The Children Bob Moses Led

Readers searching for a role model during Black History Month need look no further than this novel by William Heath. Bob Moses kept his cool when things got hot down South in the 1960s. A must read for anyone interested in the civil rights movement.

I enjoyed reading this novel. It taught me a lot about a time in America's history I knew little about. William Heath is an amazing writer.

This novel is a very evocative and moving portrait of what the civil rights movement in Mississippi was like. The book is narrated by Tom Morton, a college student volunteer, and Bob Moses, the legendary leader of Freedom Summer. The author has an astonishing grasp on both the larger issues involved and the small particulars of time and place that make the book so vivid. This would be an excellent novel to teach in the schools because it captures a crucial moment in our history with such poetry and authority.

This is a sad, serious, important book. The action of the novel revolves around the soft-spoken Bob Moses, whose quiet courage inspires everyone who follows him. These followers are mostly young, white college kids with idealistic dreams of changing an unjust South. Every character learns a lesson by the end of this book, and I did too. I recommend this for people who liked A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.

While some novels based on historical events use history as cheap background scenery or read like textbooks with dialogue, William Heath's novel rises above such pitfalls and vividly recreates Freedom Summer 1964--one of America's most crucial domestic episodes. After attending an orientation session in Oxford, Ohio, idealistic college students from across the country headed south to Mississippi to help Bob Moses register black voters. The Children Bob Moses Led reminds us how far the country has come in the civil rights struggle, and how much work remains. Reminiscent of All the King's Men in its ambition and political scope, the novel is narrated by Bob Moses, the charismatic leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Conference, and Tom Morton, a white college student who desires to become "his own contemporary'' by contributing to social change. Thoughtful and restrained, Moses is a brilliant political organizer with gentle courage and great moral integrity. Bob Moses is real, and the novel reconstructs his powerful presence and passionate leadership that inspired people such as Morton to put their lives on the line. Heath is adept at making a real-life (and still living) Moses a credible first-person narrator. Morton and other volunteers travel to the Delta, where they find a frightening and unfamiliar Southern landscape where whites maintain superiority with guns and scare tactics. Morton and his friends go to the homes of blacks to persuade them to register to vote. The mission of the Mississippi Summer Project was to help blacks see that gaining the power of the vote would empower them to change discriminatory laws. The volunteers soon learn how challenging it will be to find people brave enough to stand up against the threat of violence. Chilling death threats and mob violence instill terror in both black and white volunteers. Despite the dangers, Tom Morton moves in with a black family and begins to teach black children in a Freedom School. Morton's students are so used to being put down by whites that they are amazed at his egalitarian ideals. Rural Mississippi is a lonely, frightening place for Morton, and the temptation to take the next bus out of town grows stronger each day as he faces intimidation and beatings. Morton begins to question his role in the project as he measures himself againt the legendary Bob Moses. Amid the chaotic scene of a country divided by race, he wrestles with puzzling questions as he comes to grips with his fear. Heath's novel is populated by both real (Moses) and fictitious (Morton) characters, but the events are historically accurate. Like Slaughterhouse-Five, the novel views the past with a critical eye, blending real events and publi