Sentenced to Death at Thirteen is a sweeping saga of survival, migration, and unbreakable spirit. Spanning more than a century, it traces one African American family's journey from the brutal legacy of slavery and the racial terror of the Jim Crow South to the innovative design tables of America's aerospace industry-and beyond.
Rooted in oral family storytelling and historical research, this powerful narrative reveals how a single moment in 1916-a thirteen-year-old Black boy's innocent greeting to a White girl-set off a chain of events that forced him to run for his life. That brief interaction ignited a migration that would carry him and his descendants across states, through decades, and into worlds beyond his imagination.
From terror to safety, from exclusion to achievement, and from the cotton fields to contributing as a design engineer on the Space Shuttle program-this story chronicles the extraordinary resilience that propelled a family-and a nation's promise-through the most turbulent chapters of American history.
M. Lisa Scinto is also the author of two forthcoming works: Our Gifts to the World, which explores overlooked African American contributions and inventions, and Gifts from Enemies, an examination of the origins and lasting impact of colorism in the United States.
Autorentext
In 1916, a thirteen-year-old Black boy in Louisiana said "hello" to a white girl. That innocent greeting put his life in danger. His parents hid him and his brothers in a boxcar and sent them north with instructions never to return.That boy was M. Lisa Scinto's father. Decades later, she became the first African American woman engineer in her division at Rockwell International, working on the Space Shuttle program.Sentenced to Death at Thirteen traces one African American family's multigenerational journey from slavery and Louisiana's cotton fields through racial terror, migration, education, and achievement. Rooted in oral family storytelling, historical research, and lived experience, it connects intimate family memories with the larger forces shaping American life.From the Jim Crow South to Canada during World War I, from Detroit's Black Bottom community to the aerospace industry, Scinto follows generations confronting barriers and building possibilities for those who came after them. Her own experiences as an engineer, teacher, and high school principal carry that history into questions of opportunity, access, and institutional power.The journey does not end with the Space Shuttle program. The "and Beyond" in the title brings the story into contemporary issues of race, education, and American society. Through the experiences of one family, Scinto invites readers to consider how the past continues to shape the present-and what it means to create a different future.A teacher's guide, glossary of terms, and chronological timeline connecting family milestones with historical events offer resources for educators, students, book clubs, and individual readers.