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    August 8th, 1962        

My name is Michelle Anne 

O’Connell(some people call me Chelley), 

my papa’s name is Mayor Timothy 

O’Connell, and my mama’s name is Tracy 

O’Connell. I am 11 years old. Me and my 

mama and papa live in a big house in 

Tupelo, Mississippi. I got this diary for 

my 

birthday (which is today :D) from our 

maid, Tammy Hatcher, and I’m going to 

write in it every single day! Tomorrow, I 

start the 6th grade and I can already 

tell that it’s going to be the best year 

ever!!! 

     August 9th, 1962         

Today I made a new friend!! While I was 

sitting outside thinking 

about what tomorrow is going to bring, 

a girl came up that looked just Tammy.. 

I introduced myself and she said her 

name is Elizabeth Hatcher(turns out 

she’s Tammy’s daughter!!!), but that I 

can call her Lizzie! I liked her, so I told 

her that she can call me Chelley! I had 

never seen her around here before, so 

I 

asked her what she was doing here. She 

said that she came to see her mama 

because she wasn’t feeling well. I 

decided we are going to be best 

friends.

    August 10th, 1962        

Today was the first day of school! My 

teachers name is Mrs. Mayfield. She is 

the best teacher ever! 

I love all of my classmates, except 

Lizzie isn’t in my class. I didn’t 

understand why she wasn’t in my class 

so I talked to mama about it. She 

says that since Lizzie has a different 

skin color, she isn’t allowed to be in 

the same school as me. She talked 

about how I shouldn’t want

“people of color” using the same books 

and drinking fountains and bathrooms 

as I use. I don’t understand why I 

wouldn’t want them to! Why does their 

skin color matter? I don’t know, I am 

going to have to think about this more, 

maybe I’ll talk to papa about it, he can 

usually answer all my questions.

    August 11th, 1962        

I had a great day today! We played 

lots of games at school and I know 

everyone in my classes names by 

heart! I also talked to my papa about 

my questions. He says that he doesn’t 

agree with mama!!!! We talked a long 

time about how some 

people believe different things than 

other people. He says that right now 

there is something called discrimination 

going on. That means that people are 

treated differently because of their 

skin color! Papa said that right now 

colored people are “separate but equal”, 

but that he doesn’t think that’s enough, 

it should be completely equal! I 

think I agree with him! It’s not fair to 

not let Lizzie go to my school just 

because she is a different skin color 

then me! I wish I could do something 

about this! 

    August 12th, 1962        

Lizzie came over today! We played 

outside for a long time, but when we 

went inside to get a snack, my mama 

yelled at us! She told Lizzie to leave 

right away and to not come into our 

house ever again. It was really mean of 

mama to yell at Lizzie like that. I 

really hope that Lizzie still wants to 

be my friend! When I told papa what 

happened between mama and Lizzie, I 

could tell he wasn’t very happy about 

it. I told him that I wanted to stop

discrimination and he suddenly got a 

huge smile on his face! Maybe he will 

want to help me end this! I sure hope 

so...

    August 14th, 1962        

Boy has it been a big couple of days! 

Me and my papa and Lizzie have been 

working a lot on stopping 

discrimination!! We have done

 a lot of research too, to see what we 

will need to do to change the 

“separate but equal” policy. We think 

that if we at least get this going in 

our town, maybe other towns around 

us will see what we are doing and will 

follow after our footsteps!!! We 

decided to

first spread the word around our town 

so that we can get as many people as 

possible on our side! It’ll be a lot of 

work but I know it will be worth it in 

the end! We are starting to make 

posters that my papa says are called 

propaganda! We are going to put them 

all over Tupelo, where everyone can see 

them. Then once we 

have everybody on our side, my papa is 

going to call a town meeting a make 

new laws on the issue! I’m so excited 

about all of this!!! And I can tell Lizzie 

is too!

    August 15th, 1962       

Today we put out our posters all over 

the town! When we were walking, we 

saw people stopping to read them, we  

could tell that some people love the 

idea, but of course there were a few 

who were not too happy about it. One 

girl actually read one of the posters 

then she got all huffy and puffy and 

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