The Thread of Connection with Jamila Minnicks

[00:00:00] This book, I've called it liberation literature. I've called it Black empowerment literature. This book was written for Black people to see ourselves in a particular way. What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network, bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Jamila Minnicks, author of the novel Moonrise Over New Jessup.

[00:00:29] It's a book written about a small Black Alabama enclave in the 1950s facing pressure to integrate, despite resistance from the town's male leaders and the women who make their work possible. It only takes one or two generations for somebody's name to be lost to history. And the reason it was because it came to me and I was like, I want to tell the story from the woman whose name we don't remember in the photos.

[00:00:56] A native of Alabama, Jamila says she sees her writing as an extension of her work as an advocate. The reason she believes her novel is a way to jumpstart the conversation on what community and fellowship really mean. Plus, the pushback she gets from some readers who bought into the belief of white supremacy or the failed sales pitch of integration.

[00:01:20] And what we lose in not knowing our generational lands or the stories of the ancestors and elders who called those places home. That and more is next, when Black & Published continues.

[00:01:51] Jamila, when did you know that you were a writer? When I get this question, I always go back to like when I was a little kid and I knew I wanted to be the kind of storyteller that people in my family were. And there was always a lesson in it. There was always some entertaining thing that happened so that the storyteller became part of the story over time.

[00:02:12] But as far as becoming a writer, I knew probably back in like 2018, right when I started writing short fiction really, that I wanted to do something with my work instead of just sort of keeping it to myself. What was it about 2018 and you beginning to write short fiction that you said this is not just a passion project to be tucked away in like a trunk somewhere, but I want to put this out to the world?

[00:02:37] I was working, funny enough, I was working as a career civil servant at the Department of Labor and I was working directly for several of the trunk appointees. And my job was to be one of the guardrails. And so as you can imagine, my job was incredibly challenging. And I started writing short fiction quite frankly because I saw the badness that was going on first and firsthand.

[00:03:06] And it really started as a way to sort of entertain my friends to lampoon these people and what they were doing. And I published the pieces under a pen name originally. I was just like, I wanted to publish them because this was also my way of calling attention to some of the really terrible things that people were doing and the terrible sort of morals and ethics that were involved in that particular administration.

[00:03:37] So it just felt like something that at the time I needed to focus on because I felt like that was my opportunity to really highlight and bring attention to what was going on in the administration.

[00:03:50] Okay. And so then how did that, I'm assuming, outlet and catharsis really from like your day job and publishing these short stories, highlighting what was happening, also lambasting what was happening, translate to you beginning to work on what became Moonrise Over New Jessup? Right in May of 2020 was when George Floyd was murdered.

[00:04:18] And so I started to sit and really, my writing is an opportunity for me also to question my own feelings about the world and what I see going on in the world. And I see this man who is just so needlessly and carelessly murdered and he's part of our community.

[00:04:38] And it just, it really got me thinking about how I could have a voice and talk about us in a way that just felt like, because I was seeing all these people talk about him from the outside. And you weren't getting many voices about him from the inside, like who this man was. And I just felt like I wanted to give voice to a community from the inside.

[00:05:05] So it felt most appropriate to start with the stories that I came up hearing and they were just sort of in my ear all the time, in my ear all the time. But particularly Alice's story, because I think women like her, their stories don't get told.

[00:05:20] I see how your wanting to be an advocate overlaps with your writing and then in being very intentional about telling stories from the inside of communities that don't often get told.

[00:05:37] What was it about exploring a society that is actively rejecting integration at a time in contemporary life where the successes of integration are being openly questioned, especially with the murder of George Floyd and all that happened in 2020.

[00:06:03] And all that is happening right now in 2024, soon to be 2025. Was that an escape for you or was that a way for you to process what this experiment we call America is all about? I think it really was a little bit of both. I think it was catharsis. I think it was processing. I write because I have questions about the world.

[00:06:26] And for me, I think the very first question I always have is, how does this situation serve us as Black people? And so many of the narratives you hear about integration and the resistance to integration are from the white perspective. You all are going to ruin our schools. We don't want to live in your neighborhoods.

[00:06:48] And I thought, but that's not the only vantage point where people were questioning the value of it because in neighborhoods, in places like New Jessup, where they were able to build their schools, they had their communities, they had their churches, they had. But the question wasn't necessarily about fellowship, as Raymond says. He said it's about resources. So if that's the fight that we're going to have, then let's not have that fight.

[00:07:15] Because I think that the question of like social closeness and social uplift, if you will, I think clouded a lot of what the white community saw from the Black community. The Black community, a lot of times they were saying, our schools, we're getting secondhand resources. We're not getting equal resources for our roads. We're not getting this and that.

[00:07:38] But as far as like integration, I mean, and I say this to audiences, particularly white audiences all the time, where they say they've never heard this vantage point. And so we all have to really consider what was the sales pitch for Black people? You know what I'm saying? What was it about your particular community that you were saying, come and be in fellowship with us? Because that's not what so many of us experienced.

[00:08:08] And yet we pushed for integration because we didn't want our children to go from the third grade to the fourth grade in a school that we knew was not being equally resourced. We didn't. So we had these sort of strategic reasons for pushing for integration, but there was such resistant and violent pushback that I think a lot of communities were sort of questioning whether there was another way to get what they were entitled to without experiencing that violent pushback.

[00:08:39] Do you get any pushback or intensity around the fact that we can talk about strategy and resources and funding and fellowship, but at the end of the day, nothing's really changed but the calendar date? Oh, sure.

[00:08:55] I think there are two things that I, let me say first, I always say that this book, I've called it liberation literature. I've called it Black empowerment literature. This book was written for Black people to see ourselves in a particular way.

[00:09:13] I know there's this line of thinking right now. I'm not my grandparents. And I sort of look and I say, if y'all really knew your grandparents and what they were up against and how they lived and what they fought through, I think that would be a less popular sort of sentiment.

[00:09:29] And what it has done for the black readers is caused this multi-generational bridge, which I think is really important. So I have high school or college students who are getting it assigned in school. They take it home and read it with their parents or their parents see them with the book in hand.

[00:09:48] And then they say, well, this is actually what your grandmama, your granddaddy's been saying to you all along, your great grandma, your great granddaddy sometimes. So you have this multi-generational connection over this book where then the young people are saying, we want to feel that community.

[00:10:07] So to your point about the communities breaking apart because our schools are closed down and things are happening or we have the opportunity, quote unquote, to go elsewhere because our schools are closing down, that breaks up our community.

[00:10:22] And so what this is doing, what I'm hoping this work is doing is causing to bring that bridge together and for great grandmama to sit down with their great granddaughter, great grandson and say, there is love in our community. We have love in our community. It's not a past tense thing. This is how, and also this is how I was young once. How what you think is new and nothing new under the sun.

[00:10:46] So it's been really, really great from that perspective. And that's my primary goal for the book. As far as the white readers, I have gotten strong U.S., I will call it pushback about this idea that integration was not sought after by these communities.

[00:11:05] And I think that's really a function of the way that white readers and I think white people are sort of fed this bill of goods about whiteness. And so the white readers, when they're confronted with this thing about, because, you know, the book is, I think, fairly honest about conversations within the community about the certain ambivalence about whiteness, right?

[00:11:31] And so I think when they're confronted with, white people are ambivalent about us. Like they don't really see this as a come up. I think because they've been sold that bill of goods their entire lives, when you're confronted with something that sort of changes your worldview about yourself.

[00:11:49] I mean, I'm not surprised. I have suffered some vitriol and some uncomfortable situations, but I think it's important for us to have real conversations about what community and fellowship means. The real work that I intended the book to do was to bridge, you know, the generations and bring community, like bring us together as a community.

[00:12:17] It's not supposed to be white-centered. I don't give the white gaze. And so when people come and they have questions from the white gaze, it has caused for some interesting conversations. It's just not the point of this book, I guess I'm trying to say. Hearing the great intentionality that you had for the book at the outset of writing it, I wonder once you finished and you were going into the publishing industry, not as a newbie, but still as this is your debut,

[00:12:47] did you have any fear about what the industry would say as you were going through all of the edits and the work to really bring this story to the world? No. No. I can tell you, honestly, I did not because this book, I wrote this book not thinking I would even publish it. So I literally wrote this book in three months, first draft, and I wrote it thinking I was just going to self-publish it,

[00:13:13] of writing around, write it around Alabama where my family is and where my family is from saying, hey, y'all, I wrote a book and it's full of our family's anecdotes. Because one thing I cannot do, one thing I will never write is like a nonfiction account of my family's history, but at least not for public consumption. Let me say that, let me say that, because I do own my family like a family history, but not for public consumption. But this book is like, is full of our family's anecdotes, my version of them as the baby cousins. So, you know, you get what you get.

[00:13:44] So to answer your question, no, I was never, even after the editorial process, during the editorial process, I was not in a place where I was saying, I want to make this more palatable so it'll attract particular readers. My single goal in my writing is to tell an honest truth. So I'm not trying to, particularly with this book, because it's so tied to my family history,

[00:14:10] I always say what a complete and utter disservice to my ancestors and my elders to manipulate their history in order to sell a couple books. And so before the book was published, while we were still in the editing process, we're sort of like at the stage where I could share it with my family. And so I said, if y'all have any objections at all, I will not publish this book, because I want this book to represent us fully and truly.

[00:14:37] And the only thing they wrote back, they said, you have MS, period. And they were like, that's not right. I was like, okay, but they loved the book. And I always say, if my writing goes into the world, and my family can look at it and say, well, she's talking about Alabama, but I don't know who's Alabama she's talking about, I have failed. So my audience is my family, my Alabama, it's my folks.

[00:15:06] And you will hear me say all the time, everything ain't for everybody. If you pick up the book and you don't like it, it's no hard feelings. I have nothing but love for my folks. But yeah, everything ain't for everybody. There's no book in the world that's going to apply to or appeal to everybody. I love everything about that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if my publisher would be so good to say, you need to be concerned about sales. And I have gone on an HBCU tour.

[00:15:35] I'm still sort of working with some schools. I just came from Francis Marion. And I'm still like talking about the book. And so it feels like a blessing to be able to say that this book that I have written to be like liberation literature almost two years after it was published.

[00:15:53] I like that you said that you've been on a tour of HBCUs because in reality now, a lot of HBCUs are a microcosm of New Jessup where you have an insular community of Black folk with similar goals and purposes.

[00:16:12] Living, surviving and thriving together, more thriving than surviving because you don't have always an external white gaze trying to see what you're doing. Like HBCU campuses provide that sense of safety for as much time as you can spend on them. Right. And I feel like New Jessup in the novel is exact same thing. So I know we've been talking about it.

[00:16:37] Can you read something from the novel and then we can just dive into the story of Alice and Raymond and family? Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jameela Minnix is the story of Alice Young, a Black woman who in the midst of tragedy, fear and grief, flees the only home she's ever known to arrive in New Jessup, an all-Black enclave that is actively resisting integration.

[00:16:59] It's a feat made possible by Raymond, Alice's boyfriend turned husband and the cadre of family and friends she makes, creates and ingratiates herself to in the name of preserving community. Here's Jameela. I'll just read a little bit from the beginning. And this is right after the bus stops and she's sort of looking around. My eyes traveled from the cafe to the paved sidewalk to the row of brick-front shops lining the white avenue.

[00:17:29] The sun glimmed from the white tile at the bus depot and a polished chrome dog leapt over the door. But a couple folks, one like me and the other nothing like me, looked around unsure of what we were seeing. When the man seated next to me returned smelling his cigarettes and shoe polish, she urged me off the bus with a dime from his own pocket. Miss, I'm not stopping for quite a while and this here is a good place to stretch your legs. Why don't you go on inside and get yourself a Coke Cola before we pull off again?

[00:17:58] Before stepping foot to pavement, I hovered in the doorway of that bus. To the left and the right, the avenue, the sidewalk, the storefronts extended to the horizon in either direction. But reaching the front door of the depot, the colored entrance was nowhere in sight. To my right, a shoeshine man shoved a toothpick while studying the shoe and the polish in his hands from every angle. Behind me, from the bus window, the man urged me through the door.

[00:18:24] Only the last thing I needed was to be arrested for going through the front just to buy a Coke. Help you, miss? asked the shoeshine man. Till the words eased from his mouth, he'd done his level best to ignore me. With the weather beating hand-me-downs on my feet, there was no wonder why. I'm looking for the colored entrance, please, I said to the pavement, not wanting to be begged ignorant of city ways and where they hid the Negro doorways. You won't find one of them here, he said. Just walk in.

[00:18:55] I'd prefer the colored entrance. Please, I insisted. He seemed an unusual man, perhaps a prankster of some sort, with the long-limbed triangular head and bulging eyes of a chameleon. Just the sort to make trouble for folks and dart away. We ain't got one of them because there ain't nothing but any groves in this town is what I'm telling you. Look around and see if you see any white folks other than these sorry few from the buses.

[00:19:19] He slurked and returned his attention to the shoe in his hand, satisfied he knew the lay of the land. A dark brown man sold bus tickets and answered questions inside, while two soldiers and army of Shukaki rushed past me, one with the deep mulberry skin of the ready harvest, and the other, my same sun-gold cinnamon, dark freckles on his cheeks, who placed a hand to his peaked cat.

[00:19:45] A light-skinned woman with a wild mane of bottle-red hair rushed into a yellow cab driven by a portly man of pecan complexion. He sped past an ebony police officer in white gloves, holding palms at meeting staff. A deep bronze man across the street wore a pink-covered bib overall, smoking a cigarette next to another bib overall man, Coco Brown. And my family by the drink machine, well, the mama, she was high yellow.

[00:20:13] But our husband was a rich, deep brown to match some good, peaty soil. One child favored him, one her, and one fell to a brown somewhere in the middle, and that was just within those few feet of me at the depot. Up and down the avenue, Negroes of every shade came together like the dusk in a fall forest. I should have been glad, relieved to find such a sight on my journey, but my knees gave up,

[00:20:41] and I sank onto the bench next to the shoeshine man. I buried my face in my hands and saw. Ain't our folks' usual reaction when they first arrive in New Jessup, he said, patting my shoulder with the light taps of a man unaccustomed to comforting people. I stopped crying in time to wave the bus off, too exhausted to shut another drop. Is there a church house nearby? I asked.

[00:21:09] Pastor and Mrs. Brown will take right good care of you, but more than a St. Baptist, he said, and with walking directions, he sent me on my way. But after I took a couple steps up the sidewalk, he called out. When I turned, he spoke to the stain on my dress and the marks on my arm that weariness had me forgetting to hide. But, miss, if you're looking for white folks, and I don't imagine you would be, but say you are, well, you'd have to get all the way to the other side of the woods to find a single one.

[00:21:39] Thank you. I don't think I made this connection when I was reading it, but listening to you now, it's like when Dorothy arrived in Oz. Really? Yes, that's the feeling that I get from it, where when Dorothy arrives in Oz and it's like, what in the where am I? And I even think so much the original version with Judy Garland, when it goes from black and white to color, and it's like, and you see it on screen, but then you get the wonderment in her reaction, too.

[00:22:08] It's like, oh my, where am I now? Wow. And can I tell you a secret? Yes. So there's right before that, when she's on the bus and she said everything faded to black and white. And then when she gets there, you notice how she sees the red shoe, the bronze legs, all the different hues of people.

[00:22:35] One of the little decisions I made in the book to say she's going from this world where everything is literally black and white. Mm-hmm. And she's leaving her hometown because of this experience with her landlord. And when she gets to this place, the very first thing that sort of breaks her out of that is those red shoes. Well done. Because I was like, it's like Oz. I love to be like Oz.

[00:23:01] But I did mean for people to see that she was coming into something that shook her to her core and opened her eyes to color in a different way because until then, she's colored, right? Mm-hmm. And then she comes into this place and she can see color in a way that she had not experienced it before. Yes, the gradations of skin color, but then also the ease of the people,

[00:23:28] which is so attractive after what she's come through in just those first couple of pages. And so in opening the book this way where she's leaving her past behind as she's grieving, but then stepping into like technicolor joy, what was the impetus on introducing Alice to a community of people through someone that she wasn't sure she could trust?

[00:23:58] You mean Raymond? No. The shoeshine man. The shoeshine man. He does not get enough love. I need us to like really recognize how funny this man is. Maybe it's just me. I crack up whenever I read that, but I think people are like, they're not sure what to think of him. But when she says he looked like a chameleon, I mean, think about that.

[00:24:26] But coming into the community and encountering him first off, I mean, you can imagine that's not the first time he's ever experienced somebody like Alice getting off the bus. Right. And he's literally sitting next to the door trying to convince her to go in the front door. So her trust issues go a lot deeper than whether he can be trusted. Her trust issues, that threshold could get her arrested. Right. And so she's really trying to figure out what this world is supposed to be.

[00:24:56] And then there would be just a man there who's shining shoes because people want to be clean. Right. And so he's at the bus stop and he's sort of chilling. And I think, you know, for her coming into New Jessup and knowing that she needs help. And I think that's where Alice is so many of us, where there's a moment where we're just where we're at a crossroads or we're really low or we're suffering in some way.

[00:25:24] And that confusion of getting to that door and you're confused, I think she had the presence of mind as she's telling the story to say, these are the things I noticed about him. But at that time, in real time, you're more susceptible to a guiding hand, even if that guiding hand could be a chameleon looking shoe shop. You know what I'm saying? And I think because he's so relaxed and so easy and he's like, you don't believe me. Just look around you.

[00:25:54] Like, look around, see if you see any white folks other than these sorry fumes when the bus is gone. That and I feel like to put some respect in the shoeshine man's name. Thank you. He's like the unofficial welcome party for those who wish to make New Jessup home. But not only does he welcome them, he gives them their dignity back.

[00:26:14] She steps off the bus, she's very quiet, soft-spoken, eyes to the floor, looking for where she's supposed to be relegated to and not where she deserves to be. And so he's like giving her herself back, her dignity back, her humanity back in a way that only Black folks can do. It's like, look here. Like, look around you. You ain't got to believe me.

[00:26:43] Just look around you. And I think to your point, yeah, I mean, think about the amount of dignity. After your entire life, you've been told you have to go in the back door or you have to eat out of this window. You can't even come in the establishment. You have to get yourself out the window, right? So imagine she sees the woman going in the cafe through the front door. So a whole other business and the woman's dressed. And so then he's like, just go on the bus station. It's all right.

[00:27:10] And so you can see her before she even goes inside. What is this place? So, yeah, I think that's a really important recognition that he does give her her dignity back. Earlier you talked about in writing this novel, you were centering Black people specifically in our neighborhoods and community and fellowship. But also specifically, it's that of a Black woman in this specific time period. I struggled a little bit with Alice.

[00:27:39] I'm not going to lie because I'm just like, she has ambition, but it's being taken from her and I want her to be a little more feisty. And she's not, but that's her choice.

[00:27:50] And she makes it and she's very gracious about it, even when she does push back against Raymond, who was an organizer and soon to be her husband, and some of the structures while also trying to maintain that diplomacy between wife and confidant and someone of her own mind and what it is that she wants out of life. In so many words, she's so very complex.

[00:28:19] Yes, she is. Where did this woman come from? So, you know, have you ever gone through old family photo albums with an elder and you're flipping pages and they can tell you who this person is and that person is and that person is? But then eventually you'll get to photos and they'll say, I don't remember her name. I don't know who she is. And it only takes one or two generations for somebody's name to be lost to history.

[00:28:48] And so when I sat down and really, this was originally supposed to be a short story. And the reason it was because it came to me and I was like, I want to tell the story from the woman whose name we don't remember in the photos. So I originally had this idea that I was going to sit down and do a short story and it was going to be like a Thanksgiving or a Christmas dinner or something. Everybody's sitting around.

[00:29:13] You know what Percy would say about Brown versus the Board of Education, what Raymond would say, what Pop would say, what Patience would say. You get all their perspectives. And in that photo, I imagined Alice holding the turkey. And over one or two generations, I could see everybody saying, oh, Patience was arguing this way. Raymond was saying this. Raymond and Percy were fussing again. All this stuff, right? But then when I said, well, who's that woman holding the turkey? They said, I don't remember her name.

[00:29:41] She was somebody who believed in New Jessup for what it was and was very, it was like when she got there and got into it, she was one of the most vocal proponents for that generation. I think staying the way they were, which was why things went the way they did with Raymond earlier in the book. Why things went the way they did with Patience later in the book. When we lose those elders, they say every time an elder dies, a library burns.

[00:30:09] So when we lose her story, we lose that wealth of information. We lose those perspectives. And so all we're left with is the stories like the Raymond and the Patience. We lose so much of the complexity of the time and the nuance of the time. So it had to be Alice's story.

[00:30:29] And so then in making it Alice's story, she encounters all of the people who are in New Jessup, who have been born and bred there, who can trace their roots back to when the decision was made to live separately and not bridge those gaps. And she never, at least in my opinion, she never really overcame being an outsider, even in her own home, as much as she embraced the way of life.

[00:30:58] Why give her that distance still, even though she made an active choice to become a part of the community? It's important to recognize that Alice didn't just fall out of the sky. I've had some people call her like Alice in Wonderland, which I take sort of issue with that this idea that if a Black community is like a whole and healthy functioning Black community, it's like a utopia, like it's an impossible circumstance.

[00:31:25] But I do think it's important to recognize that Alice came from somewhere and that she was raised by loving parents in a segregated community. And they had ambition for her. She had a loving sister who had ambition for her. And I think it's really important to recognize that Alice is, for all intents and purposes, she was raised. And she finds this place and she's like, this is a great place.

[00:31:52] And I have this outsider's perspective, which is why I can recognize and appreciate that so much. Like when she's talking to Patience at one point and Patience is sort of lecturing her and Percy does, lectures her too about every place isn't me, Jessup. And she's like, you think you have to tell me that? So I think it's important to recognize that she has a particular lens about how special this place is. But even when he goes to college and comes back, this is where he grew up.

[00:32:21] And so his formative years were spent in this community that had a particular kind of safety. I'm not going to say that it was free or discrimination or whatever, but it had a particular kind of safety because there was a sort of detente, a stable detente between the two sides of Jessup and New Jessup. So Alice is all country. She's going to bring herself.

[00:32:46] And so I think it's important to bring a perspective of somebody who's not from that place so that you get to see it through fresh eyes throughout the novel, really. Because it's always going to be, there's always going to be something unexpected or something new or something that is inconsistent or very unlike the way that she came up. And so you get to experience New Jessup through her eyes.

[00:33:12] In making that distinction between having the distance of an outsider and being born into the community, it reminds me on a larger scale of the differences between Black Americans, even to this day still, raised in the North versus in the South. And then on a larger scale, the differences between Black Americans in America and then Black people in the diaspora, be it in the Caribbean or on the continent of Africa.

[00:33:39] And how there's always this, sometimes there's tension and flare-ups, but really I think this wanting to understand the other perspective, but always having that outsider's lens because you didn't grow up wherever is the other place that you're going to or traveling to or learning about or whatever the case may be.

[00:34:00] Were you actively trying to make commentary about how those separations between North and South or America and non-America have tainted somehow the way that we view each other or have conversations about what is best for us as not just a race of people, but as a community? Really, I wanted to show the beauty and diversity of the Black experience in the South.

[00:34:29] And I think that we, a lot of times we get this sort of single narrative about Blackness in the American South. A lot of my Northern Black readers have been surprised because I think a lot of people didn't go home, didn't go back to their generational home. And I sort of made this distinction between our generational home, where our people are from in the South, you know, but then also our ancestral home. And that, of course, is the continent, right?

[00:34:58] And so to the extent that we can trace our roots back through these various genealogies, whatever's. Like I know that on my mama's side, we are Yoruba from a region that is currently in Nigeria. And we're Bantu from a region that is currently in Senegal.

[00:35:18] And so it creates this long thread and this wide connection because that means that I have at least some distant connection to the Yoruba and Cuba, right? And so I think that when we think about the diaspora and the distinctions, that's one of the things that my work is sort of evolving into trying to explore. Certainly the book I'm working on right now definitely explores it.

[00:35:45] But New Jersey, I think, was sort of my introduction for myself into writing about the Black American diaspora, which has just been my gateway into writing about the diaspora for us around the world. And it's just been such a gift to be able to do. But, you know, it is nice to be able to see people becoming very curious about their Southern roots. I love it when people are like, they look at me and they're really excited and they say,

[00:36:14] My family from Alabama. My parents are from Alabama. And I'm like, how often do you ever get to hear people like say with excitement, My family's from Demopolis, Alabama. I met a young man, his family's from Demopolis, Alabama. He was like, this is my family. What's your family name? Then you meet people, Birmingham, Mobile, all. And they say it with a particular love and excitement or curiosity that I didn't hear coming up.

[00:36:42] Because I think the narratives that, you know, outside of my house, obviously, because my family loves Alabama. But outside my house and people talk about Alabama and they've never been. And so there's this sort of passing around to these narratives about the American South. I mean, you're in Florida. And so, you know, when people sort of north of the base of Dixit or west of the Mississippi have something to say, it's like about the South. It's like one or two narratives.

[00:37:07] And so this work was really like y'all need to think a little bit more broadly about the places and that we lived in the spaces that we built and what we left behind and what the great migration really meant for us.

[00:37:22] Besides giving readers a connection to a shared history, whether it's familial or diasporic, what did you want or what do you want readers to take away from this work? I want us to see that we have such diverse stories to tell. I mean, I really applaud people who are doing something with our stories that has not been done.

[00:37:52] I've had people say to me, I should have told the book from Raymond's perspective because he would have been more interesting. I've had people say, Alice is boring. I've had, it's like you get people who think of our stories, particularly a story that takes place during this time period. And Alice is supposed to be like this minor figure, right? And she's just supposed to fade into the wallpaper, right? And so I reject all that.

[00:38:22] And I really look forward to reading books that reject the stereotypes or the common tropes that are passed around about us. If it's a civil rights narrative, it has to be a certain thing. And I think it's important to tell her story because you now understand Raymond can't be the man he is unless Alice is the woman she is. And it's not to say that she's the woman behind the man, but he literally can't be who he is without her being who she is.

[00:38:51] And it's interesting, the other day, there was like a preview on Netflix for a thing about four basketball players. And LeBron James was talking about how he couldn't be the man he is without Savannah by his side. And so I'm like, we can still appreciate that sort of sentiment in 2024. But I think Alice deserved, per se, to say just how hard it was to be that partner, that sidekick, that partner in crime, whatever you want to call her.

[00:39:20] She deserves for the world to know just how hard that was. She deserves for the world to know that pressure caused her certain conditions and it cost her certain ambitions. Like the world deserves to know that, you know? Yes, thank you so much. I want to move to a speed round. Okay. Where did you go? Okay. For the afternoon. What is your favorite book? Ooh, South America.

[00:39:49] Who is your favorite author? Toni Morrison. Who is your favorite poet? It's between Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou. What is your favorite sound? The Rain. If Moon Rise to New Jessup were to get the screen treatment, who would you want to play Alice and Raymond? Oh, the sister who played on how to get away with murder. I love her. She was, you know who I'm talking about?

[00:40:19] Is it Asia? Naomi? Yes. Yes. Her. And then for Raymond, the brother who played, have you seen One Night in Miami? Mm-hmm. The brother who played Jim Brown. What's his name? Aldous Hodge? Yes. Yes. Look at me knowing people today. Can you see it? Robert Jones Jr. and I have passed the entire thing. I think Miss Vivian. You want to know who I think would be a bad Miss Vivian? I'm ready.

[00:40:49] Angela Bassett. Think about it. She would be so bad. Yeah. She would be so bad. Let me tell you. I love Angela Bassett for all my days. I mean, I watched the show 9-1-1 just for Angela Bassett. I've been watching this show for years just because Angela Bassett is on it. Like, that's who I'm here for. Yeah. And Regina King directing. Amen. I'm here for it. Yay. Okay. All right. Let's put it into the universe. Let's do it. If money were no object, where would you go? What would you do?

[00:41:18] And where would you finally live? So if money were no object, my family still has land in Demopolis and I would like to live there. And my goal is to one day open a writer's residency for black writers in Alabama. Name three things on your bucket list. I want to go to my ancestral homelands. I want to take horseback riding back up. I used to love riding horses.

[00:41:48] And honestly, I just want to be able to continue doing the work that I'm doing. Not just, I mean, the writing, but also just getting out and talking to people about our empowerment, our communities, our history. That's been the blessing of my lifetime. New Joseph has given me an opportunity to really connect with a lot of people. So if I can just continue to do that and be healthy and safe, I'm good. What brings you joy? So much. I love the outdoors.

[00:42:16] People don't believe me when I say I actually love the outdoors. There's a peace to it. Even if I'm just walking in my neighborhood, if the sun is coming up or like the woods, I love being outside. That brings me so much joy. And what brings you peace? Hmm. I will have peace when we as a community have peace. I don't know that my soul can rest until then. Woo! My God.

[00:42:45] Which means nobody better cross me because I'm coming back for them. Right? I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. I think a lot. He reminded me that people say, people who die hard don't stay in the ground. He said that one time and I was like, oh yeah, my family does say that. You die hard. You don't stay in the ground. I love that so much. Oh my goodness. I have a little game. It's called Rewriting the Classics.

[00:43:15] Classic is however you define it. Name one book you wished you would have written. Paradise. Even though I didn't read Paradise. Toni Morrison. I didn't read Paradise until after I wrote New Jersey. Hmm. I didn't know I knew her earlier work. I had never read it. And I wish, I don't know if it's because there's, it's about a black settlement too.

[00:43:41] I don't know if it's because I have this obsession with writing about black settlements, but I wish I could have written Paradise. Name one book where you want to change the ending and how would you do it? Oof. So I may get some pushback on this, but the end of Their Eyes Are Watching God with the trial. I was like, I don't know, Su. I love the book. I love Herston.

[00:44:10] I really love Herston. But that trial scene, when they just like, I think there's a lot of complexity there that she maybe missed out on. But I love the book. I love it. Don't come for me. They're not. They're going to come for you. They might come for you on this question, though, that you may or may not answer. Name a book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why? Hmm.

[00:44:38] You know, I say this because it's right, it's at the top of my mind right now. Huck Finn. And I really do think that they should, that Jim should be the text. I could see people saying we need to replace Huck Finn with James. By Percival Everett, yeah. Yeah. There's another book that came out a couple weeks ago, I think. It was on the NPR Book of the Day podcast. Big Jim and the White Boy. That's a children's book, right? It's a graphic novel.

[00:45:08] Okay. It's a YA graphic novel. Yeah, yeah. And I do love these, like, people doing these reimaginings, particularly when he names the book James, right? Because there is power in our names, particularly when we say, I'm not, I don't agree to be called by a shortened name, by a nickname. My name is such. And I will, I demand to be called as such. And even in the book, you had Major and his daddy's name was Sergeant. You know what I'm saying?

[00:45:37] There were people in the book because of the naming conventions that we had, because we were like, if you insist on calling me my first name, you're going to call me Major and call my son Major, right? And so there's a respect. You're literally putting respect on somebody's name because you have no choice. Final question. When you are dead and gone among the ancestors, what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind?

[00:46:04] That I was writing about liberation and that people from all, like from every walk of life, from every walk of Black life picked up this book, whether it was somebody who was somebody's grandmama who spent her life cleaning a house, whether it was somebody who invented the cure for cervical cancer, that they all picked up the book and said, I see myself a little bit differently. Or I want the elders to say she put respect on her name.

[00:46:33] I want the kids to say, I see that there's something possible for us. Just that it makes people think about freedom and it makes people really want to fight for it. Big thank you to Jamila Minix for being here today on Black & Published. You can follow Jamila on the socials at Jamila underscore Minix on Instagram. And make sure you check out Jamila's debut novel, Moonrise Over New Jessup, out now from Algonquin Books.

[00:46:59] You can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase using code BLKPUB at checkout. That's BlackPub, B-L-K-P-U-B. That's our show for the week. If you liked this episode and want more Black & Published, head to our Instagram page. It's at Black & Published, and that's B-L-K-N-Published.

[00:47:25] There, I've posted a bonus clip from my interview with Jamila about the legacy and lineage in language we may not even know we carry. Make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments. I'll highlight y'all next week when our guest will be Alia Balal, author of the short story collection, Temple Folk. There has not been a single work of literary fiction that's ever been published about the Black Muslim movement.

[00:47:54] And I'm using that phrase really deliberately just because there is a lot of fiction about Somali Muslims, Ethiopian Muslims, West African Muslims, Sudanese Muslims. But none that had been published about African-American Muslims who were associated with the nation of Islam and Malcolm X. And that was my dream. That's next week on Black & Published. I'll talk to you then. Peace.

[00:48:26] What's going on, family? This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books Matter.