At the conclusion of my unit, I will read the powerful picture book Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles. This story takes place in the summer of 1964 and is an excellent overview of the result of slavery in this country. Two young boys, one African American and one white, are the best of friends. They do everything together, but their favorite activity is swimming. In the story, the town council has just passed a law stating that the city pool, previously closed to African Americans, will be open to all. The boys can hardly wait to play in the pool. The day of open swimming comes and the boys race to the pool, only to find men who work for the town digging up the pool. The same government that passed a law allowing swimming is now digging up the pool, closing it for everybody. From this story, I will ask students to complete a graphic organizer stating, from their point of view, what each boy sees, hears, and feels as a result of the council’s actions. The use of these sensory images will be a springboard to a discussion that will compare Freedom Summer with Pink and Say, the book with which I began the unit. How are the main characters in each story the same? How are they different? How are the characters in both books fighting the same war? To conclude this discussion, I will suggest that all of us are current “characters” in our nation’s history; it is now our turn to determine what each of us can do to understand the conflicts of our time and to help our country be more just and free. The culminating activity of the unit will be letter writing; each of us, myself included, will write a letter to the class describing what he or she will do to help our school, our city, and our nation be a better place for all.