One of the civil rights battles highlighted in Rebel involved the New Orleans segregated streetcar system. Protests against it came to a head on April 28, 1867, the day William Nichols and two White supporters boarded a Whites-only car. When the driver tried to drag Nichols out, he went limp and was arrested. At his trial, the packed courthouse didn’t get the definitive judgement they’d hoped for, but the judge did drop all charges against Nichols, who promptly sued the streetcar driver for assault. Hoping to avoid further lawsuits, the car company mandated drivers no longer forcibly evict Black riders, but to stop and not drive until Blacks left the car. Of course, that didn’t work. Black people boarded the cars and sat and sat and sat. Eventually, the entire system ground to a halt, while other activists commandeered the cars and drove them themselves. Fights broke out between Black and White men. The police chief, in an effort to head off city-wide armed confrontations, personally ordered the cars be desegregated, and the car company complied.
Similar protests took place across the nation, not only in the South but Northern cities like Philadelphia. Many of these campaigns proved successful until nulled by the rise of Jim Crow.
Here are some of the sources I consulted to bring Rebel to life.
Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City by Carla L. Peterson.
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 by Eric Foner.
The Original McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer by William H. McGuffey.
The Trouble They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans, edited by Dorothy Sterling.
So, there you have it. Stay tuned for book two in the Women Who Dare series, and as always, thank you for your support.
Happy Reading,
B
About the Author
BEVERLY JENKINS is the recipient of the 2018 Michigan Author Award by the Michigan Library Association, the 2017 Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the 2016 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance. She has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature, and was featured in both the documentary Love Between the Covers and on CBS Sunday Morning. Since the publication of Night Song in 1994, she has been leading the charge for multicultural romance, and has been a constant darling of reviewers, fans, and her peers alike, garnering accolades for her work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and NPR.
To read more about Beverly, visit her at BeverlyJenkins.net.
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By Beverly Jenkins
Rebel
Tempest
Breathless
Forbidden
Destiny’s Captive
Destiny’s Surrender
Destiny’s Embrace
Night Hawk
Midnight
Captured
Jewel
Wild Sweet Love
Winds of the Storm
Something Like Love
Before the Dawn
Always and Forever
The Taming of Jessi Rose
Through the Storm
Topaz
Indigo
Vivid
Night Song
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
rebel. Copyright © 2019 by Beverly Jenkins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JUNE 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-286169-6
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-286168-9
Cover illustration by Anna Kmet; font © iralu/Shutterstock (letter R)
Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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