Race Relation Reader's Choice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, California, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) October 6, 2010 -- “My Grandmother’s Sit-in,” an essay in Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s (Texas A&M University Press) by Sunny Nash, is so crucial to a better understanding of race relations in America that the Association of American University Presses recomends it for understanding race relations in the United States and Glencoe Literature: the reader's choice (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill) included the essay in its high school textbook edition.

“Sunny Nash's writing makes readers feel they are there, experiencing the characters' anxieties, fears, joys, and hope," according to Rebecca C. Burgee, Pimmit Hills Alternative High School in Falls Church, Virginia. “Young people will learn a lot from this book; it is poignant in its teachings about discrimination.”

Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s explores the private thoughts of people who were not allowed the freedom of being equal participants in a nation they helped to build. Secretly, in those recesses of the mind, they hoped and planned for generations to come, made the sacrifices without letting the ruling class know, and finally, struck with silent blows, at first, and then in one voice demanded Civil Rights in a united movement in the 1960s.

Robin Fruble of Southern California said, “Every white person in America should read this book (Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s)! Sunny Nash writes the story of her childhood without preaching or ranting but she made me realize for the first time just how much skin color changes how one experiences the world. But, if your skin color is brown, it matters a great deal to a great number of people. I needed to learn that. Sunny Nash is a great teacher,” Fruble said.

“Brush stroke by brush stroke," said Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, The Mississippi Quarterly, "an impressionistic painting takes form in which the focus is the strong visage of Nash's grandmother, Bigmama.”

In “My Grandmother’s Sit-in,” the essay in Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s (p. 16) included in the reader's choice, Nash, a little girl at the time, tells the story of her experience with Bigmama at a segregated hospital in Navasota, Texas. When Bigmama was ignored at the reception desk, Nash followed her to the seating areas and remembers the 'colored' and 'white only' signs above the benches in the excerpt below:

Like a smoking gun, she (Bigmama) stood there staring at the signs, studying them. That was curious to me. She knew how to read. Why was she staring at the word 'colored' like she’d never seen it before? After all, 'colored' and 'white only' were the first words southerners learned to read and the only words illiterate southerners recognized. I’d been reading 'colored' since I was three. When Bigmama taught me to recognize the word, I was so young, I don’t remember yet having seen my own reflection in a mirror. When I was drawing on the floor one day, she knelt, picked up a crayon, and, on a piece of my paper, wrote a word 'colored' in large black letters. She called out each letter as if trying to make me aware of our vulgar circumstances without soiling me in the process. I’m sorry I have to to teach you this ugly word, 'colored,'” she said. “I wish I didn’t. But if I don’t make you understand, you’ll have one hurt after another all of your life or you’ll go out and get yourself killed," Bigmama said. I stared at the letters she had written...

“A few years later when I was a little older, at the Navasota hospital to visit our cousin, the 'colored' seating section was full and Bigmama dragged me to the seats under the 'white only' sign. I thought we would be arrested or worse,” Nash said. "Bigmama showed me something that day--how sitting down can sometimes mean standing up for your rights.

Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s can be purchased at all major bookstores, domestic and international, as well as the Republic of Texas Museum in Austin, operated by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, whose mission since 1891 has been to preserve Texas’ historic landmarks such as the Alamo in San Antonio and Texas heritage like stories by Sunny Nash. To buy Bigmama Didn’t Shop At Woolworth’s by Sunny Nash, follow the Republic of Texas Museum link below:
http://www.shop.drtmuseum.org/product.sc?productId=39&ca ....

Bigmama Didn t Shop At Woolwor     race relations     Sunny Nash