It Spoke Volumes For Her

It Spoke Volumes For Her

One of many things history teaches us is the power of a single individual to make a significant impact.  This effect can ripple through a community, a state, a region, a country or the entire world.  It can be damaging or beneficial.  It can be temporary or lasting.
Some names are more well-known than others; people like
Elvis Presley
,
Pura Belpre
,
Stan Lee
,
John Lewis
,
Zora Neale Hurston
or
Greta Thunberg
.
Even if we think we know all we need to know about these individuals and their accomplishments, through the efforts of authors and illustrators collaborating on biographical picture books, we learn more.  The value of the work of these authors and illustrators cannot be stressed enough, especially when they introduce people who are unfamiliar to us.
For whatever reason these individuals are lesser known (to me), they did contribute to the betterment of life for residents on this planet.  How much did we know about
Todd Bol
,
Ben Shahn
,
Teresa Carreno
,
Mary Walker
,
Helen Martini
or
Jadav Payeng
before we read outstanding picture book biographies about them?  Their achievements are inspirational, far-reaching and enduring.
Love Is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement
(
A Paula Wiseman Book
, an imprint of
Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
, January 10, 2023) written by Sandra Neil Wallace with illustrations by Bryan Collier is a book vital to any discourse on the history of the Civil Rights Movement.  Although, Diane Nash was not given the same platform as her male counterparts at the same time, she was and is a woman powered by and empowered by love.
You arrive in the spring of 1938 on the South Side, when
Chicago’s leaves unfurl, emerald green like your baby girl eyes.
CELEBRATION, JUBILATION.
Your parents baptize beautiful,
honey-brown you,
Diane Judith Nash.
For the first four years of her life, she lives in a home her parents fill with love until World War II comes.  With her father in the army and her mother working all day, Grandmother Bolton comes from Tennessee to embrace this child in her special kind of affection.  When she attends high school, love sustains her as classmates from a variety of ethnic backgrounds sit around Diane.  It is not until she goes to Tennessee to stay with Grandmother Bolton to attend college that segregation is blatantly on display.
Signs in Nashville say
WHITES ONLY
and
COLORED ONLY.
It is not right to not share a drinking fountain or a school or a lunch counter.  Diane Judith Nash, raised in love, knows something must be done but she refers to not get arrested. She and other students learn and practice peaceful persistence in church before classes.
They calmly sit at lunch counters and their numbers grow through the winter months of February and March.  In April, Diane is ignited by an act of violence; she silently leads six thousand souls in a march to meet Mayor Ben West to desegregate the lunch counters in Nashville. Victory is theirs. Th…