REVIEW Two views of civil rights struggle

An activist during the civil rights era and her daughter share the writing.
By CATHERINE SHEA
SCRIPPS HOWARD
"Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights" by Patricia Stephens Due and Tananarive Due (Ballantine, 320 pp., $24.95)
Do young people today find it ridiculous to think that the law would permit a restaurant to deny service to a paying customer just because of his or her skin color? Only a decade ago, the Denny's restaurant chain settled a $54 million lawsuit based on such ignominious behavior. And a mere 40 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld laws that permitted this and other racially discriminatory practices that denied blacks their most fundamental constitutional rights.
In their new book, "Freedom in the Family," Patricia Stephens Due, a civil-rights activist and member of the Congress on Racial Equality, and her daughter Tananarive Due, a science-fiction novelist, set out to honor the courage of the unsung heroes who fought to outlaw these discriminatory practices and to keep their stories alive. Their stories are compelling and an important tribute to the thousands who struggled to bring about these necessary changes.
Alternating chapters
The women alternate chapters, a sometimes-risky narrative practice. In her chapters, Patricia Stephens Due chronicles her years as a civil-rights activist including her participation in an internationally famous jail-in. Patricia Due, her sister, and other fellow students from Florida A & amp;M University organized a peaceful, nonviolent sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Tallahassee, Fla. These and other stories of the civil-rights struggle can be horrific, as she recounts frightening, even life-threatening encounters with police and racist whites. But she also writes of her hope that if she persevered, the movement would be successful for the next generation.
The story from that next generation is told by Tananarive Due. Her chapters are more reflective and analytical of the movement and its effect on the educational and professional opportunities for the next generation. She uses personal stories to demonstrate how her generation grapples with conflicting emotions of gratitude and guilt for the freedoms that did not exist just one generation before. Due writes with the clear recognition that more work is yet to be done.
Generational differences
As with any book written in alternating viewpoints, there is the risk that the reader will prefer one writer, style or story to the other. In the first few chapters, some diligence from the reader is required to keep track of the narrator's identity. The dialogue, however, does achieve the book's purpose by comparing the generational perspectives on the civil-rights movement. Tananarive Due's chapters provide some safe distance from the intense and tortured history of the 1960s described by her mother.
The pair don't write enough about their husband and father, John Due, famous for his work as a civil-rights lawyer. Both tell of their own realization that for him, civil rights work is paramount, and the family comes second. He is quoted a few times but is mostly absent from the dialogue.
Unsung heroes
As leaders in the movement, the Dues have an extensive family lore that includes having met with several high-profile political figures, from Jimmy Carter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the writers' intent here is to recognize the triumphs and sacrifices of the unsung heroes. The book is filled with the stories of the many who lost their jobs, educational opportunities and, in many cases, their lives in the civil-rights movement.
Discriminatory practices continue today: public schools are resegregating; private clubs can legally deny membership to minorities and women. This book is an important reminder that people continue to fight against such discriminatory practices with quiet determination every day.