The Struggles of Johnny Cannon (31 page)

But you never hear a
b
out
D
e
b
orah Sampson, who cut her hair and called herself Ro
b
ert Shurtleff, or a
b
out Ann Bailey, who did the same and went
b
y Sam Gay. They
b
oth enlisted into the Continental Army and fought alongside them musket men we always hear a
b
out. In fact, Ann Bailey got promoted all the way up to
b
eing a corporal
b
efore they figured out she was a woman. Then they threw her in jail. For
b
eing a woman.

See, that's the amazing thing a
b
out the American
W
oman. Even though the whole society made it seem like they wasn't wanted or wasn't needed—'cause they wasn't allowed to vote, wasn't allowed very often to choose who they'd marry, or whether or not they wanted to have
b
a
b
ies, or any of that stuff—those women still fought for freedom. Fought for the right to
b
e an American
W
oman.

The
b
est examples of that are the women who was slaves, like Harriet Tu
b
man.
D
id you know that, after she escaped from the South to the North for her freedom, she turned right
b
ack around and snuck
b
ack down to start helping other slaves find their freedom too? Not only that,
b
ut during the Civil
W
ar, she was a spy for the Yankees and helped Colonel Montgomery capture Jacksonville, down in Florida. All the while there was folks that didn't
b
elieve she ought to
b
e doing that stuff. And not just 'cause she was
b
lack, though that was part of it. 'Cause she was a woman.

But she didn't care. 'Cause she was an American
W
oman.

The American
W
oman really started flexing her muscles after that, 'cause she started seeing that the only way to change society was to make her voice
b
e heard. And it wasn't enough to whisper her thoughts to her hus
b
and for him to speak it from the pulpit or whatever. She deserved to
b
e heard on her own.

Take Susan B. Anthony, for example. She was one of them that was fighting to get rid of slavery
b
efore the Civil
W
ar, and then after that, she started fighting for the chains of society to
b
e taken off of women. She got arrested for voting, which sounds crazy these days,
b
ut
b
ack then men was real scared of women with power. I reckon they still are. Anyway, she helped start the suffrage movement in hopes to give women more rights, especially the right to vote. She wouldn't get to see that right come
b
efore she died, though. But that's the thing a
b
out the American
W
oman. She never stops fighting, even if she knows she won't get to see the victory.

W
hen the twentieth century rolled around, all that investment in all them women finally started paying off. In 1917, Jeannette Rankin
b
ecame the first woman to get elected to Congress, then in 1920, women got that right to vote they'd
b
een after. And just in time, too, 'cause when the Great
D
epression hit and then
W
orld
W
ar II came around, women had the sense to help vote in F
D
R, and his powerful wife, Eleanor, into four terms as president.

The American
W
oman also proved, just like she had
b
efore, that she could take care of herself too.
W
hen menfolk was heading off to go fight the Nazis, the women of America stepped up and started filling in their spots on the assem
b
ly lines and in the factories. They
b
uilt planes and weapons. Heck, the
W
ASPs down in Texas flew them planes for the Air Force and some was even killed in action. They helped remind folks that
b
eing an American
W
oman was just as much a
b
out
b
eing an American as it was a
b
out
b
eing a woman. May
b
e even more so.

See, the more and more you look at history, the more you realize that America pro
b
a
b
ly wouldn't
b
e America if it wasn't for the American
W
oman. In the fifties, when Senator McCarthy was going crazy and hunting all them Communists, it was Senator Margaret Smith that denounced him for
b
eing a nutjo
b
.
W
hen it was getting more and more o
b
vious that President Eisenhower wasn't going to end segregation anytime soon, it was Ethel Payne, a
b
lack reporter from Chicago, who called him on it and asked when he was going to speak up. And when all that segregation on them
b
uses was oppressing the
b
lack community here in the South, it was Rosa Parks who dared to sit at the front of the
b
us.

Now, it ain't no lie that there's still a ways to go.
W
omen here in America can't get jo
b
s like fellas can, they can't get into all the places men can, and Lord knows they don't get treated like they match up on the same yardstick as the average man on the street. But it'll
b
e okay. They've come this far, and the American
W
oman will keep on going.

So, that's the end. And I know that your first inclination is going to
b
e that I don't deserve a good grade on this paper, if I even deserve one at all. But you're going to give me an A, and I'll tell you why.

First off, you're going to give it to me 'cause I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I wrote a
b
iography on some
b
ody that I could talk to, 'cause the American
W
oman is everywhere, and I get the privilege to talk to her anytime I speak to Mrs. Buttke, or Mrs. Parkins, or Mrs. Macker,
b
ack when she still lived here.

And I wrote a
b
iography on someone that's alive. 'Cause, even though she's pushing three hundred years old, the American
W
oman is alive and kicking. And she looks to stay around for a really long time.

But here's the honest-to-goodness
b
iggest reason you're going to give me an A: Ethan Pinckney has promised me that, if I say so, he'll tell the whole town that you really did make me drink Jack
D
aniels down at the cemetery. I reminded him that liars go to hell, and so he said he'd like a clean conscience. He might even spill that you stuck your pasty white
b
ooty out the window at me, which won't just get you fired,
b
ut might make it hard to get hired at any other school.

And if you're wondering how I learned to
b
lackmail so good, let's just say I haven't changed the last seventy-two of Tammy Jane's diapers 'cause I wanted to. I've only got twenty-eight more to go
b
efore I can stop worrying a
b
out Sora spilling to Cari that I cried watching
W
est Side Story
.

American
W
omen. They're a dadgum force to
b
e reckoned with.

ALSO BY ISAIAH CAMPBELL

The Troubles of Johnny Cannon

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Isaiah Campbell

Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Sam Bosma

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Campbell, Isaiah.

The struggles of Johnny Cannon / Isaiah Campbell. — 1st edition.

pages cm

Sequel to: The troubles of Johnny Cannon.

Summary: In Alabama in the summer of 1961, twelve-year-old Johnny Cannon gets mixed up in a Mafia blood feud as he searches for his happy ending with Martha Macker.

ISBN 978-1-4814-2631-2 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4814-2633-6 (eBook)

[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Organized crime—Fiction. 3. Family life— Alabama—Fiction. 4. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 5. Alabama—History— 20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C15417Str 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2014025239