History
Path to Grace
Winner of the 2023 Eudora Welty Prize
The civil rights movement is often defined narrowly, relegated to the 1950s and 1960s and populated by such colossal figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. ...
Conversations with Jimmy Carter
When Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) lost the presidency in 1980, it would have been reasonable to think his public life was coming to an end. The moderate, evangelical, blue-jeans-wearing peanut farmer made an ...
Forging Freedom in W. E. B. Du Bois's Twilight Years
Contributions by Murali Balaji, Charisse Burden-Stelly, Christopher Cameron, Carlton Dwayne Floyd, Robert Greene II, Andre E. Johnson, Werner Lange, Lisa J. McLeod, Jodi Melamed, Tyler Monson, Eric Porter, ...
In the Shadows of the Big House
In the midst of calls for the removal of Confederate monuments across the South, tens of thousands of museums, buildings, and other historical sites currently comprise a tourist infrastructure of the ...
Matria Redux
In Matria Redux: Caribbean Women Novelize the Past, author Tegan Zimmerman contends that there is a need for reading Caribbean women’s texts relationally. This comprehensive study argues that the writer’s ...
A Thousand Places Left Behind
Born and raised in Mississippi, Peter K. Lutken, Jr. (1920–2014) joined the army in 1941 and was assigned to the Coast Artillery. Originally sent to India to guard airfields, he was reassigned to the ...
The Rhetorical Road to Brown v. Board of Education
As early as 1947, Black parents in rural South Carolina began seeking equal educational opportunities for their children. After two unsuccessful lawsuits, these families directly challenged legally mandated ...
Funkiest Man Alive
Rufus Thomas may not be a household name, but he is widely regarded as the patriarch of Memphis R&B, and his music influenced three generations. His first singles in the early 1950s were recorded as blues ...
William Levi Dawson
William Levi Dawson (1899–1990) overcame adversity and Jim Crow racism to become a nationally recognized composer, choral arranger, conductor, and professor of music. In William Levi Dawson: American ...
With Hawks and Angels
With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life chronicles the fortunate life of a man born in the Cajun country of Louisiana and his interaction with the three distinct parts of his home state: ...