Sharing the spotlight at the national book tour kick-off for Silver Rights outside the Delta Blues Museum are author Constance Curry (right) and Mae Bertha Carter, matriarch of the Carter family whose seven younger children integrated Drew Public Schools in 1965. (Photos by Panny Mayfield)

Constance Curry, Silver Rights. Introduction by Marian Wright Edelman. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1995. $21.95, 258 pages.

A national book tour publicizing Silver Rights, the story of Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter's 1965 fight to desegregate an all-white school system in Sunflower County, Mississippi, began just miles from where the actual story is told. Sharecroppers of 25 acres on Pemble Plantation in the middle of Sunflower County, the Carters had a dream for their children: to get them out of the cotton fields. They knew the only way to make their dream come true was to secure the best education possible for them.

When county officials in Mississippi asked parents to sign "Freedom of Choice" papers designating which schools they wanted their children to attend, the Carters bravely chose the best local schools for the youngest eight of their 13 children. The Carters were the only African American parents in Sunflower County who dared to choose the white schools of the Mississippi Delta. That same year, Matthew and Mae Bertha Carter became part of the 1 percent of the state's black citizens who registered to vote. Eventually, seven of the Carter children graduated from the University of Mississippi, including Deborah Carter Smith, who is an accountant in the grants and contracts office at Ole Miss.

Silver Rights is an oral history. Author Constance Curry interviewed all 13 of the Carter children, many of the 32 grandchildren, some of the 17 great-grandchildren, Mae Bertha Carter's 92-year-old-mother, and others, black and white, in Sunflower County. Unlike other books about the era that focus solely on the years of protest and confrontation, Silver Rights is an intimate look into the life of a family before, during, and after the historic confrontations over education, equality, and a better life.

October 8, outside the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the author, Mae Bertha Carter, and her children signed copies of Silver Rights and talked about their lives. The event was both a celebration and a reunion for the Carter family. An ensemble from the Drew High School Band played at the launching party for the book. The event began an 18-city publicity tour for Curry and Carter, who attracted a standing-room-only crowd at Square Books in Oxford.