Roi and Me and the Double V
War has already broken out, and by fall 1941, U.S. involvement is imminent. For Black middle schoolers Marvel Zander and Roi Smith living in Wilmington, North Carolina, this means big changes. Roi’s older brother, Charlie, who has taken care of him and his little sister ever since their mother went to a tuberculosis sanitarium, has enlisted in the Marines after the Army rejected him for lack of segregated barracks. Marvel, an aspiring Olympic track star, has lost her coach, who also signed up to fight. Furthermore, the old farm where Marvel’s track team practices and the Black community has planted a victory garden, is slated to be bulldozed for housing for shipyard workers. Marvel fears the end of her Olympic dreams. Roi, an aspiring journalist, connects with his new teacher, Mr. P., who writes for The Pittsburgh Courier and who helps Roi to create his own newspaper for Wilmington’s Black residents. But will Roi’s newspaper make a difference in a town where the white people have all the power? And is Roi putting himself in danger by speaking out?
In alternating point-of-view chapters, Headen portrays two young people who refuse to have their dreams crushed and their lives circumscribed by Jim Crow segregation. With the help of Mr. P., Marvel and Roi find white allies who understand the contradiction of Black citizens who are the first to risk their lives in the war but are second class citizens at home. Hence, the “Double V”—the quest for victory in World War II and in the U.S. South. Headen’s novel for readers at the older elementary and middle school level shows how WWII played a role in the civil rights movement that would gain national attention a decade later.
