Great Day in the Morning

Narrated in first person, 84-year-old Grace Ann Dunbar, daughter of a Mississippi artist, recalls coming of age during the early Civil Rights Movement. Involvement in CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, pushes her to commitment in the difficult and painful struggle white and black activists faced in the early to mid-1960s to gain Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.As a teenager, Grace Ann is affected by Brown v. the Board of Education, Emmett Till’s vicious murder, and learning about her own racial heritage. When Dess, a cut above her role as a “mammy” in the Dunbar home, brings the tawdry role she’s had to endure to light, and when Poe, a black childhood playmate, is mutilated by members of the White Citizens Council, Grace Ann springs into action and doesn’t look back. Author Deb Mohr crafts a unique look at the early Civil Rights Movement by casting light on the suffering of the black community at large as well as white individuals who contributed to this struggle, illuminating the fearful resistance to equality, still simmering in America today.