Tennessee Voices, Episode 325: Alice Faye Duncan, children's author, educator, librarian
Prior to the well-documented civil rights struggles of the 1960s in the South, a group of Black sharecroppers pursued the right to vote in Fayette County, Tennessee.
The community had 17,000 African American residents but only 30 Black people on the voting rolls. Their fight for their rights in the 1950s cost them their land. In "EVICTED! (The Struggle for the Right to Vote)," author Alice Faye Duncan chronicles the struggle in a book aimed at children.
Faye Duncan is an educator, retired school librarian and prolific author who is frustrated that young people are not learning history comprehensively. At a time when "divisive concepts" have been banned from the school curriculum and books are being pulled from school libraries, she believes her work will help teach children and also get them excited about reading.
On this episode of the Tennessee Voices video podcast, Faye Duncan emphasized that the Fayette County citizens inspired the work of civil rights leaders, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Congressman John Lewis. She said it is important for the community to know the history of racial terror.
In her 2018 children's book "Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop," Faye Duncan tells the story of the sanitation workers strike in Memphis and the assassination of Dr. King. Her book "Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth" published in early 2022.
"We are going to talk about the sad years" she said, "but interspersed, joy and a happy refrain."
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Voices: Alice Faye Duncan, children's book author, educator
