Author Archives: rhapsodyinbooks

Claudette Colvin was born in 1939. Because, at age 15, in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 2, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white person, she was arrested. Few people are aware of the … Continue reading →

This non-fiction account of the first published rape trial in American history begins in the early hours of September 5, 1793, when a 17-year-old New York girl named Lanah Sawyer was taken to a brothel and raped by 26-year-old Harry … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly, called Lizzy, was born into slavery in Virginia in February 1818. In spite of her initial status, she went on to achieve renown as a seamstress and dressmaker to Varina Davis (wife of Jefferson Davis), Mary Custis … Continue reading →

This post-apocalyptic story is set in a small Anishinaabe community in a far north Canadian community. Evan Whitesky, 24, has a family of four, and had been trying to keep alive his Ojibwe culture, which had always been marked by … Continue reading →

Ernest Everett Just, born in 1883 in Charleston, South Carolina, overcame a background fraught with hardship and heartbreak to become a pioneering African-American biologist, academic, and writer. His primary contribution was the recognition of the fundamental role of the cell … Continue reading →