SPELL FREEDOM The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement

Robin Miles narrates this important study of the Civil Rights movement, its effects on the Tennessee Highlander School in Topeka, Kansas, the significance of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and steps taken to desegregate schools, especially in the South. The author focuses on four activists--Septima Clark, Myles Horton, Esau Jenkins, and Bernice Johnson--and their roles in community organizing and educating citizens, particularly African Americans, while spotlighting key civil rights events between 1954 and 1965. Miles barely differentiates between the text and documents, speeches and dialogue. Her performance is choppy and hurried throughout, never smoothing into a fluid narration. Each comma and period is a full stop, breaking the listener's concentration and attention to details. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2025]