American author and teacher William H. Armstrong was born on this day in 1911. He is best known for the unique storytelling in the young-adult novel, Sounder. The book is about a Black child and his sharecropper family in the Jim Crow South, though the place and the characters have no names. Armstrong, who was white, wrote, “With names they would represent one family. Without names they become universal – representing all people who suffer privation and injustice, but through love, self-respect, devotion, and desire for improvement, make it in the world.”
An undated b/w photo of William H. Armstrong, author of "Sounder" and other novels for young readers.
Image source: Vocabulary
It is the birthday of the educator who wrote, “I have often heard it said that cowardice is the mother of cruelty, and I have found by experience that malicious and inhuman animosity and fierceness are usually accompanied by weakness.”
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