A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY36 start with F start with F
The Failure of Our Fathers: Family, Gender, and Power in Confederate Alabama examines the evolving position of non-elite white families in Alabama during one of the most pivotal epochs in the state’s history. Drawing on a wide range of personal and public documents reflecting the state’s varied regions and economies, Victoria E. Ott uses gender and family as a lens to examine the yeomanry and poor whites, a constituency that she collectively defines as “common whites,” who identified with the Confederate cause.
Ott provides a nuanced examination of how these Alabamians fit within the antebellum era’s paternalistic social order, eventually identifying with and supporting the Confederate mission to leave the Union and create an independent, slaveholding state. But as the reality of the war slowly set in and the Confederacy began to fray, the increasing dangers families faced led Alabama’s common white men and women to find new avenues to power as a distinct socioeconomic class.
Ott argues that family provided the conceptual framework necessary to understand why common whites supported a war to protect slavery despite having little or no investment in the institution. Going to war meant protecting their families from outsiders who threatened to turn their worlds upside down. Despite class differences, common whites envisioned the Confederacy as a larger family and the state as paternal figures who promised to protect its loyal dependents throughout the conflict. Yet, as the war ravaged many Alabama communities, devotion to the Confederacy seemed less a priority as families faced continued separations, threats of death, and the potential for starvation. The construct of a familial structure that once created a sense of loyalty to the Confederacy now gave them cause to question its leadership. Ott shows how these domestic values rooted in highly gendered concepts ultimately redefined Alabama’s social structure and increased class distinctions after the war.
On November 15, 1894, a small group of men and women met on a remote stretch of Mobile Bay’s eastern shore to establish a colony. It was a decidedly utopian undertaking in a period characterized by many similar social experiments and ideal communities, most of them failures. This group, which gathered at “Stapleton’s pasture” to found Fairhope, hoped to demonstrate the benefits of the single tax as a means of curing social and economic evils, making a practical test of the doctrines of economist Henry George.
Today, the wealth of parks, public and private schools, art galleries, and restaurants, combined with quaint shops and residential areas and a vibrant nautical life, all attest to Fairhope’s unique position among many older communities in the same region. Its residents represent a diverse array of interests and talents, and with a strong civic regard for individualism and creativity, Fairhope is also a haven for painters, potters, writers, and musicians.
Paul E. and Blanche R. Alyea’s Fairhope, 1894–1954, first published in 1954, is the history of this unique and improbable community and the single-tax social experiment that gave rise to it. This new edition offers an introduction by historian and Fairhope resident Tennant McWilliams, giving invaluable context and entertaining anecdotes not just regarding Fairhope’s founding but about the Alyeas themselves—all to the abiding value of their story for today’s residents and visitors.
These tales, carefully and thoughtfully transcribed by Sivinski, have been passed down through Appalachia’s oral histories over decades and even centuries. This wonderful selection was mainly drawn from the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University and special collections at Berea College. Drawing on the work of other regional archivists and folklorists, Sivinski grapples with issues of gender balance in Appalachian storytelling. The problem, Sivinski posits, does not rest with the fairy tale genre itself but in the canonization process, in which
women’s contributions have been diminished as oral traditions become transcribed.
Appalachian women have historically demonstrated resilience, wit, and adaptability, and it is time that more collections of regional folklore reorient themselves to make this fact more apparent. Stories are living, breathing narratives, meant not just to be read but to be read aloud. This timely selection of unique stories, along with beautiful, evocative illustrations, makes Fairy Tales of Appalachia an intriguing addition to the much-contested “fairy tale canon.”
Roy Herron graduated with highest honors from the University of Tennessee at Martin, then studied New Testament and Ethics in Scotland before earning Divinity and Law degrees from Vanderbilt University. But he came home to West Tennessee and served the Volunteer State in both the Tennessee House and Senate. For four decades, Herron served as a legislator, attorney, teacher, and Methodist minister. In that work, he published op-ed essays and articles in Tennessee’s leading newspapers and publications from The Japan Times to The Wall Street Journal on various topics including constitutional liberties, economic justice, health care, politics, and more.
This informative volume collects the most powerful of these writings, adding helpful updates and contemporary insights. With an engaging, conversational style, Herron addresses voter ID laws, drunk-driving statutes, women’s rights and many recurring, contemporary issues. Whether describing the challenges facing his elderly mother as she attempted to exercise her right to vote, or the struggles of working women and men facing illnesses without health insurance, Herron demonstrates an earnestness and thoughtfulness all too rare in politics.
These nearly fifty essays and articles provide evidence that Herron’s Democratic Party and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, Herron describes how faith brought him to politics and to fighting for justice, jobs, and constitutional freedoms for all citizens. Faith at Work is a veritable guidebook on how faith and spirituality should affect decision making and advocacy in public life.
ROY HERRON was a Tennessee State Representative from 1987 to 1997 and State Senator from 1997 to 2013. He wrote Things Held Dear: Soul Stories for My Sons and God and Politics: How Can a Christian Be in Politics? He coauthored, with Cotton Ivy, Tennessee Political Humor: Some of These Jokes You Voted For. He lawyers and writes in West Tennessee and Nashville.
The United States was a vital, if brief, participant in World War I—spending only eighteen months fighting in “the Great War.” But that short span marked an era of tremendous change for women as they moved out of the Victorian nineteenth century and came into their own as social activists during the early years of the twentieth century.
Faithful to Our Tasks provides the context for women’s actions and reactions during the war. It incorporates the mitigating factors and experiences of American women in general and compares Arkansas women’s Progressive Era actions with those of other southern women. The contextual underpinnings provide a rich tapestry as we attempt to understand our grandmothers and great-grandmothers’ responses to wartime needs.
Primary records of the World War I era, accessed in archives in central Arkansas, reveal that the state’s organized women were suddenly faced with a devastating world war for which they were expected to make a significant contribution of time and effort. “Club women” were already tackling myriad problems to be found in abundance within a poor, rural state as they worked for better schools, a centralized education system, children’s well-being, and improved medical care.
Under wartime conditions, their contributions were magnified as the women followed a barrage of directions from Washington, DC, within a disconcerting display of micromanagement by the federal government. The important takeaway, however, is that the Great War created a scenario in which Arkansas’s organized women—as well as women throughout the nation—would step forward and excel as men and governments stood up and took notice. After the war, these same organized women won the right to vote.
In 1775, renowned pioneer Daniel Boone was commissioned to blaze a road through the Appalachian and Cumberland Plateau regions as a fledgling American nation steadily pushed westward. What would come to be known as the Wilderness Road was the first major route into the West, and it allowed settlers to migrate northwest into Kentucky and later settle parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. In 2012, Jim Dahlman stopped to stretch his legs on a brief hike into the Cumberland Gap and stumbled upon an adventure. After months of preparation, Dahlman grabbed a pack and set out to hike as accurately as possible Daniel Boone’s original trace.
In A Familiar Wilderness, Dahlman illustrates that the Wilderness Road is more than an old track through Appalachia. Many of the towns grew up along Boone’s original footpath, and people in these areas can draw direct connections to Boone himself or to other early settlers who traversed this trans-Appalachian route. Dahlman uses these and other encounters to uncover the history of the Wilderness Road and show how we are all a product of our past.
The hospitality of strangers becomes especially instrumental in making Dahlman’s hike come alive. Robert, one such stranger, offers to personally guide Dahlman over Powell Mountain. As they make their ascent, Robert provides a splendid view of the mountain, blending careful observation of their surroundings with deep knowledge of the place. A finale to Dahlman’s almost 300-mile hike occurs on Hackberry Ridge overlooking Fort Boonesborough State Park—a fitting tribute to Boone’s own arrival on the ridge famously overlooking a herd of buffalo.
A Familiar Wilderness takes readers on a winding path where geography, history, and local memory intersect with daily life, and Dahlman’s lively writing, sensitive to every detail, will bring readers into thrilling touch with a past that still shapes and challenges the present.
The authors take a wide-ranging look at the meaning of intergenerational vocations and the role of family, the economy, and social issues on the evolution of medical education and practice in the United States.
In sharp contrast to the “melting pot” reputation of the United States, the American South—with its history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement—has been perceived in stark and simplistic demographic terms. In Far East, Down South, editors Raymond A. Mohl, John E. Van Sant, and Chizuru Saeki provide a collection of essential essays that restores and explores an overlooked part of the South’s story—that of Asian immigration to the region.
These essays form a comprehensive overview of key episodes and issues in the history of Asian immigrants to the South. During Reconstruction, southern entrepreneurs experimented with the replacement of slave labor with Chinese workers. As in the West, Chinese laborers played a role in the development of railroads. Japanese farmers also played a more widespread role than is usually believed. Filipino sailors recruited by the US Navy in the early decades of the twentieth century often settled with their families in the vicinity of naval ports such as Corpus Christi, Biloxi, and Pensacola. Internment camps brought Japanese Americans to Arkansas. Marriages between American servicemen and Japanese, Korean, Filipina, Vietnamese, and nationals in other theaters of war created many thousands of blended families in the South. In recent decades, the South is the destination of internal immigration as Asian Americans spread out from immigrant enclaves in West Coast and Northeast urban areas.
Taken together, the book’s essays document numerous fascinating themes: the historic presence of Asians in the South dating back to the mid-nineteenth century; the sources of numerous waves of contemporary Asian immigration to the South; and the steady spread of Asians out from the coastal port cities. Far East, Down South adds a vital new dimension to popular understanding of southern history.
The Federal Road was a major influence in settlement of the Mississippi Territory during the period between the Louisiana Purchase and removal of the Creek Indians
A classic work of history, ethnography, and botany, and an examination of the life and environs of the 18th-century south
William Bartram was a naturalist, artist, and author of Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the ExtensiveTerritories of the Muscogulees, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws. The book, based on his journey across the South, reflects a remarkable coming of age. In 1773, Bartram departed his family home near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a British colonist; in 1777, he returned as a citizen of an emerging nation of the United States. The account of his journey, published in 1791, established a national benchmark for nature writing and remains a classic of American literature, scientific writing, and history. Brought up as a Quaker, Bartram portrayed nature through a poetic lens of experience as well as scientific observation, and his work provides a window on 18th-century southern landscapes. Particularly enlightening and appealing are Bartram’s detailed accounts of Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee peoples.The Bartram Trail Conference fosters Bartram scholarship through biennial conferences held along the route of his travels. This richly illustrated volume of essays, a selection from recent conferences, brings together scholarly contributions from history, archaeology, and botany. The authors discuss the political and personal context of his travels; species of interest to Bartram; Creek architecture; foodways in the 18th-century south, particularly those of Indian groups that Bartram encountered; rediscovery of a lost Bartram manuscript; new techniques for charting Bartram’s trail and imaging his collections; and a fine analysis of Bartram’s place in contemporary environmental issues.
One of the first new interpretations of West Virginia’s origins in over a century—and one that corrects previous histories’ tendency to minimize support for slavery in the state’s founding.
Every history of West Virginia’s creation in 1863 explains the event in similar ways: at the start of the Civil War, political, social, cultural, and economic differences with eastern Virginia motivated the northwestern counties to resist secession from the Union and seek their independence from the rest of the state. In The Fifth Border State, Scott A. MacKenzie offers the first new interpretation of the topic in over a century—one that corrects earlier histories’ tendency to minimize support for slavery in the state’s founding.
Employing previously unused sources and reexamining existing ones, MacKenzie argues that West Virginia experienced the Civil War in the same ways as the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Like these northernmost slave states, northwestern Virginia supported the institution of slavery out of proportion to the actual presence of enslavement there. The people who became West Virginians built a new state first to protect slavery, but radical Unionists and escaping slaves forced emancipation on the statehood movement. MacKenzie shows how conservatives and radicals clashed over Black freedom, correcting many myths about West Virginia’s origins and making The Fifth Border State an important addition to the literature in Appalachian and Civil War history.
This collection of fourteen essays written by young communication scholars at the University of Arkansas presents unique insights into how First Amendment issues have played out in the state. Rather than exploring the particular legal issues and the constitutional principles enunciated by the courts, First Amendment Studies tells the stories of actual people expressing challenged or unpopular points of view and reveals the ways that constitutional controversies arise from the actions of local officials and individual citizens.
Drawing on public documents as well as extensive interviews with participants, these essays demonstrate the dynamics of democratic dissent—on college campuses, in public schools, in churches, on the streets, in the forests and on the farms, and in legislative chambers and courtrooms.
Each essay was selected for the Richard S. Arnold Prize in First Amendment Studies, an endowed fund established in 1999 to encourage University of Arkansas graduate students in communication and the liberal arts to explore and examine questions about freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
“It was one of those periods that you got through, as opposed to enjoyed. It wasn’t an environment that . . . was nurturing, so you shut it out. You just got through it. You just took it a day at a time. You excelled if you could. You did your best. You felt as though the eyes of the community were on you.”—Glenda Wilson, East Side Junior High
Much has been written about the historical desegregation of Little Rock Central High School by nine African American students in 1957. History has been silent, however, about the students who desegregated Little Rock’s five public junior high schools—East Side, Forest Heights, Pulaski Heights, Southwest, and West Side—in 1961 and 1962.
The First Twenty-Five gathers the personal stories of these students some fifty years later. They recall what it was like to break down long-standing racial barriers while in their early teens—a developmental stage that often brings emotional vulnerability. In their own words, these individuals share what they saw, heard, and felt as children on the front lines of the civil rights movement, providing insight about this important time in Little Rock, and how these often painful events from their childhoods affected the rest of their lives.
A captivating story of the industry's rise in Alabama.
With a wonderful ear for dialogue and in flowing narrative style, Karni Perez weaves together oral histories collected from early hatchery owners, catfish farmers, processors, and researchers to recount the important contributions made by Alabamians to the channel catfish industry. Perez describes the struggles and glories of fish culture from its early days as an experimental venture to the thriving present-day commercial enterprise that supplies warmwater fish for the American food industry.
As Perez states, "The catfish industry started out in Alabama as a do-it-yourself and figure-it out-yourself kind of enterprise." We hear how men who were mostly cattle farmers learned to nudge male and female fish into spawning in crudely constructed aquaria, how growers discovered the dissolved oxygen needs of their "herd" when big die-offs occurred, how Lenson Montz and Otis Breland designed the first paddle aerator to remedy the problem, how farmers eventually trained a bottomfeeding species to rise to the water surface to eat so their numbers could be better estimated. In one dramatic story, we learn how a man experimenting with the first skinning machine lost a piece of his hand in front of a crowd of horrified locals. (After it was retrieved from the skin basket, it was reattached by a town doctor and healed perfectly.) Ironically, the man was a representative of the engineering firm tasked with designing the machine; he had never before seen a catfish in his life. The machine was modified and became an essential component of modern fish processing.
In addition to telling the remarkable stories of individual contributions by farmers and researchers, Perez explains the positive effects played by improved public infrastructure, continued biological research, state legislation, and federal recognition of aquaculture as agriculture.
A compendium of Indian-derived names from the three languages of the Muskhogean family—Seminole, Hitchiti, and Choctaw.
The first Native peoples of what is now the United States who met and interacted with Europeans were the people of the lower Southeast. They were individuals of the larger Maskókî linguistic family who inhabited much of present-day Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and eastern portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Today, sixteen federally recognized tribes trace their heritage from these early Maskókî peoples, and many of them in both Florida and Oklahoma still speak and understand this root language.
The continuing vitality of this core language, and of Seminole culture and influence, makes this linguistic examination by William Read ever more valuable. A companion to his study of Indian Place Names in Alabama, this long out-of-print guide offers a new introduction from Patricia Wickman in which she provides current understandings of Seminole language and derivations and a brief analysis of Read's contribution to the preservation of the Native linguistic record.
The people who lived in Middle Virginia in the eighteenth century are almost unknown to history because so little has been written about them. After Glassie selected the area – roughly Goochland and Louisa counties – for study, he selected a representative part of the countryside, recorded all the older houses there, developed a transformational grammar of traditional house designs, and examined the area’s architectural stability and change.
Comparing the houses with written accounts of the period, he found that the houses became more formal and lee related to their environment at the same time as the areas established political, economic, and religious institutions were disintegrating. It is as though the builders of the houses were deliberately trying to impose order on the surrounding chaotic world. Previous orthodox historical interpretations of the period have failed to note this. Glassie has provided new insights into the intellectual and social currents of the period, and at that time has rescued a heretofore little-known people from historiographical oblivion. Combining a fresh, perceptive approach with a broad interdisciplinary body of knowledge, ha has made an invaluable breakthrough in showing the way to understand the people of history who have left their material things as their only legacy.
Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills stands out as a book with multiple audiences. As a musical text, it offers comparatively easy access to a rich variety of folk songs that could provide a new repertoire for Appalachian singers. As an ethnographic text, it has the potential to reintroduce significant data about the musical lives of many West Virginians into conversations around Appalachian music—discourses that are being radically reshaped by scholars working in folklore, ethnomusicology, and Appalachian studies. As a historical document, it gives readers a glimpse into the research methods commonly practiced by mid-twentieth-century folklorists. And when read in conjunction with John Harrington Cox’s Folk Songs of the South (also available from WVU Press), it sheds important light on the significant role that West Virginia University has played in documenting the state’s vernacular traditions.
Set in the Appalachian backcountry in the midst of the Great Depression, Fools’ Parade traces the adventures of three ex-convicts who become involved in a wild and woolly chase along the Ohio River.
Convicted murderer Mattie Appleyard has just served forty-seven years in Glory Penitentiary. His release puts him in possession of a check for $25,452.32—the result of his having salted away his meager earnings in the Prisoner’s Work-and-Hope Savings Plan of the local bank. With his friends Johnny Jesus and Lee Cottrill, he plans to open a general store that will compete with the company store in Stonecoal, West Virginia.
Unfortunately, banker Homer Grindstaff, prison guard Uncle Doc Council, and Sheriff Duane Ewing have no intention of allowing Mattie to realize his ambitions. Mattie’s efforts to cash his check set a deadly pursuit in motion and introduce the reader to a host of colorful characters and a vividly recreated regional and historical background. Good and evil meet head-on in this novel that is, by turns, warm and humorous, rousing and tumultuous.
The Author: Davis Grubb (1919–1980) was the author of ten published novels, the most famous of which was Night of the Hunter. Both that book and Fools’ Parade, originally published in 1969, were made into motion pictures.
Such a character invites romanticizing, and in this new biography, Randolph Paul Runyon does much to ground Sallie Ward in reality, fact-checking stories such as her infamous horse ride through the Louisville market house and examining his subject in the context of her wealthy family. Runyon carefully details his subject’s life, beginning with her aristocratic origins as the descendant of slaveowners, merchants, and politicians who stole land from Native groups and grew rich off the labor of enslaved people. He accurately covers Sallie’s madcap adventures and charitable actions, faithfully representing her legacy as a Kentuckian, a mother, and a grandmother. Illustrated with images of the family, their property, and their lavish grave markers, this volume provides an entertaining and informative glimpse into the world of antebellum privilege in a border state, as well as an examination of the birth of celebrity for its own sake. Forever Belle, finally, is also the story of an early if conflicted feminist: a woman who believed she should have control over her own appearance, actions, political views, and marital status.
this model evolved from a Christian practice of slavery to one that expounded on slavery as morally right.
Elites who began the Baptist church in late-1600s Charleston closely valued hierarchy. It is not surprising, then, that from its formation the church advanced a Christian model of slavery. The American Revolution spurred the associational growth of the denomination, reinforcing the rigid order of the authoritative master and subservient enslaved person, given that the theme of liberty for all threatened slaveholders’ way of life. In lowcountry South Carolina in the 1790s, where a White minority population lived in constant anxiety over control of the bodies of enslaved men and women, news of revolt in St. Domingue (Haiti) led to heightened fears of Black violence. Fearful of being associated with antislavery evangelicals and, in turn, of being labeled as an enemy of the planter and urban elite, White ministers orchestrated a major transformation in the Baptist construction of paternalism.
Forging a Christian Order provides a comprehensive examination of the Baptist movement in South Carolina from its founding to the eve of the Civil War and reveals that the growth of the Baptist church in South Carolina paralleled the growth and institutionalization of the American system of slavery—accommodating rather than challenging the prevailing social order of the economically stratified Lowcountry.
It is the comprehensive picture of Wilder’s nearly nine decades that Maury Nicely seeks to capture in Forging a New South: The Life of General John T. Wilder. “For many war heroes, there was not much beyond the war worth telling,” Nicely writes. “Such was not the case with Wilder.” A successful entrepreneur and industrialist, after the war Wilder relocated to East Tennessee, where he created dozens of businesses, factories, mines, hotels, and towns; was elected mayor of the city he had shelled during the war; and cultivated close personal and business relationships with Federal and Confederate veterans alike, helping to create a new South in the wake of a devastating conflict. Presented in two parts and accompanied by more than sixty detailed photographs and maps, Nicely’s balanced study fills a significant void—the first complete biography of General John T. Wilder.
In many respects Florida remains the forgotten state of the Confederacy. Journalist Horace Greeley once referred to Florida in the Civil War as the “smallest tadpole in the dirty pool of secession.” Although it was the third state to secede, Florida’s small population and meager industrial resources made the state of little strategic importance. Because it was the site of only one major battle, it has, with a few exceptions, been overlooked within the field of Civil War studies.
During the Civil War, more than fifteen thousand Floridians served the Confederacy, a third of which were lost to combat and disease. The Union also drew the service of another twelve hundred white Floridians and more than a thousand free blacks and escaped slaves. Florida had more than eight thousand miles of coastline to defend, and eventually found itself with Confederates holding the interior and Federals occupying the coasts—a tenuous state of affairs for all. Florida’s substantial Hispanic and Catholic populations shaped wartime history in ways unique from many other states. Florida also served as a valuable supplier of cattle, salt, cotton, and other items to the blockaded South.
A Forgotten Front: Florida during the Civil War Era provides a much-needed overview of the Civil War in Florida. Editors Seth A. Weitz and Jonathan C. Sheppard provide insight into a commonly neglected area of Civil War historiography. The essays in this volume examine the most significant military engagements and the guerrilla warfare necessitated by the occupied coastline. Contributors look at the politics of war, beginning with the decade prior to the outbreak of the war through secession and wartime leadership and examine the period through the lenses of race, slavery, women, religion, ethnicity, and historical memory.
Situated at the head of the Alabama River system—at the juncture of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers—Fort Toulouse in 1717 was planned to keep the local Indians neutral, if not loyal, to the French and contain the British in their southernmost Atlantic colonies. Unlike the usual frontier settlements, Fort Toulouse was both a diplomatic post, since its officers acted as resident ministers, and a military post. Because it was located in a friendly territory adjoining an area under a rival (British) influence, the post participated in psychological warfare rather than in blood-letting. It used trade and aid, and was familiar with spies and double-agents—welcoming and debriefing British defectors; no cannon was discharged in anger at Toulouse.
The most eminent figure to have been connected directly with Fort Toulouse was General Andrew Jackson, who established a military post there during the War of 1812 after his victory over the Indians at Horseshoe Bend. The outpost was named Fort Jackson in his honor and played a key role in the treaty negotiations and eventual settlement of the Indian land by Americans.
In addition to discussing geopolitical and military affairs and diplomatic relations with Indian chiefs, Thomas describes daily life at the post and the variety of interactions between residents and visitors. Waselkov's introduction places the original 1960 book within the context of the existing scholarship of that time and adds an extensive and enlightening review of the most recent archaeological and historical research to Thomas' pioneering work.
The 1956 dissertation by Frances Cabaniss Roberts is a classic text on Alabama history that continues to be cited by southern historians. Roberts was the first woman to earn a PhD from the University of Alabama’s history department. In the 1950s, she was the only full-time faculty member at what is now the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she was appointed chair of the history department in 1966.
Roberts’s dissertation, “Background and Formative Period in the Great Bend and Madison County,” remains the most thorough history of the region yet produced. While certainly a product of its era, Roberts work is visionary in its own way and offers a useful look at Alabama’s rise to statehood. Thomas Reidy, editor of this edition, has kept Roberts’s words intact except for correction of minor typographical errors and helpful additions to the notes and citations. His introduction describes both the value of Roberts’s decades of service to UAH and the importance of her dissertation over time. While highlighting the great intrinsic value of Roberts’s research and writing, Reidy also notes its significance in demonstrating how the practice of history—its methods, priorities, and values—has evolved over the intervening decades.
In her examination of Madison County, Roberts spotlights exemplars of civic performance and good community behavior, giving readers one of the earliest accountings of the antebellum southern middle class. Unlike many historians of her time, Roberts displays an interest in both the “common folks” and leaders who built the region—rural and urban—and created the institutions that shaped Madison County. She examines the contributions of merchants, shopkeepers, lawyers, doctors, architects, craftsmen, planters, farmers, elected and appointed officials, board members, and entrepreneurs.
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is also the first book of its kind to detail the activities of white supremacists in Mississippi, revealing how white repression and intimidation sparked black activism and simultaneously undermined the movement's ability to achieve far-reaching goals. Andrews shows that the federal government's role was important but reactive as federal actors responded to the sustained struggles between local movements and their opponents. He tracks the mobilization of black activists by the NAACP, the creation of Freedom Summer, efforts to galvanize black voters, the momentous desegregation of public schools and the rise of all-white private academies, and struggles over the economic development of black communities. From this complex history, Andrews shows how the civil rights movement built innovative organizations and campaigns that empowered local leadership and had a lasting legacy in Mississippi and beyond.
Based on an original and creative research design that combines extensive archival research, interviews with activists, and quantitative historical data, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle provides many new insights into the civil rights struggle, and it presents a much broader theory to explain whether and how movements have enduring impacts on politics and society. What results is a work that will be invaluable to students of social movements, democratic politics, and the struggle for racial freedom in the U.S.
The original book on the renowned Freedom quilters of Gee's Bend
In December of 1965, the year of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, a white Episcopal priest driving through a desperately poor, primarily black section of Wilcox County found himself at a great bend of the Alabama River. He noticed a cabin clothesline from which were hanging three magnificent quilts unlike any he had ever seen. They were of strong, bold colors in original, op-art patterns—the same art style then fashionable in New York City and other cultural centers. An idea was born and within weeks took on life, in the form of the Freedom Quilting Bee, a handcraft cooperative of black women artisans who would become acclaimed throughout the nation.
John C. Davis’s From Blue to Red: The Rise of the GOP in Arkansas provides a rigorous yet accessible study of this partisan shift, tracking changes in voter preference at the top of the ticket in the 1960s, generational replacement in Arkansas’ political power structure in the 1990s, and the emergence of a more nationalized and polarized electorate in the 2000s, among other developments. From Blue to Red is a fascinating look at how Arkansas went from being one of the country’s most solidly Democratic states to one of its most ardently Republican in just a few years.
From Boss Crump to King Willie offers an in-depth look at the vital role that race played in the political evolution of Memphis, from the rise of longtime political boss Edward Hull Crump to the election of Dr. Willie Herenton as the city’s first black mayor. Filled with vivid details on the workings of municipal politics, this accessible account by veteran journalist Otis Sanford explores the nearly century-long struggle by African Americans in Memphis to secure recognition from local leaders and gain a viable voice in the city’s affairs.
Sanford explains how, in 1909, Crump won his first election as mayor without black support but then immediately sought to woo and keep the black vote in order to maintain his political machine for the next two generations. The African American community overwhelmingly supported the Crump organization because he at least listened and responded to some of
their concerns, while other white leaders completely ignored them. The book probes Crump’s hot-and-cold relationship with local newspaper editors, some of whom castigated his machine politics, and examines the press’s influence on the political and civic life of the city. It also shows how, amid longstanding racism and poverty in Memphis, the black community nevertheless produced many prominent business, religious, and political leaders, most of whom had an amicable relationship with “Boss” Crump.
The book goes on to explore the political vacuum that ensued after Crump’s death in 1954, and the factors that led to African Americans becoming the majority voting population in the city following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Through the civil rights movement and beyond, black Memphians kept up their fight for recognition and inclusion.
That fight culminated in the election of Dr. Herenton, a well-educated native son who proved to be the right man at the right time to make racial and political history in the city. Additionally, the book compares the racial climate in Memphis with that in other southern cities during the height of the civil rights movement.
OTIS SANFORD holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Economic/Managerial Journalism at the University of Memphis. He also serves as the political commentator for WREG-TV in Memphis. A former managing editor and current political columnist at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he also worked for the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, the Pittsburgh Press, and the Detroit Free Press. He was inducted into the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame in 2014.
From Boss Crump to King Willie offers an in-depth look at the vital role that race played in the political evolution of Memphis, from the rise of longtime political boss Edward Hull Crump to the election of Dr. Willie Herenton as the city’s first black mayor. Filled with vivid details on the workings of municipal politics, this accessible account by veteran journalist Otis Sanford explores the nearly century-long struggle by African Americans in Memphis to secure recognition from local leaders and gain a viable voice in the city’s affairs.
Sanford explains how, in 1909, Crump won his first election as mayor without black support but then immediately sought to woo and keep the black vote in order to maintain his political machine for the next two generations. The African American community overwhelmingly supported the Crump organization because he at least listened and responded to some oftheir concerns, while other white leaders completely ignored them. The book probes Crump’s hot-and-cold relationship with local newspaper editors, some of whom castigated his machine politics, and examines the press’s influence on the political and civic life of the city. It also shows how, amid longstanding racism and poverty in Memphis, the black community nevertheless produced many prominent business, religious, and political leaders, most of whom had an amicable relationship with “Boss” Crump.
The book goes on to explore the political vacuum that ensued after Crump’s death in 1954, and the factors that led to African Americans becoming the majority voting population in the city following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. Through the civil rights movement and beyond, black Memphians kept up their fight for recognition and inclusion. That fight culminated in the election of Dr. Herenton, a well-educated native son who proved to be the right man at the right time to make racial and political history in the city. Additionally, the book compares the racial climate in Memphis with that in other southern cities during
the height of the civil rights movement.
For Venable, the outdoor world is meant to be enjoyed. Whether he is casting popping bugs to bluegills during the frenzy of a willow fly hatch, lying motionless on his back in muddy corn stubble as mallards warily circle his decoys, savoring the sounds and scents of a moonlit summer night when smallmouth bass are on the prowl, or issuing plaintive love calls to an amorous wild turkey gobbler, the author's fascination with outdoor recreation never diminishes. And, as the reader quickly finds, this fascination is contagious.
Along with the lightheartedness and rich humor in these pages, there is an unmistakable love of the land and a deep concern for the endangered bond between nature and humankind. Like the trout in the stream or the deer in the forest, Venable suggests, we are as much a product of the land as any living creature. And what affects one - for better or worse - ultimately affects all.
Winner, 2020 Booker Worthen Literary Prize
During the antebellum years, over 750,000 enslaved people were taken to the Lower Mississippi Valley, where two-thirds of them were sold in the slave markets of New Orleans, Natchez, and Memphis. Those who ended up in Louisiana found themselves in an environment of swamplands, sugar plantations, French-speaking creoles, and the exotic metropolis of New Orleans. Those sold to planters in the newly-opened Mississippi Delta cleared land and cultivated cotton for owners who had moved west to get rich as quickly as possible, driving this labor force to harsh extremes.
Like enslaved people all over the South, those in the Lower Mississippi Valley left home at night for clandestine parties or religious meetings, sometimes “laying out” nearby for a few days or weeks. Some of them fled to New Orleans and other southern cities where they could find refuge in the subculture of slaves and free blacks living there, and a few attempted to live permanently free in the swamps and forests of the surrounding area. Fugitives also tried to returnto eastern slave states to rejoin families from whom they had been separated. Some sought freedom on the northern side of the Ohio River; othersfled to Mexico for the same purpose.
Fugitivism provides a wealth of new information taken from advertisements, newspaper accounts, and court records. It explains how escapees made use of steamboat transportation, how urban runaways differed from their rural counterparts, how enslaved people were victimized by slave stealers, how conflicts between black fugitives and the white people who tried to capture them encouraged a culture of violence in the South, and how runaway slaves from the Lower Mississippi Valley influenced the abolitionist movement in the North.
Readers will discover that along with an end to oppression, freedom-seeking slaves wanted the same opportunities afforded to most Americans.
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