| Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey Contributor(s): Spagna, Ana Maria (Author) |
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ISBN: 0803217129 ISBN-13: 9780803217126 Publisher: Bison Books OUR PRICE: $17.96 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2010 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General - Political Science | Civil Rights - Social Science | Minority Studies |
| Dewey: 323.119 |
| LCCN: 2009034320 |
| Series: River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.4" W x 8.4" (0.70 lbs) 286 pages |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus chronicles the story of an American family against the backdrop of one of the civil rights movement's lesser-known stories. In January 1957, Joseph Spagna and five other young men waited to board a city bus called the Sunnyland in Tallahassee, Florida. Their plan was simple but dangerous: ride the bus together-three blacks and three whites-get arrested, and take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years later Ana Maria Spagna sets off on a journey to understand what happened and why. Spagna travels from her remote mountain home in the Pacific Northwest to contemporary Tallahassee, searching for the truth of the incident and her father's involvement. Her journey is complicated by the fact that her father never spoke of the Sunnyland experience and died unexpectedly when she was eleven. Seeking out the other bus riders, now in their seventies, Spagna tries to make sense of their conflicting stories. Her odyssey becomes further troubled by the sudden diagnosis of her mother's terminal cancer. Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction prize, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus deftly weaves cultural and personal history, memoir, and reportage in this fascinating look at a family and a nation's past. Ana Maria Spagna is the author of Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, which was named a Best Book of 2004 by the Seattle Times. Her work has appeared widely in publications such as Orion, Utne Reader, and North American Review. She lives and writes in Stehekin, Washington. |