This is an excellent autobiography by Wade Hudson, who was born in Louisiana in the mid-1940s and grew up during Jim Crow. The book begins with Hudson hearing an announcement over the radio that there is an active search for him and a warrant for his arrest. He has done nothing wrong but his friends convince him to turn himself in to avoid more trouble.

The book then goes back to his birth and childhood and is a detailed and affectionate memoir of his neighborhood and what it was like to grow up Black in the south in the Jim Crow era. Hudson was a gifted student and excels in school which leads him to college. Along the way, he is constantly wondering about the treatment of Black Americans compared to white and is determined to help work toward a solution to the disparity.

Defiant takes a little while to get going but I think by the fourth chapter or so most students won’t be able to put it down. The memories he has of his family, church, neighborhood, his family’s Christmas meal (!),  and school are a captivating and informative look at the life many Americans led in the 50s and 60s. Every school and library should have this.

Reviewed by Sarah Maciejewski, Patten Free Library, Bath