A Suffolk native’s book regarding her experiences during the Civil Rights movement now is available at the Suffolk Visitor Center.

Jeanice Thomas says her book, “Breaking through Barriers: The Journey,” is about her experience as the only black female attending Forest Glen High School during desegregation.

She started writing it so that her children would know her history, she said.

“I started out writing it as a documentary for them,” she said. “At first, I had no intention of releasing it publicly, because I’m kind of a private individual.”

But as she neared the end, she began to reconsider.

“As I wrote it and almost finished it, I could hear the Lord saying, ‘You need to share this with others,’” she said. “It took me a while to get to that point.”

Thomas, whose maiden name is Brown, shares her experiences that came from attending a school that was mostly white. One other black student attended the school at the time, but he was a male and several years ahead of her, and she didn’t know him that well, Thomas said.

She faced discrimination at the school based on her skin color, she said.

“I didn’t understand why I was being treated the way I was,” she said. “It was a very challenging, very rough time.”

But she did eventually gain a few friends and stays in touch with some of them to this day, she said.

“The good part about my story is that I saw how the kids, regardless of color, came together,” she said.

The author, who is 62 and now lives in Maryland, said it was painful to write parts of her story but acknowledges it was worth it.

“It needed to be told,” she said. “That’s the ultimate goal.”

Thomas hopes the book can be helpful to anyone who is going through a rough time or faced discrimination because of skin color or any other factor. This is her first memoir, but she has published papers in her field of research chemistry.

“The goal was to reach out to especially our youth and to anyone who may have felt mistreated in life, to let them know you’re going to have barriers, you’re going to have struggles,” she said. “The book transcends color barriers.”

In addition to the visitor center, which is located at 524 N. Main St., the book also is available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.