Imagine a world where prestige is not measured by one's character or achievements, but predetermined by skin color. Visualize a world in which shades of skin color are used to sort and divide people into two factions: White or Black. Imagine a segregated society. Whites and Blacks are tossed around in two different worlds, as if humanity were a pile of dirty laundry that needed to be sorted by color. The reality is that this hypothetical world did exist in the United States before the 1970s. Racial segregation is one of the most recognized branches of social stratification in American history. Jeannette Walls witnessed the effects of segregation firsthand. She was born on April 21, 1960, in Phoenix, Arizona. She thus lived through the period of segregation in the South-West. Her books reflect experiences from her life, such as growing up poor and being neglected by her parents. “The Glass Castle” is a perfect example of how she used literature to share her life experiences. “Jeannette Walls skillfully transforms her painful childhood into a book that depicts poverty from the perspectives of the child, the adolescent, and the adult. » (Reno) Jeanette Walls also wrote "Silver Star", a story set in the South and revolving around two troubled teenage girls living in the 1970s. It can be inferred that she used the characters to reflect her own experiences as a teenager in the seventies. Although the main characters in the book are fictional, the sociological conflicts that people faced during that time were real. In the book, Bean and Liz are abandoned by their mother Charlotte who breaks down and runs away after Bean discovers that Charlotte lied about Charlotte. have a boyfriend. This "tribe of three" is... middle of paper ...... let this particular driver know that we were being treated unfairly as individuals and as a people. "(Brunner) The leader of the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr. led the people in peaceful protest against racial discrimination in order to one day realize his dream of seeing the day when blacks and whites could be treated on an equal footing in order to defend their rights as African-Americans, they boycotted all buses for thirteen months Works CitedWalls, Jeannette: A Novel Np: np, nd Print. She Knows Weekly" 260.16 (2013): 24. -25. Academic Research First Web. April 23, 2014. Reno, Jenna "Jeanette Walls' Glass Castle." Teen Ink. Teen Ink, 1989. Web, April 22, 2014. Brunner, Borgna. “Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.” »..