Civil rights novel reading Monday

Author Julian Houston, whose debut coming-of-age civil-rights-era novel, New Boy , got a rave in the New York Times, has a reading slated for D.C’s Politics and Prose on Monday, Feb. 20, at 4:30 p.m. ( The store’s located at 5015 Connecticut Ave. ) It’s a way to learn first-hand about the civil rights struggles in the South from someone who was there — and who also tells the story of the first black student at an elite Northeastern prep school.

Remember something called integration and voting rights? At a time when the Bush Administration has abandoned any interest in promoting social justice, it’s worth understanding what the fires of civil-rights activism were like.