Night on Fire

Billie Sims is comfortable in her small, segregated town of Anniston, Alabama, where the ongoing Civil Rights Movement is a distant dream. It seems to Billie that everyone is perfectly free in Anniston.

Suddenly, things start to change. When the Freedom Riders—a group of individuals, white and black, who ride buses unsegregated to protest the law— come to Billie’s tiny town, Billie realizes how cruel her neighbors, friends, and even family can be. Alarmed by what she sees in others and maybe even herself, Billie takes her own ride on the bus and sets out to find what freedom really is.

Unfortunately, Billie’s quest to find the true meaning of freedom (and essentially what she discovers) is revealed in the prologue, which eliminates much of the suspense and emotion that was developed in the story. Granted, Billie’s conflict is still complex, as her societal conflict slowly develops into a personal one.

The interspersed real-life newspaper articles were extremely interesting, though most articles expressed a purely informational point of view.

Regardless, Night on Fire is a relatively engaging look at the actions and response to the 20th century Civil Rights Movement.