Revolution

Revolution (2014) by award-winning author Deborah Wiles is set in 1964 in the town of Greenwood, Mississippi. Having grown up in this town all her life, twelve-year-old Sunny is rather sheltered, knowing relatively little of the racial strife brewing around the country. Therefore, when she hears that invaders are coming to Greenwood, she is shocked and assumes that they are malevolent. Sunny doesn’t realize that these people have actually come to her town on a mission to fight for the rights of black people.

Not everyone is open to the idea of change. Even some members of Sunny’s own family are frightened by the possibility and oppose the equal rights movement. A very divisive issue, there are other people in Greenwood who support the movement even if it means that they are scorned by their own family and friends.

Meanwhile, Sunny’s home life is undergoing some dramatic changes. Her father recently remarried, bringing a new stepbrother, stepmother, and sister into her already chaotic life. Sunny has very close relationships with her family members and depends on them heavily, especially her father, her stepbrother, Gillette, her uncle Parnell and her maternal grandmother. However, she struggles to maintain a relationship with some members of her family, among them her stepmother, Annabelle. Sunny must accept the changes and learn to adapt to her new life, just as the people of Greenwood are learning to accept the social changes occurring in their small town.



Sunny and her family are white, and although they are not prejudiced themselves, they are living in a time where prejudice and racism are rampant. Sunny becomes more aware of how the black people in her community are treated. Blacks are persecuted for even trying to obtain equal rights, such as the right to vote. Black people are regularly turned away and refused the right to vote by the voting registrar, who is always white. Even if they do succeed in voting, they are at risk of losing their jobs by doing so.

This summer, hundreds of volunteers, many of them white, come flooding into Mississippi to put a stop to the prejudice and fight for black rights. Sunny is fearful of these newcomers without understanding who they are or why they have come to her small town. On the night the first volunteers start to pour into Greenwood, Sunny and her brother Gillette sneak into the nearby public pool to go for a swim after dark. While at the pool, they bump into a black boy with the same idea.

The boy’s name is Raymond. A skilled baseball player, he has a loving family. He feels supported by the community around him. Nevertheless, Raymond senses the changes that are coming to his small town. Although he is glad to see people fighting for the rights of people like him and his family, it is still a confusing time for the young boy. Raymond struggles to understand his role within the social and political struggles. As a young black man, he realizes that he is too old to simply stand by and watch as the changes are taking place, but still too young to partake in the dangerous activities of the formidable activists championing black rights.



After having broken into the pool that night alongside Sunny and Gillette, he sneaks back into his house without being caught, but upon arrival, sees that there is a new addition to his household. Jo Ellen, a white girl from the North, is staying with Raymond and his family for the summer. Once again, Raymond is at odds as to how he should be feeling, conflicted to have a white girl staying in his house, even though he knows her intentions are good.

Sunny has been closely observing the activities of the adults surrounding the equal rights movement. She notices that some of the adults adamantly favor creating change while others are strongly opposed to it, wanting things to stay as they are. Things become heated, even erupting into violence at times, and the police and public officials do nothing to defend the black protestors or protect them from harm. Tensions continue to escalate until finally white protestors fire a gun into a parking lot and one of the bullets hits Raymond in the head.

Sunny and Jo Ellen help Raymond, taking him to the hospital, but the reaction of the staff is less than kind; they refuse to help him. Raymond survives his near brush with death, and, ultimately, the community of Greenwood is forced to come to terms with the changes that are happening around the country, whether it likes it or not, just as Sunny must accept the reality of her new family situation.