Faith's Reckoning

Faith's Reckoning is a story of two Americas, intimately intertwined, yet worlds apart. A multigenerational novel set in the South, it traverses the period between the 1930's - 1940's and the late 1990's. Through parallel storylines it explores the complex personal relationships between Black and White families and includes three braids: The Wiggins family, who are part of the pain inflicted by the Jim Crow system, including a daughter who seeks, at the end of her life, to make amends. The Walker family, who respond to that system by helping shape the early Civil Rights movement, featuring the well-researched history of A. Philip Randolph and the Pullman Porters. And the third braid, which follows the descendants of those families who come together to reckon with the legacy left to them. It is the love of the Delta Blues that forges a bond between these descendants and allows them to envision an organization that addresses reparations. At its core, Faith's Reckoning is a story about reparations for racial injustice. But it is also about the individual restitution we must make in our personal lives.

At the end of life, the greatest regret is the action not taken. When she was fourteen years old, Faith Wiggins was confronted with a dilemma, pitting family loyalty against a call for justice. She could keep her father's secret or speak up for her beloved Delsey, a sharecropper's daughter who worked for him. Feeling afraid, powerless, Faith chose silence. Now, sixty years later, Faith has made peace with the conflicted allegiances of her youth. But she has a last piece of unfinished business that must be tended. She calls her niece, Sylvia Barbarino, to come to Mississippi for a visit.

Sylvia will do anything for her favorite aunt, including the sad task of serving as the executor of her Will. What Sylvia does not yet realize is that Faith is asking her to do more than administer her estate. Faith needs Sylvia's help as she attempts to make reparations for her father's actions. Sylvia must reckon justice for what happened to Delsey's husband, Plessy Walker. And she must face the seeds of racism within herself that shaped the most consequential decision of her life.