Nov. 22, 1963: President Kennedy assassinated.
July 2, 1964: Civil Rights Bill Signed. Southern governors block enforcement.
July 16, 1964: Harlem torn apart by race riots after police murder a black child.
Aug. 4, 1964: Three murdered civil rights workers discovered in a Mississippi ditch.
Feb. 21, 1965: Civil Rights leader Malcolm X assassinated.
March 7, 1965: On Bloody Sunday, police violently disperse protesters in Alabama.
Aug. 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act signed into law. Southern governors ignore.
June 5, 1968: Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy assassinated.
April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated.

The period in which A Black Picket Fence takes place was arguably the most traumatic and important in America’s civil rights history. And while those who made headlines in the struggle for basic rights were instrumental in furthering the cause, equally important was the heroic resistance by anonymous  individuals and families, of all races, who risked everything in an effort to — paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice; unfortunately an arc even today remaining in need of continual bending. A Black Picket Fence tells just such a transcendent story of this common struggle and the coming-of-age of two children forced to grow up far too early, while buoyed by an  unbreakable family bond: a novel of love and hate, charity and cruelty, courage and cowardice, healing and heartache, laughter and tears, life and death. In other words, while looking back to an earlier decade, the timelessly hard-fought lessons portrayed in this novel-for good and for bad-serve to hold a mirror up to who we remain today.

Praise for A Black Picket Fence

“…wonderfully rendered dialogue…”

“A warm, timely tale of familial courage, enlivened by vibrant characters and memorable voices…a genuinely stirring story of resistance and love…a startlingly relevant story about standing up to racism.”

– KIRKUS REVIEW