(LEFT TO RIGHT) Dr. Marceline Catlett, Fredericksburg City Schools’ Superintendent; Rebecca Lipscomb, daughter of author Ruth Coder Fitzgerald; Erin Creighton, Assistant Branch Manager/ Adult Services Department Head, Fredericksburg Branch; Tracy McPeck, Adult Services Coordinator; Martha Hutzel, Library Director, Nancy Moore, former Virginiana Room Manager, at the 11/13/23 Rachel's Dream Book Launch and Reception

PHOTO COURTESY CRRL

Library partners with Fredericksburg NAACP and Fredericksburg City Public Schools to distribute historical novel

Fredericksburg, Virginia, February 5, 2024 - The Fredericksburg NAACP has partnered with Central Rappahannock Regional Library and Fredericksburg City Schools to purchase 887 copies of the book Rachel’s Dream to be distributed to Fredericksburg City Schools students. Copies will be distributed to Hugh Mercer Elementary School’s fourth and fifth grades, Lafayette Elementary School’s fourth and fifth grades, Walker-Grant Middle School’s sixth grade, and the James Farmer Scholars Program’s seventh and eighth grades.

Rachel's Dream: A Young Girl's Quest for True Freedom is a juvenile novel written by local historian Ruth Coder Fitzgerald and is based on her extensive research on African American history in the greater Fredericksburg region. Its manuscript was discovered in a Colonial Beach antique shop and handed to then library Virginiana Room manager Nancy Moore. 

Rachel Lane, age 12, dreams of becoming a teacher. But as a free African American child living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1832, her dream is unlikely to become reality. Although she is not enslaved, she lives in a white-controlled society that maintains many restrictions on African American people, free or not. She must hide her ability to read and write because literacy is illegal for African Americans. The uncertainty in Rachel’s life builds as she navigates the potentially dangerous border between freedom and slavery. Characters in Rachel’s Dream are based on real people presented in the author’s previous book, A Different Story: A Black History of Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania, Virginia.

Familiar with the manuscript’s significance, and with support from the library, Nancy obtained publishing permission from Fitzgerald’s daughter, Rebecca Lipscomb. The Rachel’s Dream publishing project, a five-year collaboration, was funded by a grant from the Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region. Rachel’s Dream was edited by local author Steve Watkins and copy-edited by Linda Billard, and features an introduction written by Dr. Marceline Catlett, Fredericksburg City Schools’ Superintendent, and original cover art by former James Monroe High School art teacher Phillip Carter.

View this release as a webpage.

Contact: 

Sean Bonney

Community Engagement Manager

community.manager@crrl.org

FOR MEDIA ONLY