Other editions of book Leon's Story

"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki GiovanniI remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger." Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account.Leon's Story is the winner of the 1998 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction.

"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki GiovanniI remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger." Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have

"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki Giovanni"I remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger." "Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account."Leon's Story" is the winner of the 1998 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction.

"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki GiovanniI remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger." Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account.

Leon's story / Leon Tillage, with pictures by Susan L. Roth. LC Control No.: 96043544 Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.) Personal Name: Tillage, Leon Walter, 1936- Main Title: Leon’s story / Leon Tillage, with pictures by Susan L. Roth. Edition Information: 1st ed. Published/Created: New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997. Related Names: Roth, Susan L., ill. Description: 107 p. : ill. ; 19 cm. ISBN: 0374343799 : Summary: The son of a North Carolina sharecropper recalls the hard times faced by his family and other African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century and the changes that the civil rights movement helped bring about. Subjects: Tillage, Leon Walter, 1936- --Childhood and youth--Juvenile literature. Tillage, Leon Walter, 1936- African Americans--North Carolina--Fuquay-Varina--Biography--Juvenile literature. Civil rights movements--North Carolina--History--20th century--Juvenile literature. African Americans--Biography. Civil rights movements--History. North Carolina--Race relations--Juvenile literature. Fuquay-Varina (N.C.)--Biography--Juvenile literature. North Carolina--Race relations. LC Classification: F264.F86 T55 1997 Dewey Class No.: 975.6/55 B 20 Geographic Area Code: n-us-nc Quality Code: lcac

1 cassette/1.25 hours/unabridged. From the back cover: Young Leon Tillage lives in 1940s rural North Carolina. Weekdays, he walks for miles to the old house where the black children attend classes -- while the yellow bus rushes past carrying the white children to their modern building. At school, Leon chops wood for the potbelly stove, then fetches water from the well. Finally he studies his ABCs, using books discarded by the white students. Leon wonders why the white children have a fancy school, with new books, a warm furnace, and indoor plumbing. He asks why they ride to school and he walks. But all his relatives tell him -- that's just the way things are. Once a year, author Leon Walter Tillage shares his fascinating life story with the students at the Baltimore middle school where he has been a custodian for 30 years. Based on his moving presentation, LEON'S STORY is a powerful firsthand account of an unsettling period of our history. With his thoughtful performance, narrator Graham Brown provides the perfect voice for the author's compelling recollections.

"Leon's Story is a powerful, wonderful thing!" -- Nikki GiovanniI remember that as a young boy I used to look in the mirror and I would curse my color, my blackness. But in those days they didn't call you "black." They didnt say "minority." They called us "colored" or "nigger." Leon Tillage grew up the son of a sharecropper in a small town in North Carolina. Told in vignettes, this is his story about walking four miles to the school for black children, and watching a school bus full of white children go past. It's about his being forced to sit in the balcony at the movie theater, hiding all night when the Klansmen came riding, and worse. Much worse.But it is also the story of a strong family and the love that bound them together. And, finally, it's about working to change an oppressive existence by joining the civil rights movement. Edited from recorded interviews conducted by Susan L. Roth, Leon's story will stay with readers long after they have finished his powerful account.

In this riveting autobiography, Baltimore janitor Leon Walter Tillage reflects on his life. He recalls his childhood as an African American sharecropper's son in 1940s North Carolina: ""Once you got on a farm you could work a lifetime and never get out of debt."" His mother made soup with ""pot likker,"" the liquid left over from cooking collard greens for the Johnsons (the white owners of the farm they worked).