Join in-person or on Zoom. For more inform ation\, contact discussion facilitator Becky Clark at rclark@aurorapubliclibrary.org. Copies of the book are available for checkout at the West Branch circulation desk.\n
Join us virtually on Zoom here.
\nBook description :
\nUp Home: One Girl's Journey \;by Ruth J. Simmons
\nI was born at a crossroads: a crossroads in history\, a crossroa
ds in culture\, and a geographical crossroad in North Houston County in Ea
st Texas.
Born in 1945\, Ruth J. Simmons grew up the twelfth chi
ld of sharecroppers. Her first home had no running water\, no electricity\
, no books to read. Yet despite this&mdash\;or\, in her words\, because of
it&mdash\;Simmons would become \;the first Black president of an Ivy
League university. The former president of Smith College\, Brown Universit
y\, and Prairie View A&\;M\, Texas&rsquo\;s oldest HBCU\, Simmons has i
nspired generations of students as she herself made history. In \;
Up Home\, \;Simmons takes us back to Grapeland to show how the pe
ople who love us when we are young shape who we become. We meet her caring
\, tireless mother who managed to feed her large family with an often empt
y pantry\; her father\, who refused to let racial and economic injustice c
rush his youngest daughter&rsquo\;s dreams\; the doting brothers and siste
rs\; and the attentive teachers who welcomed Ruth into the classroom\, gui
ding her to a future she could hardly imagine as a child. From the farmlan
d of East Texas to Houston&rsquo\;s Fifth Ward to New Orleans at the dawn
of the civil rights movement\, Simmons depicts an era long gone but whose
legacies of inequality we still live with today. Written in clear and time
less prose\, \;Up Home \;is both an origin story set in t
he segregated South and the uplifting chronicle of a girl whose intellect\
, grace\, and curiosity guide her as she creates a place for herself in th
e world. (publisher description)