by Cyrus Webb
One of the things I appreciate about author Rosalie T. Turner is how she uses her gift of storytelling to not just entertain but get readers to thinking. I first learned about her through the novel MARCH WITH ME. Now she has an equally powerful book about race and the sacrifices that comes with change called LAYERS OF TRUTH.
We talk about the book and what she hopes readers to take away from it in this conversation.
·
Rosalie, you and I first connected with your
book MARCH WITH ME. What has it been like to see the response to your work?
Cyrus, it’s been so rewarding to me to see the response.
When MARCH WITH ME first came out, most people didn’t know about the Children’s
March of 1963 which got us the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I especially enjoyed
speaking in schools and universities. To see young people become interested in
this important civil rights history really touched my heart.
·
Your book LAYERS OF TRUTH is one of Conversations’
Summer Reads for this year. What inspired it?
I like to find topics that most
people don’t know about, and few people really know what happened during
Freedom Summer. We’ve lived in Mississippi and as I was doing research and
setting up the details to bring university students there for a civil rights
history tour, I met several of the foot soldiers. I realized how those foot
soldiers had put their very lives on the line working to get Blacks registered
to vote. Their names would never be in a history book, and I wanted their names
to be known. I wanted to say their names and to tell the unknown backstories. I
think that’s important.
·
What I love about your work is that you help us
to discuss turbulent times in history in a way that can bring people together.
When did your own love of history begin?
I think it’s just in my DNA,
Cyrus. All my family loves history. When I was in high school, I read KILLERS
OF THE DREAM by Lillian Smith. I think that was the first spark for my interest
specifically in civil rights history.
· Outside of writing you visit a great deal of
historical places, especially with young people. Why has that been important
for you?
Making those trips with students
and others has become the focus of my husband’s and my life. We fell into it unexpectedly
when a professor at Texas A & M U-Commerce (my husband’s alma mater) put
together a 3-credit hour class with a week’s tour to historic sights and
hearing actual foot soldiers as part of it. My husband and I make all the
arrangements and during the tour, we give a lot of background information. We
do one tour of Alabama and another for Mississippi every year, and have been
doing this for 10 years now, reaching several hundred students and adults.
·
What should our audience expect from you next?
I’m feeling that “itch” to be working on
something, but I’m not quite sure what I want to do next. Right now, I'm
working on the rewrite of a story about homelessness for the Middle Grade
market. However, there are so many little-known avenues to explore in civil
rights history and it is so important that we learn that history. I’m always
tempted to write something in that line.
·
Any advice you want to share when it comes to
others pursuing their own goals and dreams?
I would continually urge people to pursue those dreams,
especially when it comes to writing. We all have stories within us, and it is
with the sharing of these stories that we are all enriched.
·
Thanks again for the time, Rosalie. How can our
audience stay connected with you?
People could go to my website at www.rosalieturner.com and
connect through that or follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram. Thanks so much, Cyrus, for this opportunity and for all you
do and all you are.
