Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite

Birmingham, Alabama, was a hot bed of trouble in 1963. There had been fifty unsolved bombings of black people's properties in the last twenty years. Black adults wanted no part of protest marches as they knew there would be retaliation. They watched over their children and kept them in their local neighborhoods. But black children saw things differently and knew that the words "party" or "picnic" as well as certain songs were codes for their marching for the Civil Rights Movement. They were instructed to kneel down and pray if they were stopped by the police when they marched. Letitia "Lettie" is a black teenager whose parents are afraid that if she marches they will lose their jobs. But she and her older brother Sam march, are knocked down and soaked by fire department hoses and Sam is arrested and held for twelve days. Martha Ann is a white teenager whose mother employs Lettie's mother as a helper but is dependent upon their father. Martha Ann's father spouts racist talk and won't let her attend the annual Christmas dance as black teenagers are in attendance. The years pass and Lettie goes to the local college for blacks while Martha Ann attends the University of Alabama.They both become teachers and Martha Ann ends up working at Birmingham's Wilson school as the only white teacher on the staff. Lettie teaches at Wilson, too, but will her path ever cross with Martha Ann's?

"March with Me" is a beautifully written story of what life was really like for two young girls, one black, one white, in those long ago days of the Civil Rights Movement. And in the pages of this book, which tells the personal story of Lettie and Martha Ann, Rosalie Turner covers the Civil Rights Movement, its marches, its famed speeches and the horrors of segregation and the bombings such as that of the 16th Street Church in Birmingham which killed four young black girls. In "March with Me", Lettie is angry with racism and Martha Ann becomes increasingly so as her friends boycott anyone favoring integration. Lettie and Martha Ann each tells their own story and gives their viewpoint in this book that readers everywhere will read, delighted that times like the 1960's in the American South are over. There was anger and misunderstanding on both sides and author Roselie Turner tells it so very well.