives of three young girls who were sent by their father to Oakland, California.  The purpose of the trip from Brooklyn, New York, was for Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to meet and get to know their mother, who had abandoned them when the eldest was not yet five years old and the youngest was only a few days old.  They overheard their father, who raised the girls with help from his younger brother and Big Ma, his Alabama-born mother, "They need to know her, and she needs to know them....That's final" (p. 43).

The year is 1968.  It is the summer immediately following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the summer after the race riots that crippled cities throughout the United States.  Eleven-year-old Delphine, the eldest of the three and the one "in charge" of her younger sisters, tells the story.  The four-week visit starts out unwelcoming.  Cecile, their mother, barely steps forward to claim them at the airport.  She clearly sees them as an intrusion into her self-imposed exile as a struggling poet.

The girls are told the location of their room inside their mother's almost barren house, and told they are never allowed in the kitchen.  Within the first twelve hours of meeting their mother, the girls are sent to Ming's for take-out and to the People's Center for free breakfast, where the girls stay on for the summer camp program, sponsored by the local Black Panthers.  After all, Delphine is supposed to keep herself and her sisters out of the house for as long as possible.  At least the camp program will use up some of the time.

One Crazy Summer is not about the Black Panthers.  Rather, it is about learning to view from different perspectives.  It is about a summer of growth, of reinterpretation of Big Ma's description of their mother, of change, and of understanding.  Although meant for pre-teens, the book grips the adult reader so that the book is hard to put down.  For those adults who remember the late 1960's, the book serves as a reminder of the changes American society has undergone during the past 50 years.  For those too young to have experienced the civil rights struggles of the 1960's, it serves as an example of an era that bridged the gap between Negroes and Blacks (or African Americans).  For all, it's a great read.

















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