Complicated, insightful, instructive and moving–with devastating guilt over the cause of a cornerstone family member’s death-a precocious, eleven year old tri-racial girl, comes of age in Morris Town, a small city in North Carolina in the early 1960s. Emilee shows us her sensitive and very personal perception as she witnesses and learns of history via the refined extended family members during the South’s Civil Rights Movement led by her cousin, the NAACP President, Robert F. Williams- RW –in Morris Town, North Carolina. As Emilee tries to understand her layered world of death, difficult relationships and her own identity, her world heaves with rebel flag waving Ku Klux Klansmen’s deliberate racial violent upheaval as their motorcades ride right pass her window; threats of hangings, shootings, brutality leveled against Freedom Riders, jute joints and Seagram’s Seven drinkers, supernatural appearances of Witch, Old Woman and black cat. Disturbed by complex values, Emilee can’t help but question the powers given to old superstitions, myths, fears, racial discrimination, hatred and violence. She strives to strengthen the maternal relationship with her mother torn by this inquisitiveness. Her personal journey reflects the transformation in thinking and change taking place in her and in the minds of the oppressed in her community and; her experiences seems humbled by the empathetic presents of a great teacher, the white and kind hearted Mrs. Isenhour, grits and butter, green apple pie, sweet water, flapjacks and Fudge squares from Woolworth’s. The author, Connie Williams creates an astoundingly genuine voice for the central character in her novel, GREEN. There is much humor in this story and deep empathy and understanding of the wonderful central character-her intellectual and emotional journey. This story is moving beyond belief. Some of the writing reads like poetry. I believe the work will do great things for young audiences who otherwise would know nothing about Robert F. Williams, the Civil Rights Activists. Minister John C. Williams, son of Robert F. Williams. Good description, good imagery, and deliberate repetition. GREEN is an intriguing story. Frye Gaillard, author and winner of the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year Award. Williams creates Emilee’s everyday world against the backdrop of the terrorizing racial violence of the Civil Rights Movement, set in Monroe, North Carolina in the 60s. Dr. J. Kiser, Professor, Graduate Studies, UNC at Charlotte.
