White Lilacs

         I am currently reading the book White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer. This book is mainly about a young girl—Rose Lee—growing up in Dillon, Texas in 1921. She works for a family called the Bells, and lives in a neighborhood not far from their house. Along with dealing with the immense amount of racism at the time, she also faces a big problem in her community. One day when she was cleaning up a table at the Bell’s house, she overheard them talking about how they were going to take the town of Freedom—where Rose-Lee lives—and knock it down to build a park.

         In this book, Rose Lee comes face to face with a lot of very serious issues that young children really shouldn’t be dealing with. One relationship that I think Rose-Lee is confused by, as a child is her and Catherine-Jane, who is the daughter of Mrs. Bell. In one chapter she talks about how she and Catherine Jane used to be almost best friends when they were younger, and how she used to take Rose-Lee into parts of the house that the help weren’t usually permitted to go. She then talks about how now that they are older Catherine Jane and her can’t be friends anymore because they have more distinguished rolls in the lives that are ahead for them. Growing up as a young child, I would suspect that it is very difficult to watch someone so close to you get treated differently than you and get to do things you can’t. I think that this must have been very hard on Rose Lee.

         Another thing that must be hard for Rose-Lee and her family is the way they are being thrown out of their homes and made to move somewhere else. I think that this is particularly sad because from the minute Rose-Lee found out about their plans, she knew that there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. The Mayor suggests they move to a new neighborhood, which apparently has “no trees or any signs of life.” Most of their friends and family end up moving away to new places. Rose-Lee’s family even contemplates moving to Liberia, but Rose-Lee says that she does not want to leave.

         All in all this book was very sad because from the very beginning of the book you know that they have no chance to do what they want. In their eyes, the white mayors and people like the Bells have the only opinions that matter in the town. Something else about this book that I found sad is the holiday which they celebrate called “Juneteenth” which is the day that they officially got the right to stop being slaves. Although Lincoln had signed the document saying they were free 3 years before that, they only had found out then. This story was a good book, but also very downbeat and not at all a happy story.