Freshwater Road

Freshwater Road is the story of one young woman’s journey into adulthood via the political and social upheavals of the civil rights movement. A young black collegian, Celeste Tyree, leaves Ann Arbor to go to Pineyville, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964 to help found a Freedom School and a voter registration project as part of Freedom Summer. As the summer unfolds, she confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also truths about herself and her own family.

As Celeste gets to know her fellow activists and the people of Pineyville, she grapples with her father’s disapproval of her decision to go to Mississippi. A numbers-running bar owner in Detroit, Shuck Tyree is proud of his daughter and proud of the opportunities he’s provided for her: Celeste risking what he’s offered by going to the violent South is not what he had planned. Long estranged from her mother, Celeste is rocked by revelations of wrenching details of her past. At the same time, she develops a deep relationship with the woman hosting her in Mississippi, Geneva Owens, who helps Celeste learn more about what it means to be an adult woman and a "person of substance" in the world.

"Nicholas brings alive the texture and emotion of the civil rights movement during the perilous adventure that was Freedom Summer." Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

Celeste Tyree, a young black collegian, leaves Michigan for Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to help found a Freedom School and a voter registration project. As Freedom Summer unfolds, Celeste confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also truths about herself and her own family.

The critically acclaimed debut novel from pioneering actress and writer Denise Nicholas tells the story of one young womans coming of age via the political and social upheavals of the civil rights movement. Nineteen-year-old Celeste Tyree leaves Ann Arbor to go to Pineyville, Mississippi, in the summer of 1964 to help found a voter registration project as part of Freedom Summer. As the summer unfolds, she confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also deep truths about her family and herself. Drawing on Nicholas own involvement in the movement, Freshwater Road was hailed by Newsday as “Perhaps the best work of fiction ever done about the civil rights movement.”

Denise Nicholas is an actor who starred in the TV series Room 222 and In the Heat of the Night, among many other TV, film, and theatrical productions. Freshwater Road is her first novel. Before her career as a TV star, Denise Nicholas worked with the Free Southern Theater in Mississippi in 1964, and in Freshwater Road she reaches back to bring that summer alive in this unforgettable first novel. Freshwater Road will prove to be one of the best and most important novels ever written about the civil rights movement in America.