Viewing History Through ‘The Rock and the River’

I am still thinking about Sam Childs.

And I cannot wait to introduce him to my eighth-graders.

Sam is the 13-year-old narrator of Kekla Magoon’s novel The Rock and the River [2] which this year won the John Steptoe New Talent Award, part of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards.            

Sam’s father is an esteemed civil rights activist, chummy with Martin Luther King, Jr.  Sam’s older brother, Stick, is impatient with the pace of non-violence, and has recently joined the Black Panthers.

This shatters the family—sort of. 

To Magoon’s credit, she does not simplify anything in this account of one family’s reaction to racist violence in 1968. She refuses to feed her readers a “just say no,” anti-violence mouthful. Instead, the author portrays both the Black Panthers and those advocating non-violence with sensitivity, reminding us that there is no tidy answer to the mess that is racism.

Admittedly, Sam is confused. He is unsure of how to counter the injustice, to brave the bullies. The bullies here include white cops who smash Sam’s wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time friend with their billysticks. Sam has spent his childhood at peaceful demonstrations, cheering on his father. But now, bloody revenge remains a strong, even sweet-sounding temptation. He, like so many teenagers, is trying to figure out who he is, what he believes and whether to cross his parents.

I will add The Rock and the River to my classroom library this fall.

I know that many of my students will see themselves mirrored in Sam. They will identify with his confusion and with his resentment. Hopefully, they will feel inspired by Sam’s unwillingness to be yet another bystander paralyzed by injustice. I suspect, too, that this book will arouse curiosity about this important period in our country’s history.

So, fellow teachers, I wonder—who is your Sam? Which new books (or, new to you) do you hope will spark students or colleagues to consider issues of tolerance and justice this school year?

Baker is a Teaching Tolerance blogger and language arts teacher at Wydown Middle School in St. Louis, Mo.