ISBN: 9780060760908
Historical fiction is only fiction, but it highlights real events in history. A lot of questions arise during the reading of such a work about events, people and places mentioned in the text, likely causing the reader to do some research. Rita Williams-Garcia makes no exception in One Crazy Summer, which covers a tumultuous time-period in modern American history – 1968.
After a long period of absence, Louis decides that the time has come for his kids to go see their mother. Delphine, Vonetta and Fern are put on a plane to travel to Oakland, California, from Brooklyn – a 3000 mile (4800km) journey, on their own, to see their mother, who left their family when the kids were still very small. Being the only African-American kids amongst an airplane full of white people, their grandma is concerned that they’ll be mistreated in some way or another, but the journey goes rather smoothly.
The kids don’t know what it’s like to have a mother, even though they’ve desired one all their lives. Especially 11-year old Delphine doesn’t see Cecile as their affectionate “mom”, or “mommy”, but rather “mother” – a statement of fact, someone who just brought them into the world. And this is exactly what they experience when she picks them up at the airport – hidden in disguise and giving them the cold shoulder. They learn that their mother really didn’t want them to start off with, and she’s not scared to say so. Delphine comes to the conclusion that their mother is “crazy”, conversing with herself and not caring about anything other than her “work” – writing and printing her own poems.
When they land, Cecile confiscates the children’s money, sends them to the shop at night by themselves to buy food, and to find the Black Panther Centre to get some breakfast – if they wanted to eat, that is! She just wants them out under her feet – to “stay away from their mother’s peace and quiet”.
It is at the Black Panthers Centre that they meet other African American kids (and adults) and learn all about the movement in their “Summer Camp program” where the kids get kept busy being taught about Revolution – learning what its about, and their rights as citizens and how to protect those rights, and they are drawn in to colour and distribute flyers, advancing the Cause.
The Black Panthers were planning a rally, and everyone was invited to perform in their “talent show”. Her sisters are eager to participate, but Delphine realizes that ““rally” meant “protest” and that “protest” could mean “riot”“, so she refuses to go back to the Black Panther Centre and “Summer Camp” for fear of their lives, because “The police shot a teenager for being with the Black Panthers. They could shoot Black Panthers and kids at the Centre”… referring to the shooting of Bobby Hutton, the first treasurer and recruit of the Black Panther Movement in whose memory they wanted to have the park renamed.
Delphine is well-read, and her love for reading causes her to understand what’s going on around her. She knows this gathering can mean trouble, and she has to honour her promise to her father that she’d look out for the well-being of her sisters. But their mother is little bothered with their safety and makes them go back to the Centre, and Delphine is obligated to join her sisters.
One weekend, though, in the absence of their mother and knowing they have to keep out of her way, Delphine, all by herself, plans a day out for her and her sisters to go do some sight-seeing. But after an adventurous day out, they return to their mother’s house in time to see her get arrested together with two Black Panthers. They find her kitchen workspace in chaos, with papers and ink everywhere, and her printing press overturned. A friend’s mother takes them in, and they end up going to the rally after all, where some bonds at least form with their mother.
A lot of historical facts are mentioned in this story that give insight to the life and times of African Americans in a time of social unrest in modern American history when African Americans were not accepted as equal people, when they were called derogatory names, and sometimes violently removed from their homes and families and locked up. A time when the Black Panthers – an organization of self-defence and community activism, founded in 1966 – protested for equal rights for African Americans, and challenged police brutality, although “not all people within and outside of the black community necessarily agreed with their message and methods”.
1968 was a revolutionary time for politics and music, and in the words of former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver: “We were doing to politics what Jimi Hendrix was doing to music. We were changing the volume, changing the rhythm.”
One Crazy Summer addresses racism, confusion, betrayal, hypocrisy, and respect for all human beings, regardless of colour, race, size, age or relation.
It refers to and introduces popular African American names such as
- Gwendoly Brooks – poet.
- Sarah Vaughan – jazz singer.
- The Monkees – American rock and pop band.
- Huey Newton and Bobby Seale – founders of the Black Panthers.
- H Rap Brown – Black Power movement activist.
- Cassius Clay – Muhammad Ali – professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist.
- Malcolm X – American Muslim minister and human rights activist.
- Martin Luther King Jr. – minister and human rights activist.
It is a very insightful and emotion-stirring read.
Other books written by New York Times best-seller Rita Williams-Garcia include Jumped, No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies, Fast Talk on a Slow Track, Blue Tights, and Like Sisters on the Homefront, most of which have received some or another reward.
