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An exploration of the surrealist artists, musicians, and performers who forged a unique experimental arts community in Alabama

Pataphysics and Surrealism in Alabama: A Cultural History is the first book to uncover a remarkable chapter in American experimental art, music, dance and writing, tracing the activities of a creative group known as Raudelunas, the music collective Transcendprovisation, and the surrealist association initially called Glass Veal: a series of interrelated artistic and cultural movements that originated in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1970s. Drawing on extensive archival research and firsthand accounts, including interviews with twenty-six participants in these groups, sound recordings, publications, and other primary sources, Steven Harris traces the history of a vibrant creative community that began when three University of Alabama students started improvising music together and encouraged others to join them.

From these sessions emerged a dynamic network of performers and artists whose work challenged conventional boundaries between disciplines. Inspired by musical improvisation, surrealism, and pataphysics, participants embraced spontaneity and absurdity as they developed a positive expression of creativity that was both uniquely Southern and sharply distinctive from the dominant culture that surrounded them.

Harris situates these movements within broader histories of Alabama, Dada, pataphysics, surrealism, and improvised music and dance while charting their lasting influence on the artists who participated in them. Featuring a timeline of major events, biographies of key members, and an anthology of representative writings, Pataphysics and Surrealism in Alabama is an essential contribution to the history of American experimental culture.
 

WINNER OF THE JAMES F. SULZBY AWARD

Healing against the odds—Black doctors, bold resistance, and the fight for medical justice in Alabama.

Physicians for the People chronicles the remarkable stories of 241 Black doctors who practiced medicine in Alabama during the Jim Crow era. Historian Jack D. Ellis reveals the ingenuity and resilience of these trailblazing doctors who defied segregation by establishing hospitals and clinics and providing vital healthcare to underserved Black communities.

This meticulously researched work draws on archival sources, oral histories, and an unparalleled database to dismantle the myth of a monolithic medical system in the Jim Crow South. Jack D. Ellis argues that the post–Civil War lives of Black physicians, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, and midwives hold special significance, illuminating both the causes of health care disparities among African Americans and the reasons for their continued underrepresentation in the medical professions.

Offering much of interest to students and scholars of Black history, medical history, and the civil rights movement, Physicians for the People exposes the deliberate exclusion faced by Black doctors within the white medical establishment and their ongoing fight for racial equality in medicine.

Discover the stories, people, and histories behind the names on Alabama's map.

Place Names in Alabama is the first comprehensive and systematic study of the names that define Alabama's geographic landscape. In this indispensable reference work, Virginia O. Foscue examines more than 2,600 place names drawn from across the state, including counties, cities, towns, rivers, lakes, streams, mountains, and other significant geographic features. Each entry provides detailed information on location, historical development, etymology, naming history, and documented sources, creating a rich portrait of the people, cultures, and events that have shaped Alabama over time.

Drawing upon archival records, historical documents, maps, and interviews with local informants, Foscue uncovers the stories behind the names that appear on Alabama's maps. The volume reveals the influence of Native American languages, European settlement, transportation networks, natural features, political leaders, local families, and regional traditions on the state's evolving identity. By tracing how communities and landmarks acquired their names, the book illuminates broader patterns of migration, settlement, economic development, and cultural exchange throughout Alabama's history.

More than a dictionary of place names, this work offers a unique window into Alabama's social and cultural heritage. Readers discover not only the origins of familiar names but also the histories of the individuals and communities that helped build the state. Whether used as a scholarly resource, a genealogical tool, or a source of fascinating historical insights, Place Names in Alabama remains an essential guide to understanding the connections between geography, language, and history in the American South.

Valuable for historians, genealogists, geographers, librarians, educators, students, journalists, and local history enthusiasts, this landmark volume continues to serve as the definitive reference on Alabama's geographic names and the stories they preserve.

An unflinching account of how city planning was deployed to enforce white supremacy in Montgomery, Alabama—the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement—and how Black activists fought back, block by neighborhood block.

At the heart of the Civil Rights Movement was a city meticulously designed to enforce inequality. In Planning White Supremacy: Civil Rights and City Planning in Montgomery, Alabama, 1920–1970, Rebecca Coleen Retzlaff traces how city officials used the tools of modern planning—zoning, infrastructure, housing codes, public investment, and highway construction—to suppress political power, economic opportunity, and spatial freedom for Black citizens.

As the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, Montgomery became a battleground where urban planning and direct-action protest collided, shaping the city’s culture in ways that still resonate today. Retzlaff’s analysis exposes the calculated use of municipal power to control land use, displace Black communities, keep schools and neighborhoods segregated, and preserve white political dominance. By placing urban planning at the center of Montgomery’s story, this groundbreaking work reframes the movement not only as a fight for voting rights and legal equality, but as a struggle for space, housing, mobility, education, and the right to live with dignity. Retzlaff also highlights the resilience and joy of the close-knit Black neighborhoods that nurtured the civil rights activists who changed history.

Retzlaff reveals how urban planning decisions systematically targeted Black neighborhoods, reinforcing racial inequality under the guise of modernization. With historical depth and critical insight, Planning White Supremacy situates Montgomery within the broader context of American urban history—offering a vital perspective on the intersection of race, space, and power. Essential for scholars of urban planning, history, and racial justice, this book also provides urgent insight into how these legacies continue to shape cities and Black socioeconomic opportunities today.

The essential guide to identifying and understanding the Southeast's toxic plants and venomous wildlife.  

Wisteria, mistletoe, oleander, milkweed, narcissus, yellow Jessamine, wild hydrangea, trillium, all are plants easily recognized by most people. But these and more that 200 other plants in Alabama and the Southeast can cause systemic poisoning if ingested by human beings and livestock. This book describes these poisonous plants, including various mushrooms, and discusses the toxic properties, symptoms of poisoning, habitat occurrence, and geographic distribution. One chapter describes plants that cause dermatitis or other allergic reactions-plants including poison ivy, poison sumac, ragweed, clematis, and red maple.

Other chapters of the book discuss venous animals-not only the six venomous snakes of the Southeast but also certain jellyfishes, centipedes, spiders, scorpions, stinging caterpillars, wasps, hornets, bees, catfishes, stingrays, and others- that might be encountered by people during recreation or work. The authors describe habitat occurrence, geographic distribution, and general life history and behavior for these animals. Numerous color photographs and drawings of both plants and animals are included for identification, as well as hundreds of range maps.

The authors encourage an appreciation for the protective mechanisms hat help plants and animals defend themselves against predators or other threats. Although people must be able to recognize a poisonous plant or venomous animal in order to avoid suffering unwary contact, the book reassures the reader that Alabama’s flora and fauna gives us little cause to worry on a relative scale. The information provided increases our understanding of and admiration for these species and their environments.

This first book-length examination of the Klan in Alabama represents exhaustive research that challenges traditional interpretations.

The Ku Klux Klan has wielded considerable power both as a terrorist group and as a political force. Usually viewed as appearing in distinct incarnations, the Klans of the 20th century are now shown by Glenn Feldman to have a greater degree of continuity than has been previously suspected. Victims of Klan terrorism continued to be aliens, foreigners, or outsiders in Alabama: the freed slave during Reconstruction, the 1920s Catholic or Jew, the 1930s labor organizer or Communist, and the returning black veteran of World War II were all considered a threat to the dominant white culture. Feldman offers new insights into this "qualified continuity" among Klans of different eras, showing that the group remained active during the 1930s and 1940s when it was presumed dormant, with elements of the "Reconstruction syndrome" carrying over to the smaller Klan of the civil rights era.

In addition, Feldman takes a critical look at opposition to Klan activities by southern elites. He particularly shows how opponents during the Great Depression and war years saw the Klan as an impediment to attracting outside capital and federal relief or as a magnet for federal action that would jeopardize traditional forms of racial and social control. Other critics voiced concerns about negative national publicity, and others deplored the violence and terrorism.

This in-depth examination of the Klan in a single state, which features rare photographs, provides a means of understanding the order's development throughout the South. Feldman's book represents definitive research into the history of the Klan and makes a major contribution to our understanding of both that organization and the history of Alabama.

WINNER OF THE ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE AWARD OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

A classic study of race, reform, and political change in the New South.

Populism to Progressivism in Alabama by Sheldon Hackney is a landmark study of the political and social transformation of Alabama during the pivotal years between 1890 and 1910. Widely recognized as a classic work of Southern history, the book examines the rise of the Populist movement, the emergence of Progressive reform, and the forces that reshaped political power in the state at the turn of the twentieth century.

Hackney explores the complex relationships among race, class, economic change, agrarian protest, and democratic participation. He investigates how farmers, laborers, political leaders, and reformers responded to industrialization, shifting economic conditions, and the challenges of governance in the New South. Central to the narrative are debates over voting rights, disfranchisement, race relations, and the creation of new political institutions that would shape Alabama's future for generations.

Combining quantitative methods with traditional historical scholarship, Hackney provides a nuanced interpretation of both Populism and Progressivism, challenging simplistic accounts of reform and political change. Essential reading for understanding Alabama and the modern South, this influential volume remains a foundational resource for historians, political scientists, students, and anyone interested in the history of American democracy and regional transformation.

Step into the South’s brush arbors and piney woods where faith runs deep, stories run wild, and the old-time camp meeting was anything but quiet.

Praying in Pine Straw immerses readers in the raw, rollicking, and deeply human world of Alabama’s camp meetings—a Southern tradition where fire-and-brimstone preaching echoed through pine forests and where faith was often accompanied by contradiction. From “treeing the Devil” to “holy laughter,” these revivals blended heartfelt worship with all the complications of human nature. Mule-drawn wagons brought the faithful to rustic camps, where gospel fervor mingled with whiskey traders, local politicians, and opportunists of every kind. Preachers thundered against sin—even as they sometimes flirted with it themselves.

Robert C. Morgan offers a textured portrait of camp meetings as both spiritual experience and cultural spectacle, reviving a Southern tradition that flourished from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. With a blend of humor and keen insight, Praying in the Pine Straw unveils the enduring contradictions of “old-time religion” and its significant influence on Southern culture and faith—a legacy that is both treasured and complex.