Denise Nicholas discusses her novel, “Freshwater Road.” She begins by explaining the plot of her book about a teenage girl who joins a theater group in Mississippi during 1964. The book describes the tensions and changes that were happening in Mississippi during the Civil Rights movement. Nicholas discusses how the book is very autobiographical and how she took inspiration from her own summer working in Mississippi. She talks about how the main character Celeste has to strictly follow the rules that were set for African Americans, and the consequences that happen when she doesn’t follow them. Nicholas mentions that there were many wealthy African Americans who didn’t want the Civil Rights movement to happen because they didn’t want their status to change in society. She ends the interview by reading a passage from her book about a group of people at voter registration.
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