Marching to Zion

The tempestuous love story of a beautiful Jewish immigrant and a charismatic Black man during the early 20th Century

This powerful book shines a bright light on the dark corners of racism from World War I to the Great Depression. If you've read One More River, you'll be familiar with Aurora Mae Stanton, who is joined by a dynamic group of new characters in Marching to Zion. The story starts in St. Louis, where in 1916, Mags Preacher arrives from the upstate with the dream of learning the beauty trade but ends up working in a funeral home owned by a Jewish immigrant, a refugee from Ukrainian pogroms, Mr. Fishbein. 

Mags knows nothing about Jews except that they killed Jesus Christ until Fishbein saves her life during the 1917 race riots in East St. Louis. From there, Marching to Zion takes Mags and Fishbein, his troubled daughter Minerva, and Magnus Bailey, Mag’s first friend in the city as well as Fishbein’s business associate, to Memphis, Tennessee. There, they face the worst of men, natural disaster, the ravages of cowardice, and the risks of interracial relationships.