A Long Time Coming: A Lyrical Biography of Race in America from Ona Judge to Barack Obama

By Ray Anthony Shepard, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. Calkins Creek, 2023. 336 pages. $19.99/hardcover; $11.99/eBook. Recommended for ages 12 and up.

As a middle-school English and social studies teacher, I am always looking for ways to make complex historical events accessible and engaging for my students while still conveying the often harsh reality of what happened. Shepard’s young adult biography in verse, A Long Time Coming, accomplishes this goal admirably, as it chronicles the struggles and triumphs of six important Black Americans from different eras: Ona Judge, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama.

While Shepard recognizes that his book is a starting point for further discussion rather than a standalone history, the book still serves as a valuable tool for introducing young people to pivotal moments and individuals in Black history. Though it is a quick read, the narrative manages to cover the vast time period of 1773–2008, allowing readers to trace the evolution of race and society in the United States over centuries. This wide scope underscores both the progress made and the persistent challenges faced by Black Americans, as it illustrates the extraordinary courage and moral clarity required to resist systems of oppression. Along with effectively developing this theme across U.S. history, the book also includes valuable resources, such as a bibliography, timeline, and index, which can further support learning and encourage deeper exploration of the topics presented.

However, what really sets this book apart is its lyrical style. The use of verse format adds a sense of emotional resonance to events and people who have attained mythical status and who are often handled in other works with reverence and clinical distance. Through the frequent use of figurative language (and well-chosen quotes from the subjects themselves), Shepard makes the exploration of difficult subjects such as slavery and White-supremacist ideology a visceral experience. For example, we can almost smell and feel the fear in Frederick Douglass after he escapes his enslaved life in Baltimore and arrives in New York City in September 1838:

On dark and fish-reeking cobblestone streets
Frederick’s freedom turned to icy sweat.
No longer enslaved, something worse:
A fugitive outlaw on the run.
I was yet liable to be taken back,
and subjected to all the torture of slavery.
There I was in the midst of thousands,
and yet a perfect stranger; without home,
and without friends.

The italicized words in the second stanza are Douglass’s own from his 1845 memoir. In addition to such powerful written portrayals of real-life scenes, the book offers a striking visual element in Christie’s black-and-white illustrations for the section headers, further helping the reader to imagine each individual and theme.

Parents and teachers should also be aware that this unflinching emotional honesty can make for some painful reading. The book includes vivid descriptions of violence against enslaved people, allusions to sexual violence, and the use of racial slurs. While this honesty is crucial for understanding the realities of the past, it may also merit further discussions with young readers.

Along with this reckoning with America’s history of racial oppression and those who resisted it, Shepard ends his narrative with a charge to his young readers to demonstrate the same courage in creating positive change in their own time. With this final call, he offers an empowering coda to a history of injustice. It is a long time coming, indeed.

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Brad Gibson is a middle-school humanities teacher, an administrator at Friends School Mullica Hill in New Jersey, and a member of Woodstown (N.J.) Meeting.