Midnight without a Moon by Linda Williams Jackson (review)

Brown v. Board points to a new law of the land, but that mandate for integration hasn’t taken root yet in 1955 Mississippi. It is, however, creating a huge divide in thirteen-year-old Rose Lee Carter’s African-American family. Her visiting aunt is working behind the scenes for the NAACP, trying to convince black citizens to register to vote. Family matriarch Ma Pearl, who is raising Rose, is fiercely opposed to rocking the social order and putting individuals’ lives in peril, particularly in the wake of lynchings of local black men who went to the polls. The nearby murder of Emmett Till widens the family fault line into a chasm, with Ma Pearl turning her back on any relatives foolish enough to publicly support prosecuting the murderers, and the Northerners hoping for a just verdict as several black witnesses break tradition and step forward at the trial. Meanwhile, Rose hopes to join the Great Migration north, get an education, and kick the dust of bigotry—and her own mistreatment by her family—from her feet. Family battles over a people’s collective advancement versus individuals’ impulse toward self-preservation play out realistically, while Rose’s wobbling in her choice to flee North for an easier life or remain at home and work toward justice is authentic. Jackson pulls no punches in the characters’ heated discussions and keeps dialogue raw and real, with racial epithets consistently employed by both white and black characters. Readers familiar with the mid-century divides in the African-American community from Rita Williams-Garcia’s Gaither sisters titles will recognize the theme here as it’s played out at higher intensity and for greater stakes.