1n 1967, when Jo Ivester was ten years old, her father transplanted his Jewish family from a suburb of Boston to an all-black town in the Mississippi cotton fields so that he could become the medical director of a clinic meant to serve the poorest region in the nation. Her mother was recruited to teach at the local high school, where she became a beloved and sometimes controversial figure who introduced black literature into the curriculum. Ivester builds on journals left by her mother to paint an inspiring portrait of her family’s experiences and a town dealing in a unique way with the racism that still grips our nation today. She describes how her mother helped her students to understand that the anti-Semitism that flourished throughout much of the Deep South was similar to the hatred that they faced as black Americans.
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