WELCOME+TO+FRESHWATER+ROAD

WELCOME to a book study about //Freshwater Road//, a debut novel by Denise Nicholas. It is a stunning second act for the writer/actress who starred in the TV series //Room 222// and //In the Heat of the Night// (for which she also wrote several episodes). In June of 1964, University of Michigan sophomore Celeste Tyree leaves her middle class life traveling to Mississippi to volunteer for Freedom Summer. She joins student volunteers from across the country whose collective mission was to register disenfranchised black citizens to vote. Celeste is assigned to Pineyville, a small town best known for a notorious lynching. By day, she tutors the town's children in a freedom school. At night, she prepares the adults to take and pass the state's voter registration test, long used as a tool to disqualify black people from voting. As the summer unfolds, Celeste confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also deep truths about her family and herself. Like her protagonist Celeste, Denise Nicholas also grew up in Detroit and attended the University of Michigan    , and like Celeste she took part in the movement; as a young member of the Free Southern Theater, she performed throughout the South, often in small churches, from 1964 to 1966. Drawing on this intensely personal foundation, Ms. Nicholas has created an important work about the civil rights movement. I'll post questions every Tuesday night. During the week, you must answer the two questions and then later respond to three of the participants' responses. Since you are getting professional development for compensation, you must work on this off contract hours.
 * FRESHWATER ROAD **
 * by Denise Nichols **