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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERCombining hard-hitting investigative journalism and a sweeping family narrative, this provocative true story reveals a little-known chapter of American history: the period after the Brown v. Board of Education decision when one Virginia school system refused to integrate.In the wake of the Supreme Court's unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its public schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids at home, move across county lines, or send them to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.Kristen Green, a longtime newspaper reporter, grew up in Farmville and attended Prince Edward Academy, which did not admit black students until 1986. In her journey to uncover what happened in her hometown before she was born, Green tells the stories of families divided by the school closures and of 1,700 black children denied an education. As she peels back the layers of this haunting period in our nation's past, her own family's role - no less complex and painful - comes to light.At once gripping, enlightening, and deeply moving, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is a dramatic chronicle that explores our troubled racial past and its reverberations today, and a timeless story about compassion, forgiveness, and the meaning of home.
About the Author
Kristen Green has worked as a journalist for two decades for papers including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Boston Globe. THE DEVIL'S HALF ACRE is her second book. Her first book, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, was a New York Times bestseller. It won the Library of Virginia literary award for nonfiction and the people's choice award. Kristen is a graduate of Mary Washington College and has a master's in public administration from Harvard Kennedy School. She lives in Richmond, Va. with her husband and two daughters. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE REVIEWS"A gripping narrative"? -New York Times?"A gift to a new generation of readers"? -The Washington Post "This intimate and candid account.... personalizes politics, jangles nerves and opens minds."? -Richmond Times-Dispatch "Green's work brims with real-life detail from the journalist's eye and ear and joins the likes of Diane McWhorter's CARRY ME HOME in further developing the dimensions of the South's desegregation struggle"? -Library Journal "Green feels compelled to stare down her past, and she does so with uncommon humanity."? -New York 1 News "A potent introduction to a nearly forgotten part of the civil rights movement and a personalized reminder of what it was truly about."? -Kirkus Reviews, (starred review) "Absorbing. . . . A merger of history both lived and studied."? -Publishers Weekly "Green has rendered a deeply moving account of historical injustice and a personal search for redemption for her family's role in it."? -Booklist, (starred review) "A vivid reminder of how things were, not so very long ago."? -Harvard Magazine
