Seeds of Freedom The Peaceful Integration of Huntsville, Alabama

Explore a little-known story of the civil rights movement, in which black and white citizens in one Alabama city worked together nonviolently to end segregation.

Mention the civil rights era in Alabama, and most people recall images of terrible violence. But something different was happening in Huntsville. For the citizens of that city, creativity, courage, and cooperation were the keys to working together to integrate their city and schools in peace. In an engaging celebration of this lesser-known chapter in American and African-American history, author Hester Bass and illustrator E. B. Lewis show children how racial discrimination, bullying, and unfairness can be faced successfully with perseverance and ingenuity.

Hester Bass is the author of the picture-book biography The Secret World of Walter Anderson, which won an Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, as well as the picture book So Many Houses, illustrated by Alik Arzoumanian. Formerly residing in Huntsville, Alabama, she now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

E. B. Lewis is the illustrator of more than thirty books for children, including The Secret World of Walter Anderson by Hester Bass. Among his many honors are a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Talkin’ About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman by Nikki Grimes, as well as four Coretta Scott King Honor Awards. He lives in Folsom, New Jersey.