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Meet 50 trailblazers who made the United States what it is today in this bright, fact-packed biography book.
With one trailblazer from every state, you’ll discover how Rosa Parks from Alabama fought for civil rights, how Barack Obama from Hawaii became the USA’s first Black president, how Margaret Murie from Alaska pioneered the American environmentalist movement and how Betty Ford from Michigan improved treatment for drug addiction.
Each spread features a timeline of the trailblazer’s life, key facts about their achievements and how their trailblazing continues today. By honouring people who strove in the areas of equal rights, feminism and environmentalism/conservation, this fact-packed book celebrates what makes America great, then and now.
Alabama: Rosa Parks; Alaska: Margaret Murie; Arizona: Cesar Chavez; Arkansas: All-American Redheads; California: Colin Kaepernick; Colorado: Corky Gonzales; Connecticut: Rebecca Lobo; Delaware: Joe Biden; Florida: Emma Gonzalez; Georgia: Jackie Robinson; Hawaii: Barack Obama; Idaho: Marilyn Schuler; Illinois: Betty Friedan; Indiana: Eugene V. Debs; Iowa: Carrie Chapman Catt; Kansas: William Allen White; Kentucky: Muhammad Ali; Louisiana: Norris Henderson; Maine: Dorothea Dix; Maryland: Thurgood Marshall; Massachusetts: W.E.B. DuBois; Michigan: Betty Ford; Minnesota: Maya Moore; Mississippi: Myrlie Evers-Williams; Missouri: Michael Harrington; Montana: Barbara Ehrenreich; Nebraska: Susette La Flesche; Nevada: Velma Bronn Johnson; New Hampshire: Doris Haddock; New Jersey: Paul Robeson; New Mexico: Notah Begay; New York: Margaret Sanger; North Carolina: Jessica McDonald; North Dakota: Dave Archambault; Ohio: LeBron James; Oklahoma: Woody Guthrie; Oregon: Lola Baldwin; Pennsylvania: Rachel Carson; Rhode Island: Marjorie van Vliet; South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimke; South Dakota: Hubert Humphrey; Tennessee: Hattie Caraway; Texas: Lyndon Johnson; Utah: David Nelson; Vermont: Clarina I.H. Nichols; Virginia: Mildred Loving; Washington: Jenny Durkan; West Virginia: Debbie Null; Wisconsin: Robert LaFollette; Wyoming: Harriet Elizabeth Byrd
The perfect book for kids to discover the most amazing achievements in American history. Learn about key social issues including feminism and civil rights. Inspiring, informative and fun, this book can be picked up any time of day for a whistlestop tour of the United States, right from your own home, school or library.
The 50 States series of books for young explorers celebrates the USA and the wider world with key facts and fun activities about the people, history and natural environments that make each location within them uniquely wonderful.
Also available from the series: Only in America, Only in America Activity Book, Only in California, Only in Texas, We Are the United States, 50 Adventures in the 50 States, and The 50 States.
From the Publisher
David Archambault II
NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST
David Archambault II, born in Denver, Colorado, was born into the NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT. His mother taught at Standing Rock Community School, located on the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, while his father helped establish the tribal colleges and universities movement (a group of colleges run by Native American tribes, and funded by the federal government). His uncles worked in the Native American rights movement as well.
Archambault was raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, before attending Standing Rock Community college, then North Dakota State University. But he heard about a call for public service that led to his running, and winning, an election as CHAIRMAN OF THE STANDING ROCK TRIBAL COUNCIL. He became the Chairman at a critical time for the tribe. Efforts to build the DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE, a 1,172-mile pipeline for oil, included plans to run through sacred burial grounds, not to mention putting at risk the tribe’s drinking water.
Archambault mobilized his people to STOP the pipeline, setting up encampments, protesting and getting arrested in the process.
He not only energized NATIVE AMERICAN OPPOSITION to the pipeline, his ability to nationalize the fight led activists from all over to come to North Dakota to help. The protest worked, with President Obama DECLINING to grant an easement, which was a necessary step for the work to continue.
THE TRAILBLAZE CONTINUES…
Archambault’s work to nationalize the Standing Rock protests have elevated the continued work on behalf on Native Americans into a vital, progressive priority.
Emma González
TRAILBLAZER OF ACTIVISM AND GUN CONTROL
Emma González didn’t choose activism. It chose her, when a man entered her HIGH SCHOOL and shot and killed 17 of her classmates. This had happened at many other schools over the past few decades. But González and her classmates decided the conversation that followed was going to be different this time.
She gave an impassioned speech, one that drew NATIONAL ATTENTION, coverage on the television networks. She and several of her classmates showed the world that there is no minimum age for speaking out, eloquently, about the things that matter to you. She led the fight for SAFER SCHOOLS AND STRONGER GUN LAWS, and forced lawmakers who hadn’t done this on their own to either change their ways or fumble for an answer about why they hadn’t. She took on anyone and everyone on social media and braved death threats to do what was right.
She gave her famous “WE CALL BS” speech at a town hall with Florida’s U.S. Senators. Calmly and beautifully expressing what she and her classmates wanted to every media outlet who would listen to hear.
THE TRAILBLAZE CONTINUES…
Launched in June 2018, Stand with Parkland is an advocacy group that will stand alongside Moms Demand Action, Giffords, and others to work to end the horrific epidemic of gun violence in the United States.
Mildred Loving
TRAILBLAZING ACTIVIST FIGHTING TO ABOLISH LAWS BANNING INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE
Mildred Loving was born in 1940, and grew up in Central Point, Virginia. Her background included several races, making her a woman of color in the South during a time when many laws discriminated on the basis of race. Loving spent a great deal of her life trying to put an end to one particular part of that discrimination: THE RIGHT TO MARRY ANYONE OF ANY RACE.
Her husband, Richard Loving was a white man who also grew up in Central Point. Richard and Mildred fell in love and in 1958 got MARRIED IN WASHINGTON, D.C. and then returned to their home in Virginia.
However, Virginia had a LAW against people of different races marrying that dated back to 1924. Police raided the newlywed’s home and ARRESTED THEM for violating this law. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to PRISON. However, they were given the option to avoid going to prison if they MOVED OUT OF VIRGINIA—the state they both considered home.
The sentence meant that the Lovings would not be allowed to return to Virginia together for a period of 25 years.
Supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Lovings appealed their conviction, but lost at each level until the court case reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1967, though, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lovings, calling marriage, “ONE OF THE BASIC CIVIL RIGHTS OF MAN”, and ended any state’s ability to deny a marriage certificate based on race.
THE TRAILBLAZE CONTINUES…
The world celebrates the aptly-named Loving Day every June 12, in honor of the brave quest by Mildred and her husband. The case also served as a useful framework for the legal effort to legalize gay marriage.
Publisher : Wide Eyed Editions (May 7, 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 112 pages
ISBN-10 : 0711291861
ISBN-13 : 978-0711291867
Reading age : 7 – 10 years
Grade level : 2 – 5
Item Weight : 1.15 pounds
Dimensions : 8.75 x 0.75 x 10.75 inches
