From colonial America to revolutionary France, the fight for liberation has continually carried similar ideas across borders.
In her 2025 debut historical non-fiction novel, “The Audacity to Endure: Finding the Emancipation in Hope through Faith”, Veronica Bethel Parker explores parallels between Africans and African Americans, their emancipation and role in the American Revolution in 1775, and the emancipation of the Jews in France driven by the French Revolution.
“Both are significant and relevant to the liberties gained by the nation that had oppressed them,” said Parker. “A spirit of liberty that was vowing not only on the land of British America, the 13 colonies in America. There was also a similar, if not the same spirit, igniting a burning flame on the European continent as well.”
Parker released her debut novel, “The Audacity to Endure: Finding the Emancipation in Hope through Faith” in Nov. 2025. (Courtesy Photo)
After reading an art history book on the emancipation of Jews in France during the French Revolution, Parker was inspired to write her book while researching her thesis.
“It turned out that they both were great people of faith,” Parker said. “Very few people know about the Black Loyalists. But they fought on the other side — they were not the enemy to the colonists. They were fighting for their liberty at all costs. And who could blame them under the circumstances?”
Drawing from her experiences in public service and her faith, Parker frames her exploration of emancipation through both a civic and spiritual lens.
She said, “Furthermore, those African Americans who stayed in the United States in New York, as well as Jews who had emigrated to the United States, began to work together.”
By working together, this led to significant Jewish participation in the NAACP’s founding in 1909.
Their alliance continued into the 1960s “Grand Alliance” during the Civil Rights Movement, between Jewish activists and African American leaders to fight segregation, voter suppression, and systemic racism.
“In the ’60s, men of faith and the cloth, Catholics, Jews, and other ministers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Dr. Martin Luther King were symbolic of this unity of freedom for all people and bound together because of their core values and their faith,” said Parker.
For her, the fight for justice and equality is continuous. But it’s also personal.
“My father was Jesse Bethel. Because of his experience of growing up in a segregated culture under Jim Crow laws that denied him his liberties of where to live, where to eat, and the quality of his educational experience as a child. He saw all of that, and he fought for equality of education and equality of all people,” said Parker.
Bethel was the first African American elected to the Vallejo School Board and later served as the president of the California School Board Association.
Jesse M. Bethel High School is named in his honor.
Parker said social justice was always a spoken theme in her household, along with respect for all people, of any race, creed, or faith.
“That sense of social justice has always resonated in me,” Parker said. “When I had the opportunity, my initial goal wasn’t to be part of a political structure. But when I found myself in it, it seemed right for me. The law matters. Good law is what really matters. But not all laws are just.”
Though now retired, Parker spent more than two decades in public service, working as a district representative, district director, and later executive assistant for former state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa; a field and district representative for state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and a staff member for Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis.
“[Davis] truly was a statesman. He truly represented all the people, and he worked very hard to be very fair, and individuals made their voice be heard. Other than my dad, I’ve never seen that from an elected official,” said Parker. “I’ve been very fortunate to work for elected officials who care about the people they serve. For that, I’m deeply grateful. And I know that that impression of goodness, I hope, is inferred in this book.”
“The Audacity to Endure: Finding the Emancipation in Hope through Faith” can be found online on Apple iBooks Store, Amazon, and bookstores like Barnes and Noble.
