A Librarian and Her Books

I chose this book as my reading challenge pick for an Own Voices story. Jackson-Brown is a prolific writer in addition to teaching creative writing at not one, but two, universities. She’s a poet, playwright, and novelist with several highly-rated titles of historical fiction surrounding the American black experience during the Civil Rights era.

Synopsis

It is 1962, and Rose Perkins Bourdon returns to her hometown of Parsons, Georgia, under a cloud of shame and grief. With her husband off to war, she returns home to deliver her baby, a baby that couldn’t possibly be fathered by her husband. As she watches her personal life come crashing down around her, she looks for a way to find purpose. This leads her to a group of University students fighting to make a difference, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At first hesitant, Rose finds herself becoming revitalized by the vision of this group, and this new direction will soon take her down a path she, a simple and uncomplicated woman, never imagined.

Review

First, let’s talk about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (their logo pictured here). Jackson-Brown sets this novel before a very real backdrop. SNCC was an organization made up of young, idealistic students founded in the 1960’s. It was inspired at first by the famed sit-ins at segregated lunch counters across the South. It was positively instrumental in gathering support and affecting change during the 1960’s. There’s a possibility you haven’t heard of SNCC before, but I’m sure you’ve heard of Congressman and Civil Rights icon, John Lewis, one of the original organizers of SNCC. He and Hosea Williams famously led a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on what would later be deemed “Bloody Sunday,” on March 7, 1965. Unlike many other attacks by white authorities on peaceful protestors, this march was widely reported, and videos and images of the atrocity helped to finally turn the eyes of all Americans to the injustices. Public opinion finally turned to the right side of history. On August 6, 1965, President Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act into law. Why am I telling you all this? SNCC was a big freaking deal.

Homeward is a certain kind of coming of age story. It’s more a coming of identity story. Though Rose is already a grown woman, she still possesses the naivety of youth. She hasn’t quite discovered her purpose. She, like most members of the older generation of black Americans, is fearful of the repercussions that fighting back could bring. There’s such good reason for this fear, as these older folks had seen the kinds of cruelty and hatred that are nearly unimaginable. Many of their friends and loved ones had been killed by white Americans, and they prefer to keep to their own little circles in order to protect themselves and their families. This is an incredibly important aspect of history, and Jackson-Brown did immense justice to this aspect of the movement. I think many of us today have the idea that all black Americans, and many white Americans, were vehemently FOR the Civil Rights movement. Sure, they wanted these rights, but they didn’t think they would ever come and didn’t deem the fight worth the risk. For this reason, many people were against the actions of organizations like SNCC, viewing them as rabble rousers who were going to do more harm than good to the community.

While characters like John Lewis are represented in this book, they aren’t the main focus. The main focus is the small-town citizens that took small steps to achieve the dream of MLK, Jr. and his allies. They took on the systems of oppression simply by showing up and standing tall even if they were initially skeptical of SNCC and its leaders’ tactics. They would gain their right to vote, and they would jump through any hoop set in their way. There were so many heroes of the Civil Rights movement, and most of them will never be named. They aren’t featured in magazines or on news programs, but they were the most vital and pivotal agents of change. That’s why I admire the hell out of this book.

Oh yeah, the book. Back to that, shall we? On the surface it’s a very simple story from Rose’s perspective. It’s told in a linear fashion. Jackson-Brown’s writing is concise and unpretentious. In addition to the main theme of race relations, it explores such things as family dynamics, gender roles, and even issues surrounding religious identity. I listened to the audio for this one, and at first I found the main character of Rose kind of grating. This is going to sound terrible, because Rose was going through the most awful of life experiences, but she came across as whiney. That’s simply because it was one thing after another. I don’t think it would have come across this way had I just been reading it off the page. The narrator and the character of Rose really grew on me once I got past the depress-fest that was the first couple of hours of audio. Rose’s family, especially her mother and father, was so endearing. Each of them bled authenticity and I truly loved them.

This isn’t just a good book. It’s a beautiful, truthful, and important story. It’s not just the history of black America for black Americans. It’s the history we all need to read, see, and learn from. We will never defeat injustice if we choose to forget it exists.

Published October 10, 2023 by Harper Muse. ISBN 9781400241101. Runtime 11 hrs. 22 mins. Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt.