Strong inside

By Andrew Maraniss

Subjects: Basketball, biography, Racism, Biography, Vanderbilt University, nyt:race-and-civil-rights=2015-01-11, Civil rights, united states, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY, South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV), Political Freedom & Security, State & Local, Basketball, New York Times bestseller, Sports, HISTORY, Race, juvenile literature, Civil rights, juvenile literature, Southern states, race relations, Southern states, juvenile literature, HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV), Vanderbilt Commodores (Basketball team), Basketball players, Civil Rights, Vanderbilt university, POLITICAL SCIENCE, Race discrimination, Racism in sports, Civil rights, History, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Sports, Race relations, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Freedom & Security / Civil Rights, Basketball, juvenile literature

Description: Perry Wallace was born at an historic crossroads in U.S. history. He entered kindergarten the year that the Brown v. Board of Education decision led to integrated schools, allowing blacks and whites to learn side by side. A week after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Wallace enrolled in high school and his sensational jumping, dunking, and rebounding abilities quickly earned him the attention of college basketball recruiters from top schools across the nation. In his senior year his Pearl High School basketball team won Tennessee's first racially-integrated state tournament.