It's 1957 in Jamila Minnicks' Moonrise Over New Jessup. When Alice Young steps off a bus into the all-colored town of New Jessup, Alabama, she can't believe the paradise she's found. No backdoor entrances for colored people. No "whites-only" signs. No white people to be seen! That's because New Jessup residents have rejected integration as a means of Black social advancement.
Even though she had been bound for Chicago to catch up with her older sister, Alice makes a life for herself in New Jessup. She gets jobs, falls in love with Raymond Campbell, and eventually starts a family. She misses her sister, but Alice's letters to her sister remained unanswered. Still, Alice is happy in New Jessup.
But Raymond is part of an organization called NNAS that's trying to gain more independence and autonomy for New Jessup. Because even though the white folks live on the other side of the woods, the white folks are still infiltrating New Jessup's way of life. The older citizens of New Jessup think that the NNAS is full of instigators, and Alice agrees. She doesn't want to change the way things are in New Jessup, but Raymond wants progress. Not integration but municipality for the town. If Raymond keeps pushing, the town may push him and Alice out.
First things first, I know that my copy was an advance review copy, but there were so many typos! It was a bit distracting. Second, it may also be because I had an ARC, but there were confusing passages that I had to re-read.
Overall, though, this book opened my eyes to the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement and the opposing viewpoints of people who were supposed to be on the same team. New Jessup is not a real place, and I wish I could find more information about whether the whole all-colored town thing was real or just something that the author made up. This would certainly spark conversation if you read it for your book club.
Moonrise Over New Jessup is published by Algonquin and will be available to purchase tomorrow January 10, 2023. I received a free ARC.
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