About the Author

Andrea Davis Pinkney is the New York Times best-selling and award-winning author of many books for children and young adults, including picture books, novels, works of historical fiction, and nonfiction.

She is the author of several notable titles, including the historical fiction novel Bird in a Box and the nonfiction picture books Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down, a Parents’ Choice Award winner and winner of the Carter G. Woodson Award for historical works for young people; Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride, a Jane Addams Honor Book and School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters; Duke Ellington, a Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor Book; and Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation, winner of the Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award. Andrea was named one of the “25 Most Influential People in Our Children’s Lives” by Children’s Health Magazine.

She lives in New York City with her husband and frequent collaborator, award-winning illustrator Brian Pinkney, and their two children.

About writing With the Might of Angels, Andrea says, “I come from a long line of civil rights activists, the closest to me being my late father, Philip J. Davis. In 1959 Dad was selected as one of the first African American student interns in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was later named by the White House as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of labor and director of the office of federal contract compliance.

“In this role, Dad became the prime author of federal affirmative action legislation. Additionally, he advised several presidential administrations on the legalities of fair labor practices for African Americans and women.

“When I was six years old, Dad enrolled me in first grade at an all-white elementary school, where I was the only black student. (Mom was a teacher at a school in another district, so it was Dad’s job to escort me to Mrs. Lewis’s class.)

“Recently, in speaking to my mom about my experience of going to an all-white grade school, I asked if Dad had any involvement in the legislation surrounding school integration or the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Mom’s first answer was no, but she then dug through Dad’s personal belongings and memorabilia from his days on Capitol Hill, and found a weighty three-ring binder from a civil rights conference Dad had attended. The notebook’s cover was marked BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION — ‘Confronting the Promise.’ The gathering of civil rights leaders commemorated the fortieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. It had been held in Williamsburg, Virginia, and focused on school integration in the state of Virginia.

“Dad’s family is originally from Culpeper, Virginia, and he was always very proud of this. He took great care in learning about Virginia’s history, politics, and the legacy of African Americans in Virginia.

“I pored over the binder’s pages, a comprehensive collection of materials Dad had saved, including news articles, litigation documents, magazine editorials on school integration, copies of archival photographs, state maps, and more.

“The notebook was divided into tabbed sections. There was one entitled ‘The Virginia Experience,’ which contained an assortment of articles about school integration written in the mid 1950s and early 1960s. These were published in U.S. News & World Report, the Saturday Evening Post, Newsweek, and other publications.

“(Like Dawnie’s daddy, my own father was an avid reader of newspapers and periodicals. And, he collected documents and papers that were of special interest to him.)

“The pages in Dad’s binder whopped me on the head like a two-by-four — they told such a compelling story!

“Though I’d attended the all-white elementary school more than a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, I still felt a keen sense of loneliness and isolation as the school’s only black student. I didn’t experience the torment Dawnie did, but was plagued by a phenomenon I’ve come to call ‘anxious apartness.’

“As a child, I could not fully understand or articulate these feelings, but they were very real.

“Dad’s collection of materials and my own school experience compelled me to craft a school integration story for today’s readers.

“Dawnie Rae Johnson’s diary is a fictionalized account of the events surrounding school integration in the state of Virginia. Dawnie’s narrative is inspired by several harrowing integration stories, including that of my own cousin John Mullen, who, as a direct result of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, integrated Homer L. Ferguson High School in Newport News, Virginia. I also spoke to others who shared similar struggles and triumphs at school.

“Integration at the Fort Myer military base in Virginia serves as the model for this book’s fictional town, Hadley, which, for the purposes of this story, is set in Lee County, a real county in the state of Virginia.

“In order to align the dates of Dawnie’s diary with the day upon which the Brown v. Board of Education ruling happened, I’ve begun her story in May 1954.

“Though most schools did not integrate at that time, I felt it important to directly link the Brown v. Board of Education decision with immediate school integration, so that young readers could connect the two. Also, setting the diary narratives in 1954–1955 enabled the story to include pivotal civil rights and historical events that occurred during that time, and that had a direct effect on school integration.

“Although this diary is a work of fiction, many of the events cited actually happened on the dates they occur in the book. These include the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, the appointment of Governor Thomas B. Stanley’s Commission on Public Education, the formation of the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus protest of young Claudette Colvin, the premiere of Sports Illustrated magazine, and the folding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The facts about Jackie Robinson are also true.

“While the appearance of Martin Luther King, Jr., at Dawnie’s church is fiction, young Martin visited many different churches throughout the South, where he encouraged members to become registered voters and active members of the NAACP. He also preached the importance of nonviolence.

“In 1954, Martin became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. It was at this time that his career as a preacher and civil rights leader began to gain public recognition.

“The Sutter’s Dairy Boycott is also fictional, though in December 1955, Martin Luther King, Jr., led the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott, ignited by Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a segregated city bus.

“Although I was the only black student at my very first grade school, my experience was not nearly as harsh as Dawnie’s. I’ve often asked myself if I could have endured what Dawnie suffered. Thankfully, like Dawnie, I am rooted in a strong family whose loving arms got me through the loneliest times.

“I wrote this book to remind young readers of the great privilege they enjoy — that of attending any school they wish, with classmates of all races — and to show them that even in the harshest situations, hope can shine through the darkest days.”