Acknowledgments

Like Dawnie Rae, I was blessed “with the might of angels” in the creation of this book. Special thanks to Katherine Wilkins, reference librarian, Virginia Historical Society, whose careful attention to the details involving school integration and legislation in the state of Virginia helped me solidify and round out the facts in Dawnie’s narrative.

I thank my cousin John Mullen, whose colorful recounting of his own integration experiences in Newport News, Virginia, gave life to Dawnie’s story and that of her family. Thanks, too, to Rhonda Joy McLean, who integrated her school in Smithfield, North Carolina, and who generously shared her memories with me.

Thank you, all my friends and colleagues at Scholastic for inviting Dawnie Rae Johnson into the Dear America fold, and for fostering a love of history through the Dear America series.

Elizabeth Parisi, special thanks to you for designing such an engaging book cover. Thanks, too, to artist Tim O’Brien for your portrait depicting Dawnie with beauty and dignity. Thank you, Elizabeth Starr Baer, for your amazing copyediting talents and your eagle-eyed fact-checking of the material.

Rebecca Sherman, my agent, and Lisa Sandell, my editor, you are both angels without whose might I could not have written this book. I thank you for your keen editorial insights, and for the care with which you each helped me polish Dawnie’s story.

Thanks to Mom, for being the keeper of memories, and for somehow always managing to pull the right rabbit from the right hat, at the right moment.

Finally, thanks to the angels who live under the same roof as I do — my daughter, Chloe, and son, Dobbin, who listened to Dawnie’s story for months and offered invaluable suggestions for making her real.

Finally, a loving thank-you to my brightest angel of all, Brian Pinkney, for reading each and every one of this diary’s entries, for laughing in all the right places, and for helping me bring power and grace to Dawnie Rae and the Johnson family.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:

Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.

Cover background: High School, Library of Congress (LC-D4-71582).

George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit outside the Supreme Court, AP Photo.

Sign for Colored Dining Room on an outhouse, Esther Bubley/Bettmann/Corbis.

“Colored Only” sign on water fountain, Bettmann/Corbis.

One of the Little Rock Nine, being verbally abused as she attempts to enter the school, ullstein bild/The Image Works.

Soldiers of 101st Airborne Division push white students away for the safety of the Little Rock Nine, in Central High School, SZ Photo/The Image Works.

Black students attempt to enter North Little Rock High School, Clyde Priest/Bettmann/Corbis.

A black girl protected by a National Guardsman as she enters Little Rock High School, Topham/The Image Works.

Two black students entering Norview Senior High in Norfolk, Virginia, AP Photo.

A black student in class in Norfolk, Virginia, ibid.

Police officers escorting black students out of the Jackson Public Library, Jackson, Mississippi, ibid.

Four black students sit-in at lunch counter to protest segregation, Jack Moebes/Corbis.

Tension at a segregated lunch cafeteria as black students ask for service, AP Photo.

March on Washington for civil rights, August 28, 1963, Wally McNamee/Corbis.

Thurgood Marshall, foreground, left, walking out of the Supreme Court, Donald Uhrbrock/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Jackie Robinson, Roger-Viollet/The Image Works.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his office with photo of Mahatma Gandhi, Bob Fitch/Take Stock/The Image Works.

Rosa Parks, Paul Schutzer/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.

Mary McLeod Bethune with Eleanor Roosevelt, Topham/The Image Works.

Claudette Colvin, AP Photo.

Ruby Bridges, ibid.

Map by Jim McMahon.