Jessa Is Back

Viewed through the eyes of a young white girl, segregation was ubiquitous and unquestioned, but once Jessa's experience with the Oregon integrated school system allows her to become friends with a Negro girl, she realizes that segregation is "just plain stupid." Jessa wants her town to provide music instruction not only for the white kids, but for the overlooked colored kids, too. While she becomes a gadfly to the school board, her interactions with other members of her town precipitate crises that uncover support for her position as well as staunch opposition. In the end, Jessa fights for interracial friendships, and the people of the fictional Town of Radford cannot help but respond to her message. This is a story that reverberates powerfully into our present.