Lift your voice in the fight for fairness and freedom: Melody’s story
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Standing up for justice
When No Ordinary Sound starts, Melody discovers her sister can’t even interview for a bank job because of her skin color. That sets Melody on a path toward seeking justice—from closing her savings account at the bank in protest to joining a march for freedom. But it’s only after a tragedy that Melody finds the voice to really sing out.
It was a perfect day in May, and Melody Ellison could hardly wait for her father to pull the car to a stop in front of her grandparents’ house. Every Sunday, Melody and her family had dinner here after church. But today was different. Melody was almost bursting with news. She hopped out of the station wagon so quickly that she forgot to hold the door for her sister Lila, who was coming out behind her.
“Hey!” Lila shouted, but nine-year-old Melody was already on the front porch, peering into the front windows. She could hear music coming from inside, and couldn’t help tapping her shiny shoes. Music always made her want to move.
“What are you so hot after?” asked Dwayne, Melody’s older brother. His long legs had brought him around the car and up behind her in only a few steps.
“I’m not hot,” Melody answered, before she realized that Dwayne was joking. He meant that she was excited, and she was. She couldn’t hold in her news any longer.
“Miss Dorothy asked me to sing a solo for Youth Day,” she said proudly. Youth Day was far away in October, but it was the biggest children’s program at their church. Kids from all over the city came to sing, play music, recite poetry, and even perform in skits. Only a few kids got the chance to stand in front to sing solo parts, and they had to be very, very good.
Dwayne raised his eyebrows, and Melody watched his face nervously. It wasn’t easy to impress him. Dwayne was eighteen, and he’d done his first solo when he was eight.
“Wow, congratulations!” he said. “You’ve gotta write Yvonne and tell her.”
Melody grinned. Yvonne was their oldest sister, who was away at college. She was a good singer, too. In fact, all the members of Melody’s family were musical. “I will,” she promised. “As soon as we get home.”
“Tell Yvonne what?” Lila joined them, carrying a plate with their mother’s foil-wrapped triple-chocolate cake.
“Melody’s going to be the star of the New Hope Baptist Church Youth Day,” Dwayne said, grabbing the plate as it wobbled. “Just like I’m going to be the biggest Motown star since Smokey Robinson.”
Lila sniffed matter-of-factly. “Dee-Dee might beat you to it.” Lila was thirteen and sometimes acted like she knew everything in the world.
“Not me.” Melody shook her head. She liked to pretend she was a singing star at home, using her hairbrush as a microphone. But she didn’t like to be in the spotlight. She felt safe in the children’s choir when the congregation was full of the church family she’d known all her life. But she was nervous about standing alone on Youth Day, in front of a big crowd full of faces she didn’t know.
Melody’s parents crowded onto the porch as Big Momma swung open the door. Melody had always thought it was funny that they called her grandmother Big Momma, since she wasn’t especially tall. But the name was a sign of respect. Besides, when her grandmother sang, her voice was very big.
“Hello, my chicks!” Big Momma said, waving everyone inside. She greeted each of her grandchildren with a rose-scented squeeze.
“Big Momma, this is Detroit, Michigan. You left all your chickens back in Alabama, remember?” Dwayne said, ducking out of her arms.
After giving Melody a hug, Big Momma folded her arms and gave her a stern look. “I believe you’ve got something to tell me,” she said.
“Yes!” Melody exclaimed. “Miss Dorothy asked me to learn a solo over the summer for the Youth Day pro—” She stopped. Big Momma was smiling and nodding. “You already knew!” Melody said. “How?”
“Big Momma and Miss Dorothy are best friends,” Lila said. “They tell each other everything.”
Big Momma laughed. “Yes, Dorothy and I trained to be music teachers together back in Alabama. She says you’re ready to carry a song on your own.”
“Who is ready for what?” Melody’s mother asked from the dining room.
“Melody’s doing a Youth Day solo,” Lila told her.
“Oh, that’s wonderful, honey!” Mrs. Ellison clapped her hands and rushed to give Melody a hug.
“I believe our Melody is ready to sing out,” Mr. Ellison said as he placed extra chairs at the dining table. Melody heard the pride in her father’s voice and wished she felt as confident as he did.
Big Momma put her arm around Melody’s shoulders. “It’s okay to be nervous, baby chick,” she said, reading Melody’s mind. “You have all summer to practice. I’ll help.”
“But what about your students?” Melody asked. Big Momma taught piano and voice lessons to kids and grown-ups, right in her living room.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find the time.”
“Thanks, Big Momma.” Melody felt her nerves flutter again. But she felt good knowing that her family believed in her so much. She skipped into the dining room to join Lila, Dwayne, and their parents at the table.
Melody sat next to Mommy and looked at Dwayne, who was at the other end of the table. “The thing about Youth Day is that I get to pick my own song,” Melody told her brother. “But I don’t know which one to sing.”
“We could try some songs after dinner.” Dwayne winked at Melody. She knew he took every chance he could to play Big Momma’s beloved piano.
“After dinner means we need to eat dinner first, doesn’t it?” Melody’s father said.
“But we can’t start without Poppa,” Dwayne said.
Where was her grandfather, anyway, Melody wondered. Before she could ask, she heard the back door of the house open and shut.
“Hello!” Poppa’s voice boomed. Poppa always talked loud. Melody’s mother said it was because of his work around all the loud machines years ago at the auto factory. Melody liked the sound—it reminded her of drumbeats.
“Guess who I brought to dinner!” Poppa called from the kitchen.
Everyone turned in his direction. He opened the door, and there stood Yvonne with a huge smile on her face.
“Vonnie!” Melody ran around the table to give her big sister a hug.
“What a surprise!” Mrs. Ellison said. “We didn’t expect you till next week.” Melody could tell that her mother was very happy. Yvonne had been gone since January.
“I took all my exams and I finished my last paper early, so I caught the bus,” Yvonne explained. “Poppa picked me up at the Detroit terminal. Boy, that ride from Alabama takes forever!” She barely took a breath before dropping her bag and greeting everyone. “Wow, Dee-Dee. Did you get taller? Got any new sounds, Dwayne? Lila, are those new glasses? Dad, you’re wearing the birthday shirt we gave you! Big Momma, that roast smells really good. And Mommy, I know you made your triple-chocolate cake. Can we eat?”
Melody laughed. College hadn’t changed Yvonne’s habit of talking a mile a minute.
Big Momma brought the roast in and everyone took their places around the table, with Poppa at one end and Daddy at the other. And now the family was truly all together, the way their Sundays used to be.
“Dee-Dee, why don’t you sing grace for us?” her father said.
“Yes, Daddy,” Melody said. She felt comfortable singing in front of this crowd. She bowed her head and sang in a strong, clear voice:
By Thy hands must we be fed;
Give us, Lord, our daily bread.
Working in unison
Never Stop Singing picks up with Melody rising to a challenge by making a difference in her own neighborhood. After she helps lift her community’s spirits, she lifts her voice once again, stepping into the spotlight as a backup singer in her brother’s band.
Melody Ellison stared for a moment at the bright new calendar in her hands before she put it up on the kitchen wall. The picture on the January page showed a tall evergreen tree, its thick branches frosted with snow.
“O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches,” Melody sang, even though Christmas had been over for a week. It was New Year’s Eve, and tomorrow would be the first day of 1964, her tenth birthday!
Melody loved the idea that having a New Year’s birthday meant that the whole world was having a birthday, too. Until now she’d been too young to stay awake past midnight, or to attend the special Watch Night service at their church. Now that she was turning ten, her parents had decided that she was old enough to do both.
Melody’s sister Lila came into the kitchen with Bo, the family’s mixed terrier. Lila playfully tugged at one of Melody’s braids. “Dee-Dee’s almost double digits!”
“That’s right!” Melody said proudly. Lila was already thirteen, and Melody felt as if she was finally catching up.
“Good morning, Melody,” her mother said, joining the girls in the kitchen. “I see you’re carrying on your calendar-changing tradition!”
“Yes, I am, Mommy,” Melody said, watching her mother tie on a colorful apron. “And if I weren’t going to help Poppa decorate the church hall for tonight, I’d help you and Lila make the cake.”
“Hey! You can’t help make your own birthday cake!” Lila said, taking eggs out of the refrigerator.
Mommy shook her head as she took the large mixing bowl out of the cupboard. “My baby girl is going to be ten tomorrow! Seems like it was just yesterday that you were born.”
“Mommy, I’m not a baby anymore,” Melody reminded her, skipping out to the living room. “I’m about to become double digits, remember?”
Melody glanced at the sunburst clock over the sofa. Her grandparents, Poppa and Big Momma, wouldn’t be arriving for another half hour. So Melody turned on the TV and waited while it warmed up. When the picture appeared, she turned the knob through all the channels, looking for something fun to watch. But every station seemed to be running a program that looked back on the year’s news. Melody didn’t really want to be reminded. She reached for the knob to shut off the TV.
“Wait, Dee-Dee!” Melody’s other sister, Yvonne, called out from the stairs. “Don’t turn it off. I want to watch.”
Yvonne was home from college for the holidays, and Melody was glad to have her back for a few weeks. Now, if only their brother, Dwayne, were here! This was the first Christmas he’d ever been away, and Melody really missed him. He and his singing group, The Three Ravens, were traveling around the country singing for Motown, the famous record company. Dwayne was a talented musician, but Daddy didn’t like his new career one bit. Dwayne was only eighteen, and Daddy and Mommy wanted him to go to college instead.
Melody and Yvonne sat on the sofa and watched a grainy replay of the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, being sworn into office back in November.
Yvonne shook her head. “I still can’t believe somebody killed the president of the United States,” she said, turning up the sound. They listened as the grim-faced newscaster told the whole story again: how President John F. Kennedy and the First Lady were in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22. They were riding in the back of a Lincoln Continental convertible when a man with a gun fired at them and assassinated the president.
“The country remains in shock as our new president faces a grieving nation, problems overseas, and growing civil rights protests here at home,” said the newscaster. Then he began to talk about the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church that had killed four little girls. Melody turned away from the TV screen. Somebody who wanted to frighten black people away from fighting for equal rights had set off the bomb on a Sunday morning in September.
Although it had happened hundreds of miles away from Detroit, Melody had been frightened—so much so that she’d lost her voice right before the big Youth Day concert at church. For a long while she’d been afraid to go inside her own church. Her family and friends had helped her find courage, and her voice, again, but the thought of the bombing still scared Melody.
“I’ll never forget that day,” Yvonne said, interrupting Melody’s memories.
Yvonne had been away at Tuskegee, her college, when the bombing had happened. Tuskegee was also in Alabama—only a few hours’ drive from Birmingham. “Vonnie,” Melody suddenly asked, “were you scared?” Melody had never considered that her brave big sister might have been frightened, too.
“Yes, at first,” Yvonne said. “I had signed up to go to Birmingham the very next weekend. We were going to sit at a lunch counter to protest the fact that the place refused to serve black people. But after that Sunday I wasn’t sure if I should go.”
Melody got up, turned the TV off, and turned back to her sister. “But you did go to Birmingham, didn’t you?”
Yvonne nodded. “I remembered Mom telling me that I should always stand up to wrong. Bombing that church was wrong. Treating black people unfairly is wrong. So I decided that I had to go to Birmingham and support what I believe in, you know?”
Melody nodded. “Big Momma told me something like that, too! She said we should keep our hearts and voices strong when bad things happen. I tried really hard to be strong for the little girls in Birmingham. I wanted to be, only I wasn’t sure I could.”
Yvonne got up and gave Melody a hug. “You didn’t let fear turn you around,” she said. “You went back to church to sing. You were strong.”
Melody didn’t say anything. She just leaned into her sister’s hug.
Just then there was a knock on the front door. Yvonne answered it, and their grandfather came in, along with a blast of cold air.
“Happy Melody’s Eve, everybody!” Poppa’s voice boomed. It was his joke to call New Year’s Eve “Melody’s Eve.” Melody hurried to give him a hug.
“Are you ready to be my helper in getting the church decorated for tonight?” Poppa asked.
“Of course,” Melody answered, grabbing her jacket. “Bye, Yvonne. Bye, Mommy,” she called.
“Good-bye,” Mommy called back. “Go make our New Hope church beautiful for tonight.”
Poppa’s truck was in the driveway. The words “Frank’s Flowers” were on the passenger door. Poppa owned a flower shop on 12th Street, and he had taught Melody everything she knew about plants and gardening.
“Are you excited about your first Watch Night service?” Poppa asked as they climbed into the truck. “You know it’s a tradition for many colored folks, especially those of us with family in the South.”
Melody knew from her brother and sisters that Watch Night wouldn’t exactly be a New Year’s Eve party like the ones that were on TV. But there would be singing, and preaching by Pastor Daniels, with food and fellowship afterward in the church hall.
“I’m glad I can finally stay up with everybody else till midnight,” she told him. “But why is it called ‘Watch Night’?”
“It goes back one hundred years,” Poppa explained, “to when word got out that President Abraham Lincoln planned to announce to the country that all slaves were free. The president was going to make the announcement on New Year’s Day, 1863. So colored people, slave and free, sat up all night, keeping watch for freedom—Watch Night.”
“But you can’t see freedom,” Melody said.
“Are you sure about that?” Poppa asked.
Melody wondered for a moment what freedom might look like. Would it look like the thousands of people who had marched in Washington, D.C., last August? Yvonne had gone to that march, and Melody and her family had watched it on TV.
“Would freedom look like people of all races doing things together?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Poppa said. “Back in 1863, that kind of freedom was just a dream.”
Melody nodded. She thought about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke at the march in Washington. He talked about his dream.
“I think on that first Watch Night, they could see freedom coming,” Poppa went on. “How many times have you tried to stay awake on Melody’s Eve, because what’s coming is so special? When you’re expecting something big, something wonderful to happen, you can’t rest. And when that Emancipation Proclamation did come, our people celebrated. We’ve been giving thanks ever since, during Watch Night.”
Melody smiled. She was thankful that she was finally going to stay up for Watch Night. And she was proud that her birthday was linked to such an important tradition.
Guidance for girls today
With all the bravery in her heart, Melody confronts the challenges in her life and teaches girls to do the same, as both a leader and a partner:
Courage in the face of conflict. After a church bombing in Alabama, Melody must summon all her strength to perform a tribute in front of her own congregation.
Building harmony. Melody realizes that uniting voices is important for more than just singing, so she marches with others to demand equality and justice throughout the country.
Growing community. When her pastor asks how everyone can do more, Melody leads the charge to fix up a neighborhood playground and plant a garden.
“I commend American Girl for telling the very American story of Melody. The richness of her story truly depicts the complexity of the time. This story will help all young people better understand what occurred as well as provide a window into the culture of African Americans. It will also encourage young people to recognize they are never too young to get involved and make a difference.”
“I commend American Girl for telling the very American story of Melody. The richness of her story truly depicts the complexity of the time. This story will help all young people better understand what occurred as well as provide a window into the culture of African Americans. It will also encourage young people to recognize they are never too young to get involved and make a difference.”
— Terri Lee Freeman, President, National Civil Rights Museum
Authentic from the start
To bring a story as robust as Melody’s to the page, we convened a distinguished advisory board of activists, scholars, and historians, including the late Julian Bond, a key leader in the civil rights movement.
Plus, special access to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit offered insights into Melody’s time and place like nowhere else could. As the world’s largest institution dedicated to the African American experience, the museum houses more than 35,000 artifacts and archival material!
Working closely with the board and culling through reams of research, author Denise Lewis Patrick, who grew up during the 1960s, ensured Melody’s narrative was accurate both historically and culturally. The combination of professional knowledge and personal stories gives Melody’s world the detail and emotion to create an unforgettable character every girl can empathize with and understand.
The fight for equal rights was spawned by unfair segregation everywhere from schools to water fountains.
The sound of the sixties wouldn’t be complete without the music of the Motor City and the girl groups Melody idolized.
During the 1960s, expressing African heritage became popular, including through hairstyles like the one Melody’s sister Yvonne wears.
Putting it all into play
Our staff researched the actual Studio A in Detroit to replicate every detail, like the handwriting on the reel-to-reel tapes and the flecked tile for soundproofing.
To re-create the rich tones of the instrument, our designers manufactured Melody’s piano out of real wood.
The name of Melody’s dog, Bo, is short for “Bojangles,” the nickname of a famous African American dancer and actor.
Highlighting the style of the time, Melody’s favorite outfit is replete with bows, from her dress to her purse to her hat.
Explore more of Melody’s world
Awesome story
Melody has inspired my daughter to care about matters of justice and to ask important questions about history, society, and how we can each do our part to fight against inequities.
American Girl Customer
ATetta