User:Am3860/The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963

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The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 is a historical-fiction novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. First published in 1995 by Delacorte Press, it was reprinted in 1997. It tells the story of an African-American family living in the town of Flint, Michigan, in 1963, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. When Byron, the oldest son, begins to misbehave, the parents decide he should spend the summer — and possibly the next school year — with his grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. The entire family travels south by car, and during their visit, tragic events occur.

The book has received many prestigious honors for its themes of familial love and historical racism. It was also adapted into a film for Hallmark Channel in 2013.

Background
The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 was Christopher Paul Curtis's first novel. He originally planned for the Watson family to travel to Florida rather than Birmingham. When his son brought Dudley Randall's “The Ballad of Birmingham” from school and read it to him, however, the poem inspired Curtis to change the setting of his novel to focus on a pivotal moment of civil rights history instead.

The Watson family is fictional, but the characters and events in the story are based on Curtis’ own upbringing in Flint. Like the narrator of the story, Curtis was also ten years old in 1963, and he remembers his parents’ active involvement in picketing for the civil rights movement in Michigan during that time.

Plot
The novel is a first-person account narrated by Kenneth Watson, who lives in Flint, Michigan, with his parents, Daniel and Wilona Watson; his older brother, Byron; and his younger sister, Joetta. Kenny is a bright and shy fourth grader at Clark Elementary School who is bullied for his intelligence and his lazy eye. He struggles to make true friends until Rufus Fry arrives in town from Arkansas. Rufus is also bullied by the other students for his "country" clothes and accent, which initially makes Kenny reluctant to befriend him, but they are soon inseparable. The boys are both bullied and protected by Kenny’s 13-year-old brother, Byron, and his friend, Buphead. Byron has been retained twice because he often skips school and is, therefore, still in sixth grade. He invents a series of "fantastic adventures" that constantly get him into trouble, such as playing with matches in the house and setting things on fire, abusing his parents’ credit at the grocery store to buy himself treats, and getting a conk hairstyle against his parents' orders.

Daniel and Wilona eventually become so frustrated with their inability to straighten out Byron that they decide to send him to Birmingham, Alabama to live with Wilona’s mother, Grandma Gloria Sands, for at least the summer and possibly an entire year. As soon as the school year concludes, the Watsons ready their car, "the Brown Bomber," and embark on a road trip from Flint to Birmingham to deliver Byron to his grandmother. Kenny, who had been looking forward to the "battle royal" between his strict grandmother and Byron, is disappointed when just a few sharp words from Grandma Sands have Byron speaking respectfully and generally behaving himself, causing Kenny to seek out his own adventures. Grandma Sands warns the children to avoid a particular local swimming hole because of a dangerous whirlpool, which Kenny mishears as "Wool Pooh '' due to her thick Alabama accent. Kenny wants to swim there anyway, and he is frustrated when Byron and Joetta refuse to go along. Ignoring the warnings of both Grandma Sands and Byron, Kenny jumps into the seemingly tranquil pool and edges deeper and deeper into water until the whirlpool catches him and almost pulls him down, but Byron saves him. Remembering his grandmother' s words, Kenny imagines that a strange monster he believes to be the mysterious Wool Pooh swam up from below to grab his ankle and pull him under the water. Byron later insists that nothing else was in the water, but Kenny is convinced that the Wool Pooh actually exists.

Shortly afterwards, a bomb explodes at a nearby church where Joetta is attending Sunday school. Kenny wanders into the still-smoking church in the immediate aftermath of the explosion to look for his sister, but he instead sees the Wool Pooh in the smoke clinging to a girl's torn shoe that looks similar to Joetta's. In shock, he walks back to Grandma Sands' house without anyone noticing that he had been at the church. He is again shocked and confused to find Joetta already there. She claims that Kenny had called her away from the church and led her home, and she does not even know that a bombing had taken place right after she left Sunday school.

As soon as they realize that Joetta is safe, the Watsons decide to immediately return home to Flint, trying to avoid explaining the full implications of the bombing to the children. Kenny is unable to process the events in Birmingham and avoids his family and friends over the ensuing weeks, instead spending many hours hiding behind the sofa. Byron eventually coaxes him out and gets Kenny to talk about what happened, which finally brings a flood of tears from Kenny. Encouraging his younger brother to "keep on stepping," Byron explains that although the world is not perfect, he has to keep moving on.

Genre
Professor Rachelle Kuehl posits that The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 expands beyond the typical historical-fiction genre, by contextualizing the events of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and by providing readers the opportunity to learn about social injustice.

Setting
The events of the book occur from approximately January to October 1963, a turbulent time during the Civil Rights Movement. The climax of the story centers around the historic 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963, soon after the civil rights protests had resulted in successful negotiations with white city leaders for integration. Ku Klux Klan members bombed the church on September 15, 1963, killing four girls and injuring many more. In the novel, the incident occurs a bit earlier than the historical date to allow the Watson family to be on summer vacation in Birmingham when it takes place.

Race
Professor Jonda C. McNair asserts that humor serves as an important literary device in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 to expose the racism experienced by Black Americans in the 1960s. More specifically, she finds that the novel uses four categories of racial humor to highlight these lived experiences in a less threatening way: exaggeration, sarcasm, the anticipation of racism, and mocking white people. For example, Daniel jokes about how the Watson family cannot just stop at any establishment during its road trip to Birmingham, but these comments, though communicated in a humorous manner, expose the discrimination faced by Black Americans in the South.

Professor Jani L. Barker argues that the narrative techniques in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, specifically the first-person narration from Kenny, allows the novel to communicate the harsh realities of race-based violence without traumatizing its young, vulnerable audience. Since Kenny offers the innocent perspective of a child, readers can identify with Kenny and learn about racism from a protective distance that still affords them hope in the aftermath of atrocity.

Professor Barker also points to the story arc of The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 as an essential element in subvertly combatting racist mindsets. The early chapters of the story allow readers — both Black and non-Black — to recognize the Watson family’s humanity and, thus, identify with the protagonists. Race slowly becomes more central as the story progresses until it reaches the climax of race-based violence with the church bombing. This progression fosters a sense of resilience in Black readers and empathy for the struggles of Black Americans in non-Black readers.

Gender
Professor Amina Chaudhri states that The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 fails to question the sexism and heterosexual norms that pervade American society. She argues that Daniel and Byron embody hegemonic masculinity. For example, Byron repeatedly attempts to assert his superiority by disobeying his parents, such as straightening his hair against their orders.

Reception
The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963 was generally well received after its publication. In The New York Times, Jabari Asim described the novel as “lyrical, engrossing and of sufficient emotive power to sustain the attention of adult readers as well.” In The Guardian, Lindsey Fraser praised the book for tackling “‘big issues’ but [relating] them to a value system, if not an environment, which is readily accessible.”

The book has also been named to the American Library Association’s list of Best Books for Young Adults. It has received over 25 awards and honors, such as the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Honor.

Adaptations
A television film based on the book, produced by Walden Media, premiered on the Hallmark Channel in 2013. It was directed by Kenny Leon and starred Anika Noni Rose, Wood Harris, Latanya Richardson, Skai Jackson, and David Alan Grier. The movie condensed events and characters from Flint in the first half of the novel and added new scenes of Kenny and Byron helping local youths organize civil rights events in Birmingham. Walden Media also collaborated with the Southern Poverty Law Center to develop educational materials that would help teachers in Alabama teach their students about the Civil Rights Movement through the film.