Music in My Heart: My Journey with Melody

Now everyone is staring at me. Melody asks me what’s wrong. I feel the same pressure that I did when we were standing outside Sam’s Soda Shop. I had chickened out then. But I don’t want chicken out again.

I swallow the lump in my throat and point toward the book. I tell them that there’s some really important stuff that’s missing. I tell them that I can’t find anything about Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman. Yvonne crosses the floor and flips through the book, and I can tell she’s getting angry. Melody’s mom asks when the book was printed. Yvonne turns the first few pages and says just five years ago, in 1959. But she can’t even find a picture of a black person in the book!

She flips through the book so fast, that I’m afraid she’s going to rip out a page. Lila puts her hand on Yvonne’s and says that she just saw one. But when Yvonne turns back a page, Lila’s face crumbles. It’s just a picture of an unamed slave. So the only black people featured in the book are slaves. Yvonne shakes her head.

Lila’s brows furrow. They don’t mention any black scientists or inventors. They don’t mention George Washington Carver? She checks the index again and then slumps her shoulders. She thought she was going to a good school.

Melody’s mom squeezes her daughter’s shoulders. She says in a lot of ways, it is a good school. But it’s also mostly white, so some changes are going to be slower in coming.

Melody says that Lila can change things. She can write letters to her school, like the Junior Block Club did when they wanted to make the playground better. Mrs. Ellison says that’s a good idea. Melody says that she’ll help Lila write letters. We can tell the school how books like this make us feel and ask them to buy newer books. Better books that teach about all the famous black scientists, like Carver, Charles Drew, and Lewis Latimer.

I ask if I can help. I want to make things better for Lila and for all the other students at her school. Lila grins and hugs me and Melody at the same time. Yvonne claps her hands together. That’s the spirit.