Before We Were Silent (Paperback)

Suzanne Codner

ISBN 13: 9798243304696

Published by Independently Published, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. 1962, Mississippi Delta. When her activist mother is murdered during the Freedom Summer voter registration drives, thirteen-year-old Josephine "Josie" Mathers watches helplessly as her younger siblings are torn from her arms one by one. The state places them into different homes-white families who receive them through a secret "placement program" that rebrands Black children as "Italian," "Cuban," or "mixed" to circumvent segregation laws. Present Day, Jackson, Mississippi. Successful attorney Camille DuBois has built her entire identity on her parents' story of fleeing Cuba during the revolution. When her mother dies, a locked box reveals documents suggesting Camille is not Cuban at all-and that she has siblings she never knew existed. As Camille unravels the truth about her origins, she discovers her eldest sister Josie-now a retired social worker who has spent forty years searching for her lost family. Together, they race against time to find their remaining siblings before it's too late, uncovering a conspiracy of silence that reaches from small-town Mississippi to the highest levels of the state's child welfare system. Before We Were Silent is a sweeping, emotionally devastating novel about identity, family secrets, and the unbreakable bonds between siblings separated by lies but united by blood. Inspired by the documented but little-known practice of racial reassignment during the Jim Crow era, this is a story of how the truth, no matter how deeply buried, always finds a way to surface. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9798243304696

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Before We Were Silent (Paperback)
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798243304696
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

1962, Mississippi Delta. When her activist mother is murdered during the Freedom Summer voter registration drives, thirteen-year-old Josephine "Josie" Mathers watches helplessly as her younger siblings are torn from her arms one by one. The state places them into different homes—white families who receive them through a secret "placement program" that rebrands Black children as "Italian," "Cuban," or "mixed" to circumvent segregation laws.

Present Day, Jackson, Mississippi. Successful attorney Camille DuBois has built her entire identity on her parents' story of fleeing Cuba during the revolution. When her mother dies, a locked box reveals documents suggesting Camille is not Cuban at all—and that she has siblings she never knew existed.

As Camille unravels the truth about her origins, she discovers her eldest sister Josie—now a retired social worker who has spent forty years searching for her lost family. Together, they race against time to find their remaining siblings before it's too late, uncovering a conspiracy of silence that reaches from small-town Mississippi to the highest levels of the state's child welfare system.

Before We Were Silent is a sweeping, emotionally devastating novel about identity, family secrets, and the unbreakable bonds between siblings separated by lies but united by blood. Inspired by the documented but little-known practice of racial reassignment during the Jim Crow era, this is a story of how the truth, no matter how deeply buried, always finds a way to surface.