Jeff Gottesfeld
AUTHOR

Jeff Gottesfeld

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The greatest unknown milestone of the then-nascent civil rights movement took place in the summer of 1939, in Alexandria, Virginia, when young Black attorney S.W. Tucker led a sit-down strike by young Black men in his hometown to try to integrate the then-new Alexandria Public Library. He instructed his men to go into the library, ask for library cards, and when they were denied because of their race, to pick a book from the shelves, sit down, and read. Arrests followed, of course. But Tucker had assembled the press, and the next day, the Sit-Down Strike was national news. Save for the start of World War II a week or so later, it might be as well-known today as the Birmingham AL bus boycott. FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO READ (Creston, September 9, 2025) is the story, told for kids with my co-author (and dear friend!) Michelle Y. Green and beautifully illustrated by Kim Holt. If access to public libraries matter to you, this is the book for you. In the rest of my life, home is Los Angeles, California, but I've lived the itinerant life of the writer. There was school in New Jersey, Maine, Arizona, and San Francisco, and good stretches in Paris, Salt Lake City and Nashville, while my family center-of-gravity is still in New York City. When I'm not writing, you'll find me on the tennis court, ski slopes, in the gym, or knee-deep in a river with a fishing rod in my hands. Or in some kind of study. I like to learn. I read everything. If there's something else you want to know, ask away. I'm pretty easy to find. My fantasy epitaph? "That was a decent first draft."
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