Double V Campaign - by Lea Lyon (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

This book tells the rousing story of the Double V campaign, started during World War II to encourage Black Americans to fight two wars for democracy at once: one overseas and the other at home. It reveals to young adults how the campaign gave voice to Black communities and helped spawn the civil rights movement of the following decades.

Review Quotes

I am so grateful to Lea for writing this book about a little remembered and important part of history. James Thompson is one of my heroes and deserves his day in the sun. It will be so satisfying to know that through her work that will finally happen.

Lea Lyon has provided an interesting, well researched, and well written book on the Pittsburgh Courier's Double V campaign for more black rights in World War II. She does an excellent job of explaining a press campaign that deserves more public attention than it has received. Of particular significance is the amount of information on James G. Thompson, whose 1942 letter to the newspaper sparked the campaign. No other historian has delved as deeply into him as Lyon, and the result is a better understanding of a person who became very important in black history.

With a clear, lively text, the narrative describes the many facets of the campaign, from newspapers like the Pittsburg Courier, to home front activities, to the Pullman Porters union efforts, and other elements that integrated defense industries and led to the 1950s' civil rights efforts. The writing is compelling and concise and will please those interested in history as well as those who read this for homework projects. OUTSTANDING.

About the Author

Lea Lyon is an award-winning author and illustrator and a former Illustrator Coordinator for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) San Francisco chapter. Her most recent books include It Rained Warm Bread--a middle grade novellaby Hope Anita Smith with Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet and developed and illustrated by Lyon, which garnered a starred review from Kirkus, a 2019 Best Nonfiction Book in Verse for Young Readers from Kirkus, and an ALA Notable book for 2020--and Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina by Lyon and A. LaFaye which was picked up by Scholastic Book Club, a 2021 Bank Street Best Children's Book, and included in the Independent Bookstore Kids Next list. Learn more at www.lealyon.com.