|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
Winner of the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize Benjamin L. Hooks
Award Finalist “An insightful, powerful, and moving book.”
—Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice “Sturkey’s clear-eyed
and meticulous book pulls off a delicate balancing act. While
depicting the terrors of Jim Crow, he also shows how
Hattiesburg’s black residents, forced to forge their own communal
institutions, laid the organizational groundwork for the civil
rights movement.” —New York Times If you really want to
understand Jim Crow—what it was and how African Americans rose up
to defeat it—you should start by visiting Mobile Street in
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the heart of the historic black downtown.
There you can still see remnants of the shops and churches where,
amid the violence and humiliation of segregation, men and women
gathered to build a remarkable community. Hattiesburg takes us into
the heart of this divided town and deep into the lives of families
on both sides of the racial divide to show how the fabric of their
existence was shaped by the changing fortunes of the Jim Crow
South. “Sturkey’s magnificent portrait reminds us that
Mississippi is no anachronism. It is the dark heart of American
modernity.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk
“When they are at their best, historians craft powerful,
compelling, often genre-changing pieces of history…William
Sturkey is one of those historians…A brilliant, poignant work.”
—Charles W. McKinney, Jr., Journal of African American History
Winner of the 2020 Zocalo Public Square Book Prize A rich,
multigenerational saga of race and family in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, that tells the story of how Jim Crow was built, how it
changed, and how the most powerful social movement in American
history came together to tear it down. If you really want to
understand Jim Crow-what it was and how African Americans rose up
to defeat it-you should start by visiting Mobile Street in
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the heart of the historic black downtown.
There you can see remnants of the shops and churches where, amid
the violence and humiliation of segregation, men and women gathered
to build a remarkable community. William Sturkey introduces us to
both old-timers and newcomers who arrived in search of economic
opportunities promised by the railroads, sawmills, and factories of
the New South. He also takes us across town and inside the homes of
white Hattiesburgers to show how their lives were shaped by the
changing fortunes of the Jim Crow South. Sturkey reveals the
stories behind those who struggled to uphold their southern "way of
life" and those who fought to tear it down-from William Faulkner's
great-grandfather, a Confederate veteran who was the inspiration
for the enigmatic character John Sartoris, to black leader Vernon
Dahmer, whose killers were the first white men ever convicted of
murdering a civil rights activist in Mississippi. Through it all,
Hattiesburg traces the story of the Smith family across multiple
generations, from Turner and Mamie Smith, who fled a life of
sharecropping to find opportunity in town, to Hammond and Charles
Smith, in whose family pharmacy Medgar Evers and his colleagues
planned their strategy to give blacks the vote.
Fifty years after Freedom Summer, "To Write in the Light of
Freedom" offers a glimpse into the hearts of the African American
youths who attended the Mississippi Freedom Schools in 1964. One of
the most successful initiatives of Freedom Summer, more than forty
Freedom Schools opened doors to thousands of young African American
students. Here they learned civics, politics, and history,
curriculum that helped them instead of the degrading lessons
supporting segregation and Jim Crow and sanctioned by White
Citizen's Councils. Young people enhanced their self-esteem and
gained a new outlook on the future. And at more than a dozen of
these schools, students wrote, edited, printed and published their
own newspapers. For more than five decades, the Mississippi Freedom
Schools have served as powerful models of educational activism.
Yet, little has been published that documents black Mississippi
youths' responses to this profound experience.
Fifty years after Freedom Summer, To Write in the Light of Freedom
offers a glimpse into the hearts of the African American youths who
attended the Mississippi Freedom Schools in 1964. One of the most
successful initiatives of Freedom Summer, more than forty Freedom
Schools opened doors to thousands of young African American
students. Here they learned civics, politics, and history,
curriculum that helped them instead of the degrading lessons
supporting segregation and Jim Crow and sanctioned by White
Citizen's Councils. Young people enhanced their self-esteem and
gained a new outlook on the future. And at more than a dozen of
these schools, students wrote, edited, printed and published their
own newspapers. For more than five decades, the Mississippi Freedom
Schools have served as powerful models of educational activism.
Yet, little has been published that documents black Mississippi
youths' responses to this profound experience.
|
|