Shakoor, Jordana Y. 1956-

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SHAKOOR, Jordana Y. 1956-

PERSONAL: Born 1956.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, University Press of Mississippi, 3825 Ridgewood Rd., Jackson, MS 39211-6492.

CAREER: Freelance writer. JYS Consultants, founder and director.

WRITINGS:

Civil Rights Childhood, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Jordana Y. Shakoor combined her own memories with reminiscences from her father's journals to create Civil Rights Childhood, which she describes as a tribute to her father, Cleveland Jordan. Jordan grew up in a sharecropping family near Greenwood, Mississippi, where he picked cotton and was regularly cheated of his pay and deprived of his pride. Despite the rigors of farming, Jordan excelled at school and made a better life for himself, serving in the army and getting a college teaching degree. During the 1960s Jordan was active in the civil rights movement, Shakoor recounts. She also describes the harshness of the Jim Crow laws and the shameful activities of the Ku Klux Klan, including the lynching of Emmitt Till. In 1963, when Jordan and his wife attempted to register to vote, Jordan was fired from his teaching job. This setback prompted him to move his family to Toledo, Ohio, where Jordana grew up. Civil Rights Childhood garnered praise from critics. In Publishers Weekly a reviewer remarked that Shakoor avoids overwrought prose and declared the work "engrossing and vital." Although Shakoor noted in an interview for Online in Worthington that although improved race relations exist in the United States, she reminded readers, "We still have work to do to eradicate racism in our society. Racial hatred destroys lives and it destroys families."