IntroductionChristopher Paul Curtis wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 throughout 1995. The novel follows the Watsons, a black family living in Flint, in Michigan during the civil rights period. Era. In historical context, 1963 and the early 1990s have much more in common than one might expect. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 following the church bombing in Birmingham. Yet race-based discrimination remains a problem, even in our modern society, through passive racism. This article will analyze how Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 draws parallels between the era in which he wrote and the era in which he wrote. This analysis will also shed light on what we might call the “white standard,” according to which anything white is “good” or “better” and anything other than white is “bad.” With the Civil Rights Act and affirmative action, racism evolved from the blatant discrimination of the 1960s, such as segregation, to the slightly more passive racism of the 1990s, such as unjust arrests and prison sentences (Taylor) . Curtis is writing three decades after the aforementioned advancements and yet, looking back at the 90s, there are an alarming number of similarities between the two. A timeline from the 90s features hateful white-on-black discrimination similar to that found in The Watsons. In 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by white LAPD officers following a car chase. In 1993, members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, who attempted to bomb a church in Los Angeles and kill Rodney King, were arrested for their plots (Ross). 1993 also saw the release of the first-ever black American Girl doll; her name was Addy Walker. This first doll was depicted...... middle of paper...... York Times, January 14, 1995. Web. December 8, 2013. Ross, Loretta. “White supremacy in the 1990s.” PublicEye.org. Policy Research Associates, 1995. Web. December 8, 2013. .Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. “Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs: Racism in America Today.” » Revue Socialiste Internationale online November-December.32 (2003): n. pag.ISReview.org. International Socialist Organization. Internet. December 07, 2013. .XOJANE. “I secretly hated my American Girl doll “Addy” – why did the first black doll made by this company have to be a slave?” Clutch. Clutch Magazine online, November 18, 2013. Web. December 7. 2013. .