Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, the Great Migration North

by Patricia C. McKissack

Book Overview

Eleven-year-old Nellie Lee Love records in her diary the events of 1919, when her family moves from Tennessee to Chicago, hoping to leave the racism and hatred of the South behind. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590511599
• ISBN13: 9780590511599
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 218 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

One Of The Best!!!

I loved how they wrote this book. It really shows how the black people were treated like. All the things they had to endure is quite sad. But all the black people offered it all up and were quite resilient.

Want A Book That Is Good and You Can Use it For a Report

The Dear America diary Color Me Dark by Nellie Lee Love is interesting story of a girls life with many sad, happy and serious times. The plot of the story is a black family trying to get their rights so that they can be equal with whites. Nellie's family owns a funeral home in Bradford Corners, Tennesse. In the book she moves to Chicago because her family thinks that Chicago will bring new hopes to blacks. When her father tries to get a license so that he can strat a funeral home in Chicago. Her father thinks that they want him to pay a bribe because he did all of the paperwork. Then Nellie finds out that she has to go to a new school where she finds different friends that are like her in a way. I would recommend this book for people of all ages who are willing to learn. People also read this book because it shows what some black families have to go through.

The Great Migration North

This is the diary of Nellie Lee Love a girl born in Bradford Corners, Tennessee. The town is segregated. The Blacks call it Corners and the Whites call it Bradford. Nellie has called this place home for all of her life. Her family is much into equality for Blacks and other races, and are terrified when more then fifty lynchings done by racists are reported to have been committed in their area. The family is even more terrified when they learn that their Uncle Pace has been claimed to have been drunk that February 4th, 1919 and had laid himself down on the train tracks and gotten hit, and then had died. Nellie's father can't stand another minute of it. He decides to move up North to Chicago, Illinois. The move takes a while to adjust to, especially since the family were witnesses the day the Chicago Riot occured in the year of the Red Summer. This year was the worst for Blacks because Whites were fighting all over, but in Chicago, Blacks were fighting back. Now the Love family is in danger. Will the city ever calm down? What losses will occur during the situation? What lies will be revealed? Read this wonderful book to find out.

A young girl keeps a diary of the year 1919.

It is with great hesitatation that eleven-year-old Nellie Lee Love begins her new diary on New Year's Day, 1919. The diary was an unwanted Christmas present from her mother that she doubts she will use much. But Nellie grows to like writing in the diary. The entries early on describe her family's fairly idyllic life in the small town of Bradford Corners, Tennessee. Nellie's best friend is her older sister, Erma Jean, who's just ten months older than her. There's Mama and Daddy, Nellie's grandparents, Papa Till and Aunt Nessie (who live with the family), and various aunts, uncles, and cousin. Their life is much easier than that of most southern blacks because Nellie's father owns his own business, a funeral home. But soon tragedy befalls the family, when Nellie's Uncle Pace, who has just returned from the war in Europe, mysteriously dies, possibly at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Erma Jean is with him when he dies, and something he tells her has made her mute, too disturbed to speak. Daddy decides to move the family north to Chicago, where their is more freedom and oppurtunity for black people. Nellie describes many more things, both tragic and joyous, that happen to her and her family, friends, and neighbors throughout the entire years. Her diary, although fictional, is a window to the past and describes a time period in American history I knew little about. This was an excellant addition to the wonderful Dear America series.

Very Good

i love dear america books so i got this one right after it cameout. this book is about a african american girl named Nellie LeeLove. she lived in Bradford Corners, Tennesse, but after her uncle told Nellie's dad about Chicago and all the obertutities her family decited to move there. this is a very good book if you want to read about african americans in the early 1900's.

Magnificent

After WW1,african soldiers coming back to the south when brutally hurt. Thus, the great migration started.In the book Nellie Lee is a light skined african. When her family moves up north, They racial descrimanation form there own race group. I love this book!