mail@rfwp.com
Printable order form
Our programs
- English Language Arts: Michael Clay Thompson
- Problem-Based Learning: Shelagh Gallagher
- Science: Dr Dave's Teaching Manuals
- Philosophy
- Bullying Prevention
- Math
- Our Gifted Children magazine
- Speakers
Browse catalog
- All books
- Novels
- Author Index
- Geographical Index
- Subject Index
- Series Index
- Package Index
- Age index
- Grade index
Running Against the Wind
- Author:
- Auerbacher, Inge
- Subjects:
- African-American; Multi-Cultural Friendship; Sports; DeSaussure, Mary and Martha; Historical Biography
- Age:
- 9, 10, 11, 12
- Grade:
- 4, 5, 6
- Order code:
- 4373
- Price:
- $9.99
- Online Price:
- $7.99
- Class sets:
- 10 or more: $7.00 each. (Order code: 4373S)
“A wonderful story...”—Children’s Literature
This is a biographical novel of Mary and Martha DeSaussure, the pioneering Black track stars, against a background of interracial relations as they really were.
This is their warm story of their religious home life (Papa was a minister), their “mixed” neighborhood, their athletic triumphs and heartbreaking defeats. This a story of the realities of post-WWII racial prejudices; the pride of the girls’ immediate neighborhood, and the vulnerability they learned to feel when they ventured outside of it.
Mary and Martha’s immediate neighbors and shop-owner friends, fixtures in their growing up years, were a wonderful mix of Black, Jewish, Irish and Italian people. The twins relate personal, sharing stories about each, and because they were kids, it is striking how many of their remembrances have to do with food or candy. (The girls insisted that their story contain an appendix of the recipes that have become a part of their lives!)
The twins story is also the story of the Police Athletic League and how the sisters, Black sisters, helped to reshape it. The PAL gave them the psy-chological boost to achieve, to believe. It opened very real doors. And it changed forever for women because of them. The PAL story picks up from the first race that Mary won at the 13th Regiment Armory Regional Track Meet (but received the silver medal because she was Black, and the white German favorite had to get the gold). It includes the successes of “firsts” the twins shared in the first Black PAL girls track team in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the first integrated PAL AAU Women’s track team in New York City. Their scrapbooks are filled with photos and medals. And the panorama shows the white canvass of female athletes and spectators that first greeted them.
Today, Mary and Martha are leaders in their own interest areas. Both rose in the ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention; VARANA, the Volta Region Association of North America; and the Women’s Africa Committee of the African American Institute. Mary retired from the Elmhurst Hospital Center as Administrative Executive Secretary to the Director. Martha pursued politics and became the first Black Administrative Secretary in the New York Supreme Court and then the first Black Legal Administrative Secretary to work in the Appellate Division. She has been a team with Justice William C. Thompson for over 30 years.
In 2001, the New York Historical Society chose Mary as one of its heroes for its exhibit: “Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves.” The exhibit celebrates the power of the individual to make a difference.
Author Inge Auerbacher has been a close, personal friend for more than 30 years. This is her third book. I Am A Star chronicled her childhood years in a concentration camp as a Holocaust victim. Her second, Beyond The Yellow Star To America picked up her story from arriving in New York City in 1945. Inge has won many awards including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
“A wonderful story...”—Children’s Literature
This is a biographical novel of Mary and Martha DeSaussure, the pioneering Black track stars, against a background of interracial relations as they really were.
This is their warm story of their religious home life (Papa was a minister), their “mixed” neighborhood, their athletic triumphs and heartbreaking defeats. This a story of the realities of post-WWII racial prejudices; the pride of the girls’ immediate neighborhood, and the vulnerability they learned to feel when they ventured outside of it.
Mary and Martha’s immediate neighbors and shop-owner friends, fixtures in their growing up years, were a wonderful mix of Black, Jewish, Irish and Italian people. The twins relate personal, sharing stories about each, and because they were kids, it is striking how many of their remembrances have to do with food or candy. (The girls insisted that their story contain an appendix of the recipes that have become a part of their lives!)
The twins story is also the story of the Police Athletic League and how the sisters, Black sisters, helped to reshape it. The PAL gave them the psy-chological boost to achieve, to believe. It opened very real doors. And it changed forever for women because of them. The PAL story picks up from the first race that Mary won at the 13th Regiment Armory Regional Track Meet (but received the silver medal because she was Black, and the white German favorite had to get the gold). It includes the successes of “firsts” the twins shared in the first Black PAL girls track team in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the first integrated PAL AAU Women’s track team in New York City. Their scrapbooks are filled with photos and medals. And the panorama shows the white canvass of female athletes and spectators that first greeted them.
Today, Mary and Martha are leaders in their own interest areas. Both rose in the ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention; VARANA, the Volta Region Association of North America; and the Women’s Africa Committee of the African American Institute. Mary retired from the Elmhurst Hospital Center as Administrative Executive Secretary to the Director. Martha pursued politics and became the first Black Administrative Secretary in the New York Supreme Court and then the first Black Legal Administrative Secretary to work in the Appellate Division. She has been a team with Justice William C. Thompson for over 30 years.
In 2001, the New York Historical Society chose Mary as one of its heroes for its exhibit: “Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves.” The exhibit celebrates the power of the individual to make a difference.
Author Inge Auerbacher has been a close, personal friend for more than 30 years. This is her third book. I Am A Star chronicled her childhood years in a concentration camp as a Holocaust victim. Her second, Beyond The Yellow Star To America picked up her story from arriving in NYC in 1945. Inge has won many awards including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
