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**Charles Aiken, Professor Emeritus--UT-Knoxville**
(Preeminent scholar on Human Geography of the South)

//The King of California// by Mark Arak & Rick Wartzman []

Barrow Plantation (Barrow owned 4 plantations in Athens, Decatur, & in Oglethorpe) Sylls Fork -- 2 squads working under foremen by 1881 tenancy replaced squad system 35 20 acre tenant farms 75 lbs of cotton per tenant (1/4 of crop?)

--a sharecropper did not own farm implements, only provided labor; therefore, rent was 1/2 (or 1/4) of crop and close supervision --in 1930s, the # of white sharecroppers was nearly the same as the # of blk sharecroppers --commisaries grew up on plantations to help provide supplies & goods to sharecropers; the payment was lien on crop 1880s--Steam gin replaced black laborers [now machines harvest cost

//William Faulkner and the Southern Landscape// by Charles Aiken []

--When land was leased, owners would often ask, "How many hands do you have?" How many able bodies?" Lien was against ALL hands, so if crop doesn't make mortgage, then owner can have access to all family's possessions (lien on wife, kids' property as well)

--Macon was built on the fall line because this was as far as a barge would go; crops would be brought to Macon, then taken by wagon to Darien? then taken by barge to Savannah for shipment --Leroy Percy (Mississippi Senator) owned Trail Lake (Tralake) Plantation in Washington Co.

__**Cotton**__ related to hibiscus & okra late summer, cotton blooms upland cotton (very diff to process by hand--seeds sticky & hard to remove) sea island cotton takes about 180 days from plant to harvest "seed cotton" fresh from boll, seeds not removed cotton seed has interesting byproducts--cottonseed oil, crisco (orig made from cotton seeds) phrase "fair to middling " comes from cotton grading; "fair to middling" were the better grades of cotton; "middling to poor" were the lower grades of cotton quality

-planter neglect was the cause of the demise of plantations in the lower GA piedmont

Robert Woodruff (Coke), George Woodruff (owner of Continental Cotton Gin)

late 20s: boll weevil, dropping cotton prices, & Great Migration

//Who Set You Flowin'// by Farah Jasmine Griffin []

//The Warmth of Other// //Suns// by Isabel Wilkerson []

Memphis Cotton Exchange Museum []

Documenting the American South []

dorothea lange

Erskine Caldwell & Maragaret Bourke White, //You Have Seen Their Faces// []

James Agee & Walker Evans, //Let Us Now Praise Famous Men// (life for poor whites in the cotton South) []

LaLee's Kin []

Jim Giesen, Associate Professor, Mississippi State Univ. (Specialist in Agri History)
Faculty website: [] [Winner of first Deep South Book prize: []]

James Giesen, //Boll Weevil Blues: Cotton, Myth, & Power in the American South// []

__1840__ 1.2 mil farms 17 mil citizens
 * Stats**

__1870__ 2.7 mil farms 38.5 mil cit

__1935__ 6.8 mil farms 127 mil cit

__2007__ 2/1 mil farms 302 mil citizens

__Images of farming__ American Gothic Green giant logo / Hillshire Farms / *cotton logo Sunmaid raisin logo / Cascadian Farms "John Deere green" color has been patented

--Song "Int'l Harvester" by Craig Morgan has intersting irony -- IH patentented first effective cotton picker -- former sharecroppers now building these machines that are essentially pushing farmers off farms -- IH embodies American agr, but NOT the mom & pop farm that the song intends to glorify

Pilgrims last because they were farmers -- TJefferson believed that yeoman farmers were central to America -- Manifest Destiny was farmers moving west to "civilize" the plains -- Great Dep photos show rural families affected more, & perhaps unjustly, by Great Depression (char of urban poverty as differ than rural pov)

Paiting by John Gast, "American Progress" (about Manifest Destiny)

images of farming becoming more important as more people in cities--Green Giant has noone to market to until there are cities (fewer people on farms) & factories with canning tech to packge the peas and then people to market them to (people on farms don't have to buy Green Giant--they grow them)


 * Cotton had economic hold on society, but also became social & cultural hold**


 * Cotton became a profitable crop after perfection of Eli Whitney in 1793, but also great demand for it became people wanted more comf clothes -- cotton is lighter than wool**


 * Why does cotton region become so?**
 * 1. Environment (a) conducive to growth of cotton -- good soil, long growing season, good weather for cotton growing**
 * 2. Timing -- one reason why Euros though Inidans uncivilized because they weren't farmers in the ways Euros though farming should be done so (a) INDIAN REMOVAL (b) cheap land (c) Fed govt is giving away land, encouraging migration to new areas**
 * 3. Labor -- slavery**


 * -By the time of the Civ War, the Amer South was growing 3/4 of world's cotton**


 * -Key pt: Cotton was king, but kingdom was never safe or static -- Constant arguments, debates, defenses**


 * -First debates revolved around slavery**
 * --Abolitionists bound together plight of slaves with success of cotton**
 * --many Southerners defend slavery by blaming cotton**
 * --David Christy's defense of slavery (from book "Cotton is King")--aruges that cotton cultiv affects all other things in Southern society--if slaves were emancipated, and ECON collapse was certain which would paralyze entire nation--southern planters had monop world markets and were beholden to maintain that position--the fate of the national economy depended on cotton & thus, slavery**


 * Associate Justice John McLean -- suggests that southerners aren't bad ppl; they do what they do because of cotton**

[] [] (South Carolina)
 * "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce & Justify Secession of the State of Miss from the Federal Union" (1861)**


 * -"peculiar institution" -- slavery is not peculiar; it's practiced everywhere; it's peculiar because Amer slavery is diff in that it's self-replicating because it is in the planters' hands to ensure (plantations are sites of production AND reproduction)**


 * --abolition of slavery is the largest transfer of private property in American history -- slaves were not only labor, but capital--planters lost more in CAPITAL than they did in cotton crops as a result of the Civil War**


 * Walter Johnson, "Soul By Soul"**


 * Pre-Civil War**
 * -farming existed outside the south as well**
 * -noble work**
 * -debates about slavery are really debates over the nature of farmwork**
 * -competition among "free men" free laborers can't compete in open labor mrkt against slaves in the south**
 * -mobility of work--slaves cannot "work hard enough" to become free**
 * -notion of work--a farmer in North sees slavery as having someone do your hard work for you**


 * (KY where slavery was legal, fought with Union because they didn't believe the war was about slavery & didn't believe that Lincoln would free the slaves)**


 * Book Creating a Confederate Kentucky by Giesen's wife**

Henry Grady, "The South & Her Problems" (1887)--argues that planters and workers are lured back to cotton because of rising cotton prices

Daniel Sully, financier of cotton, wrote in 1909 article -- suggested that planters are in servitude to cotton "cotton does not enrich, but impoverishes, the Southland" (*curse of the New South economy)

Mildred Rutherford (//article written in 1922//)
 * member of UDC
 * goal was to keep the Conf cause going
 * from prom slaveholding fam in GA
 * wrote what she thought was true Southern history
 * based in Athens, ran a finishing school there
 * life's work was to "correct misinterpretations of the South"
 * 1912: justified the Klan as an absolute necessity (common, mainstream ideas -- shared around the same time as "Birth of a Nation," America's first blockbuster film--this is critical because these are the ideas that are included in school textbooks)
 * said "Under the institution of slavery, the negro was the free man...they were the happiest people on the planet."

Sarah Gardner, "Blood & Irony" (looks @ Southern white womens attempts to reclaim some sort of history) []

David Blight, //Race & Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory// []

What did all this criticism amount to? early 1900s -rise of farm experts (learning the science fo cotton) -grow less cotton, but grow it "better" more efficiently -crop diversification --(main groups behind this are govt institutions; USDA est in 1862, Morrill Act in 1862 [most imp piece of educ legis in US Hist)--takes fed land & gives it to states, tells them to sell it, take the $ from land to build "land-grant" college; this school has to teach practical knowledge and teach it to kids who would not be going to college [Miss State, UGA, Michigan State, etc.] *why passing Morrill Act in 1862? bunch of bills Southern lawmakers didn't want to vote for, so Congress starts passing things they wanted to pass that Southerners didn't want to supportin 1890, Congress revisits Morrill Act, calls Second Morrill Act, if you have seg in your state, then you must set up schools for AFrican AMericans so southern states create blk land-grant schools (SCSU, FAMU, NC A&T, Alabama A&M, etc.)* -Hatch Act (f1887) -- fed $ that goes to states to set up research farms to do scientific experiencments onthe science of farming; then disseminate this info to farmers -Smith-Lever Act (1914) -- experts who are usually employed by landgrant schools (live in each county courthouse) they are the people who are charged with making sure the local farmer knows how to grow efficiently; trying to encourage modern, diversified, scientific farming

boll weevil -- pierce bud when it's still closed, the female has eggs in the boll, eggs hatch, then.... boll falls to the ground; enters TX from Mexico in 1890s, a single pair of boll weevil can have 9 mil offspring by the end of the year

monument to boll weevil--lauded as "herald of prosperity" because the boll weevil forced southerners to diversify, planted peanuts, raised hogs, etc. and brought lots of $ to southern farmers REAL STORY: for a yr they diversified, and made lots of $ in hogs& peanuts...then cotton prices went up, so farmers started growing cotton again [boll weevil NOT gone, but farmers were willing to fight it because of potential profit]; speaks to the POWER of cotton; just the year before they had built a statue to the "folly of growing cotton", but these men thought themselves COTTON farmers

so diversification doesnt really happen the way experts want it to

David Cohn (from MS Delta), defended resistance to diversification--"arguments for diversification left men's hearts untouched"

REVIEW 1. ideas about cotton are incredibily important to Americans 2. those ideas become fodder for pol debates & wars 3. southerners were never happy being a cotton kingdom. 4.it was hard to convince southerners to grow other things.

WWII CHANGES EVERYTHING.... 1. Great Migration 2. Second Great Migration 3. Federal involvement -- federal govt drives all post-war prosperity--they are buying prosperity (R&D, highways, farm tech, space program, etc. 4. Tech --These things change southern life forever; begins industrialization of farming; able to do more in less time with fewer man-hrs --food technology starts to change--frozen, packaged foods, better food storage (factories, warehouses, refrigerators, freezers), farms not tied to seasons (food can be stored); food can also be transported in refrigerated cars and therefore, can travel further than they could before --development of southern industries; changes souths dependence on cotton --urbanization & suburbanization (demographic shift); dev of suburbs are one of most imp dev in US Hist [fed govt is behind development of suburbs--GI Bill low int loans to buy NEW homes (not existing properties), creates jobs for home construction & roads, which because of multiplier effect, is going to benefit plumbers, electricians, etc.*almost "state control of economy"--HIGH unemp after WWI as soldiers returned home; GI Bill prevents the same thing from happening after WWII; gov't funds all these things to ensure that returning vets have something to do] What does all this mean for cotton? -farms no longer operate as they had for 150 yrs. (operated about the same from 1800-1945); a) became more capital intensive (they have less cheap labor and more/better machines); b) fewer, bigger farms; c) beginning of the long, slow decline; d) competition from synthetics -- fashion designers of the time were experiementing with polyester, rayon--these became the new upscale, trendy fabrics--more affluent; (e) foreign competition; Cotton, Inc.
 * Why didn't auto ind suffer during WWII? because Ford starts bldg bombers on the fedgovt's dime
 * Cotton, Inc. (cotton logo) -- business group for cotton growers, run by cotton planters in MS & TX, in 1960s & 70s, they saw this decline and began to get nervous (at the time, based in Memphis, & was defined by its southern presence) -- decided to change their marketing of cotton -- hired J. Dukes Wooters, who knew nothing about cotton, to be head of marketing -- he said key to success of cotton was divorcing buying cotton from the ideas around it (slavery, oppression) and the history of it.-- in 1970, people don't want to think about the south and America's difficult past--at this time, jeans were worn by the poor,working class, hippies, etc. --Wooters wants to separate these images of cotton from the reality of modern cotton, and starts to play on cotton's natural assets -- they decide that all products made of cotton must bear the cotton logo-- cotton is not rayon or polyester, but it's "natural"**
 * Giesen thinks this is critical for Southern identity--allows white southerners to have a new relationship with cotton; it rebrands the plant as modern & trendy**
 * cotton t-shirt website**
 * Why are young people embracing cotton so much?**
 * 2008 845 cotton farms remaining in MS; 2009 cotton acreage in US was lowest ever recorded; last yr MS farmers made more money in several other products incl corn, soybeans, catfish, & hay than cotton, but everyone still buys cotton t-shirts & not others**
 * Stockholm syndrome?**
 * --Giesen asserts that perhaps cotton t-shirts are new rebel flags & confederate monuments; statements about race and how they feel about social order, but sees irony and a disconnect between # of people wearing the shirts/logo and # of people actually still connected to cotton**
 * //History of Cotton//** by the Cotton Museum of SC (Bishopville, SC) [*Giesen doesn't like this museum -- says bk makes no mention of slavery & race]

Dr. David Carlton, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University (Economic History)
His webpage (with links to syllabi/webpages for various classes): []

-in order to understand Southern history, must understand the indus rev -in early modern Britain, began to see cloth woven by specialists (before, all done @ home) -late 18th c., development of a number of remarkable machines -Richard Arkwright--developed first factory; was so revolutionary, that Britain tried not to patent -Samuel Slater--slipped? out of Britain--ended up in Rhode Island and built the first ("cotton factory") mill in Pawtucket, RI -H20 power was really critical to early industrialism

David Macauley, //Mill Times// [] "Mill Times" PBS, David Macaulay media type="youtube" key="toV9uIDIJMs?version=3" height="289" width="371"

-before civ war, blacks (slaves) worked in all areas of mill; after Civ War, they are relegated to menial work and machine jobs are given to whites -there was concern about industrializing workers in the antebellum period, because workers were bound to become a proletariat & get a little "rambunctious"


 * Word of the day: "immiserating"**

-both Augusta & Columbus develop as antebellum "mill towns" -but mill development doesnt go very far in antebellum period; (1) because of concerns that it would disrupt the social order, (2) also because of structure of plantation

-plantations were creations of the burgeoning global economy: Euros coming to a new place, stealing land, buying labor from different continent, producing goods here, then exporting them to home continent -slave traders were among first multinational enterprises -plantations are very capitalist, but a very peculiar kind of business enterprises; tend to be highly specialized and crowd out other enterprises; they require lots of land and highly skilled, specialized workers -upland farmers practiced "safety first" strategy; tried to limit their consumptoin of store-bought goods so as not to be dependent on others/market -plantation then has very small base of consumers for its goods (slaves can't acquire property; small farmers don't want to to acquire goods) -map of US RR 1860 -few RR in South, and those built were to transport cotton to market

-the infrastructure of the South was based on the needs of the plantation

-1840 on, this sparks upswing in urbanization

-# of coastal cities is evidence of globalization in that period. These cities existed to send goods abroad, either to NE or England or elsewhere -prior to Civ War, southern per capita income was 85% of nat'l avg; in 1880, southern per capita was 40% of nat'l avg. (poorest state in NC) Southern poverty was both deep & persistent

//**Confronting Southern Poverty in the Great Depression**//, ed. by David Carlton & Peter Coclanis [] (//the people who put together this report were white southern New Dealers, not many blacks involved, which means that race is virtually ignored in the document//)

-late 19th c., demand for cotton stagnates -- south was the "OPEC" of cotton -- South tried to use this in secessionist arguments: "We have an economic stranglehold on the world. How dare they make war on us? Cotton is king!"

-at same time, supply of cotton was booming [perfectly competitve market for fairly undifferentiated market]--in order to make more $, producers produced more cotton (which forced prices down even more--that's why during the New Deal, fed govt forced cotton farmers to grow less)

American Manufacturing Belt

-South shut out from all the skills used in northern industrial complex; dearlth of skilled workers, dearth of ppl knowledgeable of general technologies; dearth of people with entrepreneurial skills; don't have ppl who know how to build or operate a factory or how to compete in a market -also in late 19th c., American economy was becoming more integrated -there was a budding steel industry in 19th c., but southern manufacturing is trumped by existing northern businesses, who can now (because of increasing RR lines) ship goods south and provide major competition for small southern businesses

-RR transformed southern interior -- depots set up about every 6 mi. -- every 30 mi or so, larger places develop, start developing significant comm of merchants, bankers, lawyers (if it's a courthouse town); a lot of ppl invested in real estate, who want to see land prices increase--lots of people who want to see their communities grow! -- don't want to rely on agriculture; want to find some new source of income

FACTORIES--bring in people (which raises land values), they bring in consumers, in cotton belt, mills strengthen cotton market and bring more people to town

-"boosterism becomes a religion" -- everyone has to pull together; not indiv bus striking out, but community working together

-these centers also become centers for development of public education & cadre of prof public service workers

-dev of telegraph is consequence of dev of RRs; as a result, there is instantaneous communicationwith all the cotton mrkts around the world (insert Northrop Draper Loom pic) -textiles in the south become a major industry because textiles were a mature industry; most basic questions had been answered; by end of 19th c., auxiliary businesses were also developed -- mill engineers, mill consultants -- textile industry stops growing, so these ppl find themselves bereft of business -- so they want to move their industry somewhere where it can continue to prosper

-with advanced machines, less need for skilled workers -textiles proved to be perfect for South -Southerners did not INVENT a new industry; they adopted one; bring in easily transferable technologies, minimize need for skills, compete on cost, not quality or innovation

-by 1910, if you treat the south as a separate country, the southern textile indus is 3rd lrgst ind in world BUT FLAWED! -there is bulk production of highly specialized staple goods -term textiles includes a huge variety of stuff, from underwear to industrial fabrics -even though S. is the 3rd lrgst indus, they don't have their own textile machinery manufacturers; machine making tends to lead to ability to diversify and create more advanced products; without this, South loses ability to continue to develop growth capacity **[*//relate to activity with PPCs for "Product Country" & "Parsimonious Country"]//** (EXAMPLE: *Japanese industrialist Toyoda develops first Japanese automatic loom]

(Insert "Southern TExtile Belt 1931" map)

-interesting that textile mill construction was increasing when cotton production was decreasing -blk workers vanish from mills in post-Civ WAr era because they didn't want black workers working alongside white women & children [*workforce @ Sloss Furnaces were mostly black -- brought from plantations and later convict-lease system, but these were predominantly male environments]

-around turn of 20th c., experiments with all-blk workforces, but Carlson argues (Lynn Carlson, Econ Hist @ Emory) that in order to effectively run a mill you need at least a qtr of workers to be skilled; once an industry has become "white", blk workers are not allowed to acquire skills necessary to work those jobs -mills were not built in mostly black, plantation areas

Warren Coleman, blk merchant in North Carolina who established a mill (got some financing from the Dukes)

E.P. Thompson, //**The Making of the English Working Class**// (time-work discipline in industrialization) []

Ben Robertson, //**Red Hills & Cotton: An Upcountry Memoir**// []

Patrick Huber, //**Linthead Stomp**// (suggests that country music developed from mill worker culture) []

Erskine Caldwell, //**God's Little Acre**// []

Ron Rash, **Eureka Mills** (book of poems) []

-one feature of industrialization is the use of YOUNG workers, particularly young women

-by 1931, the South has stolen the market share in the textile indus--it is collapsing in the American NE -this was not a great victory; textiles had become a "sick" industry; chronic overcapacity--too much capital, fashions changed ["flapper era" didn't require as much material for clothing :)] -"stretchout" was an attempt to get workers to do more tasks and thereby, do more work; workers saw this as a violation of the time-honored contract--produces upsurge in labor unrest

(insert pic of union procession, gastonia, NC)

"Serves 'Em Fine" (1931) song by Dave McCarn(?) about mill work [Recording: "Gastonia Gallup" all songs by Gastonia mill workers] -- gives a sense of how workers respond to this -- wkrs feel sense of betrayal -- rise of unions, Communist activity

(insert pic of loray mills, Gastonia, NC)

-1929 Loray Strike -- riot at loray mills -1934 largest strike in US History to that point (up to 400k workers involved) -maj textle union (United Textile Wrkrs--aff w/AFL) -- implemented "flying squadron" tactic; drove around and closed down mills that were still working [GA gov George tallmadge puts strikers into old Civ War POW prisons(?)] -Carlton asserts that mill villages destroy the community (which is different than what Jackie Hall suggests in "Like a Family") -textile indus has always been resistant to real unionization, mainly because it was such unskilled work (workers easily replaced) -WWII leads to enormous demand for fabrics; after WWII, the US is one of the few developed nation left unscathed has very little competition from other nations -stark changes in American trade policy -- up to WWII, trade policy is staunchly protectionist -- this policy was opposed by Southerners, who saw these policies lining the pockets of city govts & big city manufacturers at the expense of local farmers; part. a problem in 1920s -- America had been a debtor nation, but by 1920s was a creditor nation; Euros had to find ways to get US $ to buy US products--could do this if they could trade goods, but they cannot because of tariffs

Breton Woods 1945 -- GATT (WTO)

-after WWII, Amer mrkt is econ engine of the world; Amer, concerned about Cold War, & other nations going communist, opens their markets -for lots of reasons, the S. textile indus has to compete in a globalized market, and they can't

ADJUSTMENTS THEY MADE: -change architecture--1 story, concrete, windowless, airconditioned, easier to go one floor because of electrification

WNCW (88._? FM -- radio station out of NC)

Drs. Sarah Gardner & David Davis, Mercer University
-some econometricians have calculated that with the amount of $ spent by both sides on the Civil War, we could've liberated the slaves, compensated slave holders for lost property, and paid slaves back wages for 200 years

Drew Gilpin Faust,**//This Republic of Suffering//** [] (NPR //Interview w/ D.G. Faust//) []

David Goldfield, //**America Aflame**// []

Charles Dew, //**Apostles of Disunion**// []

Gary Gallagher, //**The Confederate War**// (study of why Southerners fought in the Civil War) and //**The Union War**// (study of why Northerners fought) [] []

--read Robert E. Lee's personal post-war writings; seems that Lee fought for the Confederacy because of personal ambition, not because of commitment to VA or slavery

--before Litwack, other historians had written about Reconstruction -@ turn of 20th c., historian Wm Dunning (from Columbia Univ) started what became known as the "Dunning School" of Reconstruction history; described Reconstrction as "the tragic era", argues that Southerners were ready to rejoin the union, but Republicans forced rules & reg on them, "era of Negro rule" leads to corrupt & unskilled leadership--Dunning trained numerous grad students who went on to teach his thesis @ other major institutions (images in Birth of a Nation & Gone With the Wind would've been supported by Dunning theses)


 * 50 yrs after Civil War, pres of US (Woodrow Wilson) was a Dunning School historian -- these were not SOUTHERN ideas, they were AMERICAN ideas


 * showings of Birth of a Nation paid for Gutzon Borglum to create carvings on Stone Mountain (was a commission for a tribute to the KKK on the other side of Stone Mountain!)

-WEB DuBois's Black Reconstruction was counter to the Dunning School; DuBois' bk was not IGNORED, was reviewed, but was REJECTED because it "wasn't based in archival research" (of course not, because he wasn't allowed in southern archives!)

David Blight, //Race and Reunion// (argues that northerners and southerners were complicit in development of narratives about Reconstruction)


 * before American univ built graduate schools, Amer historians were trained abroad; Amer grad schools are based on Euro grad schools

-movement away from Dunning school after WWII; start of Revisionist school, turns Dunning upside down (challenge idea of Negro incompetence, political corruptions, calls southerners obstructionists, etc)


 * -**Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction (argues that a successful model for Reconstruction existed on Sea Islands of GA)

-Litwack's "Been in the Storm So Long" is part of the Post-Revisionist school (historians writing after Vietnam War, Civ Rights Movement, etc.--very cynical and distrusting time period)

-Litwack demonstrates that there's a range of response to the end of Reconstruction; blacks were excited, confused, fearful, concerned for future; there are 4 mil ppl who have individual responses--Litwack researches the aggregate, but tries to use sources to find the invididual responses and show that there were different responses

Pleasant Hill neighborhood-predominantly AFrican American community; antebellum pd Macon slaves "lived in"; after Civ War, these blks are dispossessed and leave or are pushed out of masters homes; settle on vacant land (College St, left on Walnut) just outside the city (College ST. was city limit @ time of Civil War); interesting political maneuvering to encapsulate Pleasant Hill--major streets run just outside (not thru) it; I-75 runs RIGHT thru it (because it was least expensive property right in middle of Macon

-Litwack relies on WPA Narriatives; most historians won't touch WPA Narratives with a 10 ft pole, because they're so "tainted", because most interviewers were whites--during 1930s, former slaves probably would've made converstations as short and whitewashed (maybe) as possible because they were afraid and cautious

Info on WPA Narratives [] []

Arthur Raper, Sharecroppers All [] T.J. Woofter Jared Hirsch(?) wrote Cultural history of WPA (pub by Chapel Hill)

-Neil McMillan starts with 1890s (2nd generation after Emancipation)


 * Reinhold Niebuhr quote about Negro freedom

Ayers books "The Promise of the New South" is written in response to C. Vann Woodward's Origins of the New South (1951) written in the tradition of the master narrative; Ayers says that the New South is fundamentally different from the Old South

-symbolism of name "Junction"--represents transition from Old South to New South, but the junction also represents a crossroads--one can go in one direction or another & there are consequences for choosing either direction

-Woodward is writing a master narrative; Ayers looks at ALL sorts of different stuff and follows a path that is kinda like "riding the rails"; wants reader to tease out the story

Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (about boosterism in Midwest) Paul Gaskin, New South Greed (?) Wilbert Cash, The Mind of the South (1941) Cole Hutchinson, Apples & Ashes

-Southern literary culture is until 1880s, when U.S. magazine industry emerged; most novels were serialized (published in chapter series) George Washington Cable ("Sir George") published in The Atlantic (magazine); begins to create something of a vogue for southern stories in northern magazines -"Marse Chan" pub by Thomas Nelson Page (story of northerner traveling thru countryside who meets a blk man named Sam who tells him about slavery "dese was de best times in Sam's life")

-in a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing society, the plantation begins to look like an idyllic retreat

-Warner Bros. "Jezebel" played by Bette Davis (Fisk Jubilee Singers play slaves)

(insert) Winslow Homer paintings, "Near Andersonville" & "Visit From the Old Mistress" []

James Agee, //Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)//

-part of Time Life/Fortune enterprise; Fortune was designed to cover US business during Depression; book came from assignment in 1936 to do an 8,000 word article; Dr. Gardner describes him as intellectually "incontinent"--couldn't stop writing!!

RIchard Wright, //12 Million Black Voices// (photodocumentary of life among southern blacks) [] Gunnar Myrdal, //An American Dilemma// []

Drs. Sarah Gardner & David Davis
-C. Vann Woodward wrote Strange Career of Jim Crow in 1955 in response to conversations that were being had post Brown v. Board, to disabuse people of the idea that segregation has always existed; demonstrates that it is a fairly recent invention and that it was constructed to serve a particular purpose

-Woodward's idea is_ ; suggests that they (southern & northern liberals & southern radicals) "capitulate" to racism, they just give in to the pressure

-CVW focuses on the law, specifically Supreme Ct cases--if SupCt case case set some things in motion (Brown), the SupCt can tear those things down and not be out of their bounds

-post-Reconstruction, many states rewrote their state constitutions, these constitutions include the laws that we now call "black codes" that defined "black" ("one-drop" rule) & conscribed African Americans behavior

-when there are challenges to these laws, Sup Ct sides with states' legal definitions of conduct -then come Jim Crow laws (which are reflections of social attitudes)


 * in the 18th c., the south looked to VA, 19th c. looked to SC, 20th c. looked to MS -- other states followed MS lead -- ex.: MS was first to implement literacy laws to prevent blk voting, Sup Ct upheld the law, then other southern states followed with similar laws

-CVW was criticized because his scope was limited, because some thought he was suggesting that Jim Crow could be easily dismantled by Sup Ct. laws, which was not the case

Plessy v. Ferguson info [] []

-Plessy argues that being forced off the 1st class railcar harmed his reputation; court argues that because he is not white, he is not entitled to a "reputation"; "whiteness" becomes private property which blacks cannot acquire (?)

John L. Spivek, //Hard Times on a Georgia Chain Gang// [] -by 1890s, southern prison system had become extremely corrupt; someone could be arrested for vagrancy, but sentence could be changed at any time & for no reason -for a convict sentenced to 5 yrs, this is basically a death sentence -- convicts were subjected a vicious & brutal system

[]
 * Info on convict-lease system**

Douglas A. Blackman, //Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of African Americans From the Civil War to WWII// [] [] []

David Oshinsky, Worse than Slavery [] [] (NYTimes bk review)


 * convict-lease system died out by 1920s, but was replaced by chain gangs (most roads in early modern south were built by inmates on chain gangs)

before Civ War, most inmates were white, because slaves were owned by masters and punished by them; after the Civ War, the black body becomes the property of the legal system, blackness is defined & conscribed by law so # of black inmates increases dramatically

Flannery O'Connor, "The Artificial Nigger" [] Marlon Riggs, "Ethnic Notions" [] media type="youtube" key="IHMo64KSApQ?version=3" height="360" width="640" Harriet Wilson, //Our Nig// [] Michelle Alexander, //The New Jim Crow// [] Anne Moody, //Coming of Age in Missisippi// [] Richard Wright, "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" []


 * David's Davis assertion is that War on Drugs is extension of Jim Crow laws because of disparities in sentences for drug possession (vs violent crime); David (student) asked if 2/3 of inmates are non-violent drug offenses (?)

Behind the Veil interviews were conducted primarily by grad students @ UNC-Chapel Hill


 * also link between criminal record and disfranchisement

-Jim Crow is a very "physical" system; it's about BODIES, and which bodies can be where -most middle class blacks were teachers, doctors, nurses, dentists, morticians: all these deal with BODIES, interacting with bodies -Jim Crow is about the definition and control of the black male body

"sundown towns"--white communities that would allow blks to come in during the day to work (as domestics, etc.), but don't be caught here after sundown ["N*, don't let the sun go down on your head."]

Debra McDowell (lit professor who graduated from Tuskegee) wrote memoir called **//Leaving Pipeshop//** []

Robert F. Williams, //Negroes With Guns// []

Negroes With Guns, chapters 3-5 online: []

PBS Independent Lens: Robert F. Williams []

Video: Negroes With Guns media type="youtube" key="hpOEgk9yY0g" height="312" width="512"

Dr. Bobby Donaldson -- Professor of History, University of South Carolina
[] (school website)

Dr. Donaldson's Powerpoint Presentation:

GREAT MIGRATION resources (class readings) []

James Gregory (book on southern diaspora) -- in the 20th c, there were 28 mil southerners who left the south and moved elsewehere, of that 28% black, 68% white

-when we say "Great Migration", we assume African Americans, blks are really part of a much broader demographic shift and movement of people to various parts of the country



A Cameraman's Journey ed. by Tom ?-- photos discovered about 20 yrs ago in a NY archives that show visual narrative of life & times of Afr Am during era of Jim Crow

-Afr Am start to move in the 2 yrs before WWI; among AFr Am, there was always a point of reference re: migration; UGRR in antebellum period, Exodusters in post-Recon era, back-to-AFrica movement 1870s & 80s (strong correlations between these varying points of departure)

-the prevailing voice in 19th c was Booker T. Washington, who came on scene in Sept 1895 ("Atlanta Compromise" opening speech @ Atlanta Cotton States Exposition--was thought to be @ ctr of black thought at this time) [[] (//BTW's speech, Atlanta Compromise//)]

-BTW's idea was "casting down their buckets" where they were, he thought the south was the BEST place for Afr Am to make a place for themselves; if AFr Am distinguished themselves in an econ sense, that would eliminate the "race problem" SADLY mistaken --->1895-1915--pronounced peaks in racial violence, more lynching, legalization of seg, disfranchisement)


 * Interestingly, BTW received a # of ltrs of commendation for his speech, one letter comes from Wilberforce--WEB DuBois wrote, "I hardly disagree."

//The Souls of Black Folk// by W.E.B. DuBois ([]) //Cane// by Jean Toomer ([])

=
-WEB later travels this region & comes to believe that BTW has underestimated entrenchment of white hatred & supremacy; 1899, DuBois is teaching & researching @ Atl Univ working on "Atl Univ Studies" researching life & cond of blks in rural GA; that spring, he hears acct of **__Sam Hose__** who was an itinerant farmer who worked south of Atlanta for a man named Cranford (this story mentioned by Ida B. Wells); the two debated about Hose's wages & it ultimately led to the murder of Cranford, Hose goes on run, meanwhile Atl Constitution (newsppr) added "new chapter to the narrative": that Hose also raped Cranford's wife AND forecasts that there will be a lynching--Talk about PUSH factors!; Sam hose is ultimately caught in Newnan, GA during Sunday morn church hours--GA RR sold discount tkts for people to make their way to Newnan to what many people knew would be the "social event of the season" IRONY: tkts were sold so that people could arrive to NEwnan after 2pm so they wouldn't miss church that morn THOUSANDS came to witness the lynching of Sam Hose; body is doused with kerosene & burned beyond recognition, body dismembered, & pieces of body passed out for people to take home======

-back to DuBois: he writes a long letter to Joel Chandler Harris (Atl Constitution) and takes it to the newspaper, en route, passes a butcher shop, and dangling in the window are the burnt knuckles of Sam Hose, because the folk in Atl want to make sure that everyone knows what happened to Sam Hose (a man who simply contested his wages and forgot his "place" in southern society); DuBois said that at this point he bgan to realize that research alone was not enough, but that protest was necessary to bring change

Info on Sam Hose incident: []

-many people didn't disagree with BTW's philosophy, but came to believe that it was entirely untenable in this type of environment

DuB becomes part of the 1st wave of the Great Migration--in 19__, WEB moves to NYC to become__ _ of NAACP and editor of the Crisis magazine WEB DuBois Papers (at UM-Amherst): []

//Without Sanctuary//, ed. by James Allen [] []

Documentary, //Soldiers Without Swords// [] media type="youtube" key="ruQarGb3368?version=3" height="360" width="640"

-to demonstrate PUSH factors, BD shows excerpts from Birth of a Nation (which black press -- & Mary -- called "Death of a nation"); Woodrow Wilson validated details of the film, saying that it was accurate based on his recollections of life in South Carolina

-to join release of Birth of a Nation with rebirth of KKK

-Chicago Defender argued that ppl were leaving GA (in particular) because there were no schools, no protection from the KKK

-Oct 1916, Abbeville, SC, Anthony Crawford was a very successful blk cotton farmer; he went to sell cotton seed to a local store owner named WD BArksdale, known that seed sold @ $.90/bushel -- Btw, Crawford had been hailed as a prime ex of the BTW model--Barksdale offers him .85, and they get into a debate about price; BArksdale is offended, leads to physical confront btwn AC and store customers; AC arrested, and rumors began to circulate--newspprs --AC kidnapped from jail during the night & lynched, why & who was involved remains a mystery [Family is currently trying to reclaim approx 400 acres of land that family was compelled to leave in 1917, when after AC's murdered and family is told to leave; the land went up for auction and was purchased by a cousin of Barksdale--NAACP sends down a light-skinned man to pass and do reconnaisance on what was going on; they conclude that he was murdered because of economic envy; WT Andrews is lawyer in SC and is in daily corr w/NAACP & WEB; tells them that episodes like AC's lynching become a compelling reason for blks to migrate]
 * Benjamin E. Mays was born in 1898 in SC near Abbeville, in his book he talks about the challenges of growing up Jim Crow & the challenges of knowing & staying in your place and still be true to yourself and still keep your sanity

Benjamin E. Mays, //Born to Rebel// []

insert info Chicago Defender

Randel Jelks, //Benjamin E. Mays: Schoolmaster of the Movement// (USC Press) []

Grace Hale, //Making Whiteness// (looks very closely at the role of journalism in amplifying the racial tensions of the time) []

Stewart Tolney & E.M. Beck, //Festival of Violence// []

Amy Louise Woods, //Lynching and Spectacle// []

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, //Lynching in the New South// []

Arther F. Raper, //The Tragedy of Lynching// []


 * some of the earliest sound recordings were done at lynchings

1906 Atlanta Race Riot -- two people observe & changes them forever: Margaret Mitchell

Walter White, Fire and Flint (?)

? George White -- Wilmington Riots

Crisis Magazine is now digital! []


 * WEB loved (?)Macon Telegraph -- this newsppr strongly discouraged Great Migration, arrested people at train station (argued loitering and vagrancy)

QUESTION: How can one be a white southerner without black people?

-Southerners argued that blks were leaving because of propaganda from northern newspapers that spoke of proserity in North; Macon telegraph blames Robert Abbott, ed of Chicago Defender, who happened to be from GA also and used his ppr as a platform for encouraging migration from the South

-the Macon postal service began intercepting the Chicago DEfender & Pittsburgh Courier before it could get into the hands of black Georgians

"The Black Press History" on YouTube [excerpt from "Soldiers Without Swords"] []
 * Charlotta Spears (Bass) owner & editor of the California Eagle

Other black newspapers: Norfolk Journal & Guide, New York Age & New York ___, Baltimore Afro American__

Motivating factors for Great Migration: -Racial violence -- rise of KKK & lynching

-image in PPT of Albert Redd, born in 1917, lives in Augusta -- father Curtis (man on right) -- speaks of father who left for Chicago and was never heard from again

-Migration led to breaks in families (as in story above) in some cases

-The Great Migration: Letters to the Promised Land -- some ppl sent letters ahead to try to get information or explaining why they were looking for work, etc.

Some blk newspapers have been digitized []

James Grossman, //Land of Hope// (migration of blks to Chicago) Isabel Wilkerson, //The Warmth of Other Suns// (2nd wave of blk migration--post-Depression era)


 * history of the Urban League


 * there were real tensions as blacks came North as they learned the "new script" of conduct and ways of North; churches often acted as "training grounds" to prepare blacks to adjust & adapt to northern life

Wallace Best, //Passionately Human, No Less Divine// []

-white newspapers would write to blk readers that they shouldn't go North because the weather was too cold (you'll freeze to death)

-real debate re: migration and whether blks should stay or go: -Rev. J.A. Martin argued that blks should not leave, but remain in South in order to fight. ("Let us remain in the South and fight manfully for what is right.")

"Corridor of Shame" (about educational inequities -- connected somehow to I-95)

-southern cities like Charlotte, Atlanta, & Birmingham should be considered "great migration" cities because people moved from rural areas to these cities in search of better opportunities
 * prior to 1940, Florida was virtually uninhabited; Pensacola & Jacksonville were the two main city centers; sugarcane & citrus became major industries in the 20th c., and attracted many migrant workers

heritage quest familysearch.org
 * ancestry.scholar (ancestry research website)

James Gregory, //Southern Diaspora//

Langston Hughes, //The Big Sea// [his autobiography/memoir] []

[] [] [] (June 2011) [] (story from 2000)
 * Tulsa Race Riots (& updates on discussion about reparations)

John Hope Franklin, //Mirror to America// [his autobiography/memoir] Tim Tyson, //Democracy Betrayed// (about Wilmington Riots) []

Walter White, from Atl, first Field Secretary for NAACP, he was charged with establishing new chapters of NAACP in remote areas -NAACP "Silent Protest of 1917" [] [] [] (teacher resource)

National Archives: [] Chronicling America: 1850-1922: []

-many ppl thought if blks served valiantly in WWI, they would be given better treatment upon return home ("A Fiction Claled Democracy")

??1915 massacre of blk soldiers in Texas []

info on Theodore Bilbo, Ben Tillman, "Harlem Hellfighters" Charles A Shaw, Henry Grady, Joel Chandler Harris

-Urban League started in 1917 -NAACP started in 1909; mainly northern org; in 1915, 90% of blks were living in Jim Crow South--NAACP began to think that they needed to be in South where blks were -JWJohnson becane wrkr for NAACP to go south & establish NAACP chapters; he's the one who employs Walter White; they find a surprising amount of public support from southern blks

-many blacks did NOT follow the great mig, so what's going on in South with those who remained? -NAACP is thriving & growing, NACW (Natl Assoc of Colored Women) -Valdosta, GA: tenant worker named Mary Turner,whose husband Hayes Turner because of debates about adequate wages; MT speaks about husband's death; MT was lynched at 9 mos. pregnant, baby was excised & killed -blk women's organizations adopt constitution (May 1918) "Whereas we the neg women of the state are aroused by this unwarranted...."

Steven Hahn, //A Nation Under Their Feet// -also looks @ # of ppl who joined Garvey's UNIA, including Southerners (that 50% of membership was from rural South)
 * chief investigator of Marcus Garvey was J. Edgar Hoover

-summer 1919, NAACP met for nat'l conv in Cleveland, disc about blk issues, from floor of conv AD Williams (Atl NAACP chapter pres & grandfather of MLK) asked, "If we're searious about all this, let's have next nat'l mtg in South."--In May 1920, NAACP met in Atlanta--wrote platform that was a clear civil rights campaign

-move toward somewhat progressive race relations was purely economic -- Atl "couldn't afford" to have race problems -- interesting to note how involved chambers of commerce were in diffusing racial situations [in Richmond & Greensboro, it was the Chamber of Commerce that negotiated with the students who participated in sit-ins, & in every case, blk organizers demands were met]

-Carter G. Woodson "migration of the Talented Tenth" -- many New South black ldrs were also moving north

Theodore Kornweibel, //Investigating Everything// []


 * Garvey was indicted on mail fraud (was in jail in Atlanta); southerners had long been intercepting mail from blk newspapers, organization, no wonder that they wanted the Postmaster General to be a Southerner

GA Bankers Assoc James Peters "The exodus of the Negro has left in its trail a destruction--silent, but as great ... as the march of Sherman's Army"

Dark Side of the Promised Land -Red Summer 1919 ([]) -Tulsa Riots 1921 "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes ([])

Chris Crowe, //Getting Away With Murder// []

Documentary project BD has recently worked on: //A True Likeness: The Black South of Richard Samuel Roberts, 1920-1936// (Columbia, SC) [] []

Dr. Houston Roberson, Professor of History, Sewanee: The University of the South
[] (faculty webpage) [Houston Roberson, co-ed, //Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song//] -some historians say that plantation life destroyed all Afr religious systems; the plantations were like "Christian missions" -others say (Woodson, Raboteau) that Afr took christianity, combined it with their existing beliefs, & created something new

HR argues: (1) blks used religion to make sense of their new lives (2) relig provided an important bond that united Afr of different ethnic groups (3) rel functioned as acceptable way to express frustration, jubilation, & all emotions in between (4) studying blk rel help us to see that race & racism are national problems (not just local)

Michael Gomez, //Exchanging Our Country Marks// [] Lawrence Levine, //Black Culture & Black Consciousness// (Gomez's book was written in response) []#

AME 1787/1815 AME Zion 1821 CME [Christian (initially Colored) Methodist Episcopal] 1870 Nat't Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. 1880 Nat'l Baptist Convention of America, Inc. Nat'l Progressive Baptist COGIC 1907

-denominationalism characterizes emancipation period -space characterizes "nadir" (approx 1877-1920) -- migration causes concentration of population, feelings of new opportunties ([]) ["//nadir" first used in "The Negro in American Life//"?] -this leads to diversity of religious expressions, including holiness / sanctification movement -Catholicism -Black judaism 1886 "Church of the Living God Pillar & Ground of the Truth for All Nations" in Chattanooga, TN (insert pic of black jewish ldrs) -blk judaism founded by Wentworth Arthur Matthews

media type="youtube" key="4bmpkuWwjz0?version=3" height="265" width="376" Erskine Clark, //Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic// [] Sylviane Diouf, //Servants of Allah: African Americans Enslaved in the Americas// [] Debra Pollard, //When the Church Becomes Your Party// []


 * Info on Vernon Johns ([])

Dr. Douglas E. Thompson, Associate Professor of Southern Studies--Mercer University
-even @ the highwater mark in US History (1954-56), only 28% of population participated in religious activities on a wkly basis

RANDOM:
 * Addae Moon* Playwright/Researcher 404.814.2067 (amoon@AtlantaHistoryCenter.com) [//used to work with CP//?]

Rhys Isaac, //The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790// interested in transformation in VA that allows a hierarchical church to function w/o a bishop; teases out emphasis on democratization of religion; vestries (lay leaders) given authority over local church; MA considered religious (Puritans), but VA is usually considered not so religious (mostly Anglicans), but accdg to Isaacs they are


 * Puritans come to do experiment to purify the Anglican Church, show that it works & take it back; the Pilgrims come to do away with Anglican church

-one cannot talk about South as Bible Belt from its inception; colonial Southern preachers writing in early years are all talking about how irreligious ppl are

-three religious awakenings (1) First Great Awakening -- 1730s in New Eng; become known as Baptists, they start migrating down Appalachian Ridge; become agitators for Evangelicals (a "witnessing" faith, that should be preached freely); take on two forms: (1) anti-intellectuals (don't need education because the Lord speaks to me) & (2) more educated (began in 19th c.) Michael Sobel, //The World They Made Together// -between 18thc and 19thc is that ppl migrate to S and they do some "very strange things", Sobel argues that Baptists in 18thc VA granted slaves freedom in the congregation; slaves could bring charges against slaveholder & church could mete out discipline against slaveholder; initially, the church condemns slavery and is more open to "gospel of liberation" (we're all equal in God's eyes"); these Evang are "scary" enough to slaveholders that they DONT want their slaves to be Christians, because if they have souls, they have to be treated differently, which would completely undermine their system of authority -in early yrs, Euros did NOT have sense of Heaven as "family reunion" (Africans do) -however, Jefferson (a deist--doesn't even believe in Heaven & hell), says in a late life ltr to daughter, "when we get to Heaven, we'll be a family again"; suggests some influence of AFr sensibility -1801 Pine Ridge, KY revival breaks out 10K souls in attendance, including lots of Afr Am and some are preaching and everyone (white/blk, men/women) is equal [in early Baptist church, women were deacons] -Presbyterians start moving South, Baptists & Methodists follow -Second Great Awakening: predominantly Southern phenomenon ("Burned Out" phenomenon in NYC)

Christine Leigh Heyrman, //Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt// -suggests that in beginning, Evangelicalism in very radical; btwn 1820 to 1826, these are actively agitating for end of slavery and nearly lead to abolition of slavery -- ends in 1831, most attribute to Nat Turner, but Heyrman argues that Evang min recognize that they need $ in order for their cong to survive, so they start courting slaveowners -by mid-18th century, Evang ideology re: slavery has shifted; @ Mercer Univ, graduation exam was defense of the institution of slavery -takes two decades for this transition to take place; seen in diaries of Methodist preachers in particular that they have a VERY difficult time transitioning away from advocacy of end of slavery
 * Parson's room in front of Tullie Smith house --

-scholars start talking about "cultural captivity" -gender issues arise in church; in early yrs, religion is feminine, preachers are "weak men"; but in 19thc., religion becomes masculine ("Real men pray") -at beg of 19thc, South is NOT Bible Belt, but by the end of 19thc., it is -- South is Bible Belt, not because it's ___, but because church presence is so strong--asserts a cultural understanding of Jesus & the gospel, because they are monied intersts, because they care about Victorian values & interests -at beg of 19thc, Evang are marginalized ("they will rape your children"), but by end, one is "no one" if they are not a member of one of these churches

Paul Harvey, //Freedom's Coming//: Charles Reagan Wilson, //Baptized in Blood// [religion of the "lost cause"--if you're a Confederate troop & you believe God's on your side and if you're a Federal troop & you believe God's on your side, what does this do to your perspective?--South lost, but they did NOT believe afterward that God wasn't on their side--there was a "crisis of faith", but it was "we were not good slaveholders; had we been better at it, God would've favored us"; therefore, loss of war was a purifying event; helps them to see the error of their ways, so God is purifying them to become better WHITE Christians--Social Gospel movement begins in the North but moves South; Thomas Dixon ("The Clansmen") is a Social Gospeler; they are religiously progressive, but racially conservative--in South, disfranchisement & segregation are seen as Progressive-era reforms; corrupt & violent practices had begun to keep blks & poor whites from political activity, therefore, legal disfranchisement becomes away to clean up the political corruption that exists--*Progressive is NOT always forward-looking]

Erskine Clark, //Dwelling Place// -in one bk on one plantation, one sees all this; slaveowner is a Presby minister; goes to Princeton, while there, argues against slavery (& is rejected by fam); returns to GA and attempts to evang slaves, but fam & neighbors are uneasy, so he modifies message, and when he takes over family plantation, he changes again [gets at telling black & white story together]

Digital collections of letters & diaries from women & ministers [INSERT]

-ppl were really trying to learn how to work out their faith in slavery's context -CRM was a progressive liberal theological movement (?)

Samuel S. Hill, //Southern Churces in Crisis Revisited// (1960s -- created field) -son of white Baptist preachers; in 1960s, Hill is convinced that Southern Baptists should be more progressives in terms of Civil Rights, Southern Baptists were advocated of the status quo -Hill argues that churches are "culturally captive"; rested entire thesis on this idea -problem is how does one "speak truth to power" when it's easier to follow the existing idea

Andrew W. Manis, //A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth//

Spike Lee's "Four Little Girls" media type="custom" key="20269664" width="180" height="180" media type="youtube" key="0Wad8bNxd8k?version=3" height="360" width="640"
 * insert Fred Shuttlesworth, Fighting Deseg on YouTube

-"But for Birmingham, the CRM would not have existed"; DT adds that if not for Shuttlesworth, Birmingham would not have been on the map of CRM

S. Jonathan Bass, //Blessed Are the Peacemakers: MLK, Eight White Religious Leaders, & the "Letter From the Birmingham Jail"//

-FS tells King you HAVE to come to B'ham; King says "no"--knows that they will be killed; FS knows that if SCLC comes, cameras will come also, and will show how BAD the situation is in B'ham

Glenn Eskew, //But For Birmingham//

"I Have a Dream" speech media type="youtube" key="IWcPz3TvtCg?version=3" height="360" width="640"

-Looks at 8 clergy to whom King is responding when he writes the "Ltr from B'ham Jail"; argues that we've often misread the letter, which was never printed in B'ham, so it was never intended for THOSE 8 clergy; printed in Christian Sentinel, distributed in West & NE, basically saying you all have to start agitating where you are; all these clergy are progressive and encourage their cong to be open to acceptance of blk members, etc. -DT says in 1957 in Richmond, East Hanover Presbytery offered deseg summer camp

-by late 1960s, movement going on in South called "Jesus People" movement; by mid-1970s, 1973 Sup Ct. rules that becasue Bob Jones Univ accepts Fed $, they cannot dictate whether blks are allowed in the Univ and that they cannot prohibit interracial dating (blks had started attending Bob Jones, because there is a theological fundamentalism in blk Baptist churches, so they saw Bob Jones as a "safe place" for their kids & future ministers); so Bob Jones gives away tax-exempt status because it says Fed Govt should not be able to tell us how to read scripture; galvanizes Evangelicals, because Bob Jones exemplifies fundamentalism -by 1979, use of "fundamentalists" to describe themselves (Evang?) -Fundamentalists & Pentecostals don't "get along" (don't believe in speaking in tongues) -by 1979-80, there was a movement to recover Southern Baptists from liberal teachings; blks often aligned with conservative theological teachings -by 1990s, Southern Baptists are largest theological group in America; so they were thought to be the expression of black religious ideas in South

Liston Pope, //Millhands and Preachers: A Study of Gastonia// []


 * the 4 major Catholic ctrs in the US are in the South (Baltimore, Savannah, N.O., & Barstown, KY)

Max Weber, //The Protestant Work Ethic --// Weber argues that capitalism began to attach itself to "calling"--productivity matters in the workplace (the mill) because it's as unto God (basic tenet of capitalism)

-Pope was first to write on what he perceived to be the relationship between religion & industry in the South -- for 80 yrs, this was the seminal text; interested in how a religion can be that of both the mill owner and the millhand


 * Why do ppl walk down the aisle when they join church? because in the 19thc., when ppl come there to join, there was a vote taken (cong had to agree that person was fit to join)

-when the mill owners enter into this relationship between mill & church, they did so because good churchgoers are usually good mill workers (reliable, stable, etc.)

Albert Raboteau, //Slave Religion//

//The Autobiography of Ben Franklin// ([]) --Ben Franklin's autobiography (befriends George Whitfield, because he's amazed that Whitfield can attract so many to outdoor worship --Anglicans believe that 'church' happens in the consecrated space that is the church bldg-- then Franklin starts to think about how, if they print things & sell them for a couple pence, they could make lots of $)

-@ end of 19thc, Baptists were radicals, Baptists? & Pentecostals were more likely to embrace Communism


 * Calvinism--predestined (which is why it worked with slavery: because of one's color, they were preordained by God to be a slave / worker")
 * Armenianism--you are not predestined; it can be taken from you, so you have to work on your salvation daily

--the emotive mill workers are saying (accdg to Charles Lippy) I'll take my suffering in this world, because it means that in the next, I'll be in Heaven with Jesus

Flannery O'Connor, "Parker's Back" & "Good Country People" [] []

DuBois, "The Coming of John" in //The Souls of Black Folk// []

Elie Evans, //The Provincials// (autobiography of growing up Jewish in NC--good to get students to think about non-Christians growing up in the Bible Belt)

Dr. Joe Crespino, Associate Professor of History -- Emory University
Faculty website: []

William Faulkner, "A Rose For Emily" []

-by 1877, a certain memory of the South is already being put in place that will affect southern politics


 * Thomas Nast cartoons: []

-Congress does respond to reconstruction era violence (KKK Act of 1871), but becomes hard to sustain White League?

-interesting parallels between American Reconstruction and "recon" in Iraq & Afghanistan

-Amer interest in sustaining Reconstruction efforts is waning because of Panic of 1873 (most significant economic downturn in US up to that point)



-This Nast "the first vote" was drawn about 5 yrs before the "colored recon", but note that it shows what appears to be a revered old slave, a well-to-do man, and a Union soldier, not the "buffoons" shown in the "recon" cartoon

Nicholas Lemann, //Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War// []

-by mid-1870s, Democratic govts are back in place in Southern states, but blks still voting then & into 1880s

-1880s & 90s were time of great political unrest in South; agrarian unrest in particular, poor farmers being brought into market economy, which is making them aware of operations of & concentrations of financial capital (in banks and in the hands of certain individuals) -- this blossoms into Populist Party

Populist Party platform: []

-Tom Watson elected as Populist congressment from GA in 1892; nom as VP Candidate to Wm Jennings Bryan in 1896

-some historians who have challenged C Vann Woodward have suggested that prior to industrialization/modernization, there was no need for segregation laws--separation of blks & whites was understood and didn't need to be delineated until there was the development of new public spaces (RRs, public facilities), where segregated accommodations had to be mandated


 * Reconstruction era black codes: []

-1890s is the period of disfranchisement (1890-1910)-- states replace the Reconstruction era state constitutions with new state constitutions; includes provisions that excludes blks (Mississippi begins in 1896? or 98?)

-Williams v. Mississippi gave stamp of approval for political segregation [] (general info) [] (text of case)

-disfranchisement in an int'l context -- all this is happening in the context of: --Amer war against Spain --Rudyard Kipling, "White Man's Burden" -- whites are charged with educating all "colored" people of the world (done in response to US control of Philippines) Kipling's "WMB": []

-disfran era ends in 1910 and is replaced by progressive era -- progressive reformer obj is to correct the ills & excesses caused by capitalism, industrialization, & resulting discrepancies btwn rich & poor--progressives also want to clean up political process (corruption & political machines, etc,)

-one way to "clean up" politics is by allowing only wealthy whites (not blks or poor whites) to vote. Smith v. Allright (outlaws white primary in TX)

Strom Thurmond -one of 1st Southern Dems to become Repub (in 1962--supported Barry Goldwater) -one of 1st reps from Sunbelt state; these are states that see resurgence in economic development, northerners & westerners moving south to take adv of new econ opportunties; as a result, you have a shift in power from NE to SE from 1964-2008, every President is from a Sunbelt State (LBJ-TX, JC-GA, GB 1 & 2-TX, etc.)

-Thurmond was a pioneer of working with evangelical voters on the right -Roger Milliken: []

David Cleski (?), bk about blks in NC who protested desegregation orders

Holmes v. Alexander (case that sanctioned "freedom of choice" schools in South, schools for whites which grew up in late 60s in response to desegregation efforts) []

"Opera in Greenville" by Rebecca West, perhaps the most celebrated female journalist of her day

[] [] [] NPR interview w/author of //Fire in a Canebrake//: []
 * Moore's Ford Lynching**


 * "long form journalism" -- read more like essays, author is observer more so than journalist -- becomes en vogue in 1920s-40s

Essie Mae Washington-Williams (Strom Thurmond's blk daughter) [] []

[]
 * Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"

Dr. Sarah Gardner, Associate Professor of History, Mercer University
Faculty website: []

[]
 * Fatal Flood** (PBS documentary)

Info on William "Will" Alexander Percy: []

William Alexander Percy, //Lanterns on the Levee// []

William Faulkner, //The Old Man// []

-Southern whites became fearful and somewhat schizophrenic about slavery & later the black labor force: "They love being slaves, but if we give them guns, they'll kill us." "They're good workers, but if we evacuate them, they'll never come back."

Nan Woodruff, //American Congo// []

Daryl Michael Scott, //Contempt and Pity// []
 * perhaps blacks with guns & self-defense is left out of narrative because we want people to see blk people with PITY, and if we see them defending themselves, we will not necessarily have pity for them

--Woodruff's bk suggests that American South in post-Recon era is a part of the imperialist movement of which America & Europe are a part is taking place in the South; the move to colonize Africa & various parts of the world was seen in the American South, as well as the effort to subjugate & control the labor necessary to build "empire" was visible in both the Belgian Congo & in the American South

Adam Hochschild, //King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, & Heroism in Colonial Africa// []

--one thing that Woodruff shows is the ways in which planters dominated EVERY aspect of the planter regime--alluvial empire; they controlled not only their own plantation and local govt, but they have also infiltrated state govt and federal govt, so planter influence is visible at EVERY level

--Woodruff recognizes Afr Am agency: sees blks joining UNIA chapters, blks writing ltrs to the editor -- they are responding to situations (so maybe ppl won't view them with pity, maybe sympathy, but not pity)

Medgar Evers shows up to vote with his gun.... find info about that!! Myrlie Evers-Williams, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life & Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters & Speeches [] [] CBS, The Legacy of Medgar Evers: [] YouTube vid (Martin Kent films): []

Info on Fannie Lou Hamer []

--interesting thing about Woodruff's bk is that she is saying the South is not "backwards" in time; they are extremely efficient and productive--quite modern; use a lot of tactics that northern factories do (Mark Smith, //Mastered By the Clock//); and according to Leroy Percy, they DON'T need the Klan, the plantation system is in itself sufficient to maintain the level of efficiency

Benjamin Wise, //William Alexander Percy: The Curious Life of Mississippi Planter and Sexual Free Thinker// []

Lillian Smith, //Killers of the Dream// (source of "Two Men & A Bargain") [1949] []


 * Info on Lillian Smith: [])**

Jamestown was a capitalist venture; it was est. by the Jamestown COMPANY and was to be the model for colonization in the world: send ppl to one place where they can produce a marketablel commodity which can be sent to another place in the world....the ppl @ Jamestown were starving, but burned cornfields, because "We were English, and we don't grow corn; we grow tobacco." They took the risk to burn food in order to grow a commodity in order to make profit.

--in Smith, the "bargain" is what keeps the poor white from rebelling against the class system that was created by the plantation economy


 * Info on "New South Prophets": Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith**

John Egerton, //Speak Now Against The Day// (about culture of white dissenters) []

-phrase "poor white trash" clarifies whiteness that is "not white"--so what do you do with ppl who fall into a category that are not what they thought exhibited the characteristics of whiteness

John Crowe Ransom, //I'll Take My Stand: The South & the Agrarian Tradition// [] -- essays published in 1930 by a group of conservative white men who believe that the South is by nature conservative & that the North has spun out of control; these essays are a defense of the Southern way of life [was orig titled "Tracts Against Communism"]

--WJ Cash describes "man at the ctr" as just like "Mr. Poor white except acquisitive, ambitiious, & ruthless (terms usually used to describe northern whites!); NOT the Southern gentlemen that twelve Southerners in "I'll Take My Stand" would describe

Grady McWhiney, //Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South// []

Celeste Ray, //Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South// []

**Dr. Andrew Silver, Professor of English, Mercer University**
Faculty Website: []

__The Blackface Minstrel Era: 1830-1910__ --minstrelsy took off in the North first before the South --in 19th c it was single most popular form of entertainment; wasn't even a close second --minstrelsy evolved because of whites appropriating blk music and folkways --first genuinely American form of entertainment, and ppl were proud of it as an American product --Euro music was often to be performed; did not encourage audience participation --Afr music in contrast encouraged participation, not just of the voice but the body --now, banjo is associated with white Appalachia, but prior to 1930s, banjo is a blk musician's instrument; someone remarked that "blues killed the banjo"

--African form of playing banjo (clawhammer style--downstrokes) media type="youtube" key="zp_HyCDjXoc?version=3" height="252" width="448" media type="youtube" key="Pc9Y_uu1KH8?version=3" height="288" width="512"

media type="youtube" key="1dZo_lxZouM?version=3" height="288" width="512"
 * This is the American form of the same style -- this is the type that was used in minstrelsy**

--there is the interlocutor (middle man--straight guy), tambo (the tambourine player) and bones (the bones player) have the most revved up stereotype on the stage -- they glory in undermining the English language



--the Irish really enjoyed minstrelsy; which was interesting because they "weren't quite white themselves"; enjoyed seeing other people made fun of, so we are no longer the butt of jokes, BUT ALSO, the two guys also go against the standard that they can't master themselves, so the triumph of the "end men" is the triumph of those who are repressed in society

--1878 Fusion Party won in VA (Fusion Party is former Confederates & newly freed blks together in a party); the song "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny" (a minstrel song) plays on idea that old South was the better South

--Irish are moved by the song because on one hand, the get to make fun of blks, but on the other hand, Irish weep @ the song because they are yearning for their own home

--Mark Twain loved minstrelsy -- saw trope of black confidence then black fear -- visible in Mark Twain piece

--Shelly Fisher Fishkin, //Was Huck Black?// []

media type="youtube" key="1xOxHyTP91c?version=3" height="288" width="512"
 * Reclaiming Old Time Banjo --** Carolina Chocolate Drops

Roger Abrahams, ed., //African Folktales// []

--Joel Chandler Harris is raised with single mom, working class, unattractive, short, red hair (because of Irish descent), & shy

--called himself a "progressive conservative," wanted to see race reconciliation, but still believed that blks were an inherently inferior group of ppl

--Charles Chesnutt (author of //Conjure Woman//) Info on CC: [] []

--CC wants to make $, bcuz he can't make $ as a law clerk (as is Mark Twain, who could not make $ in his other endeavors); by 1880s, there is an avenue for the rise of writers -- most pop bk: //Uncle Tom's Cabin// & Albion Tourgee's //A Fool's Errand// (?) [Homer Plessy's lawyer]-- CC sees an opportunity to write about blks and make money off it

--CC says, "There is something romantic, to the northern mind, about the souther negro, commonplace and vulgar to those of us who have come in contact with them every day. (last part paraphrased)" AND "They are a very trifling, shiftless set of people up there, and their children are following in their footsteps."

--CC is from Ohio (?) doesn't seem to have connection to southern blacks at all and sees an opportunity to make money from sort of making fun of the blk southerner -- but unlike the others, he sees the problems of discrimination against blks and decides that he'll attack that indirectly; seems a bit conflicted

--by 1896, CC has changed his mind and has decided he is tired of compromising, writes //The Marrow of Tradition//, in which any sort of minstrel type character comes to a bitter end -- this bk doesn't sell and CC's career as a writer is over []

Walt Disney's **"Song of the South"** media type="youtube" key="2BtjW7PW2z0" height="351" width="576"

**Dr. David Davis, Assistant Professor of English & Southern Studies, Mercer University**

 * Faculty Website:** []

"quintessential thesis" -- idea that southern literature must be written by southerners, people who have lived there & experienced life in the South

Martyn Bone, Post Modern Experience in Southern Literature (?)

--there is no such thing as "southern literature"; it is an imaginative construction, all the characteristics that we listed (place, author, folk, culture, dialect, romanticism, ancestry, history of trauma/pride/shame) are things we project on the South

--by the time of TJefferson, there is a sense of some distinctions between the North & the South (TJefferson wrote about these distinctions in ?)

--suggests that cotton defines the North more than anything else; it starts the movement westward, invigorates the slave trade, develops the market economy in the U.S., but it only grows in ONE part of the country -- that is the distinguishing factor

--in 19thc, there were very few copyright laws, so there wasn't much $ to be made in the bk trade, most authors made money by publishing in journals -- in early 19th c Southern writers would've been publishing in northern journals

DeBow's Review -- N.O. in 1830s then moved to SC in 1860s Southern Literary Messenger -- Richmond there wasn't a lot southern publishing, but there was a developing sense of southern lit

Civil War ends southern publishing industry

-after war, northern publishing industry is going gangbusters--when we teach 19thc lit, we teach Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Hawthorne ["yankee, yankee, yankee" :)]

--Mark Twain, born in MO. lived most of life in Connecticut, went west at some point to find gold in NV, enlisted in Confederate Army but deserted -- READ ABOUT TWAIN!; was interested in making money, and realized there was a market

Where does Southern lit come from? --from 1880s (post-war), there was an appetite for stories about the South, beginning with Geo Washington Cable's story, "Sir George", which pub in the Atlantic around 1882, and the more "conventionally" Southern it was, the better it sold

-this is a significant moment: Americans are reading more, reading becomes more democratized (ppl are going to school, they can afford to read), distribution tech & bk production are becoming more modern & less expensive

--postbellum period is era of "local color"; there are a # of early 20thc writers who are trying to overturn the typical conventions of southern lit, but they often end up reinforcing them

--best selling writer before Margaret Mitchell was Erskine Caldwell (//Tobacco Road// & //God's Little Acre//)

--up to around Great Depression, the marketplace is determining what is southern lit

--around 1920s, "Southern Renaissance" (the "Fugitives", the Agrarians) -- writers (mostly professors) who wanted to get away from "local" color and write a new critical southern lit--John Crowe Ransom (pub bk called //New Criticism// / Robert Penn Warren / Alan Tate)

--by 1960s because of the work of Louis Rubin? the academy begins to define southern lit (as opposed to the marketplace); these ppl defining southern lit are primarily white male & historicist AND Southern lit becomes a political arena [INFO on Louis Rubin:[]]

--many of the writers we know now were not included in the original canon of southern lit -- and canon formation is a difficult process

--1960s-90s, lots of discussion about what is and isn't southern writing; one of early waves is "What about Afr Amer? Are they southern writers?"; happens around the same time as the dev of AA Studies as an acad discipline

--Blyden Jackson, "The Long Beginning": written about AA writers & argues that the Afr Am imagination is embedded in the South

LeAnne Howe, //Shell Shaker// --imagism -- style of writing poetry promoted by Ezra Pound in 1920s & 30s "In a Station on a Metro"

--(grandson of PBS Pinchback) grew up in DC, abandoned by father, life story is one of searching for identity, attended several universities (not sure he completed a degree); became part of Harlem Renaissance
 * Jean Toomer**

PBS Pinchback

--1921 JT spends a year as principal of an agricultural school in Sparta, GA; doesn't last long because he knows nothing about agr; leaves & spends most of rest of his life outside South SOOOO is this southern lit?

--//Cane// pub around time of Southern Renaissance, but didn't come into acceptance until 1960s --because he was light-skinned, he identified as whatever he wanted, sometimes blk, sometimes white, sometimes other --1914 DC becomes "most Southern city" in U.S.; Wilson is there, prior to,city had been federal city and did not have to abide by laws of surrounding states, but when Wilson arrived, blks were pushed out of certain jobs, city became more legally segregated; NOT a good time to be blk in DC --in 1923, lynchings weren't all that uncommon -- happening 1 per day or every other day --Dyer Anti-Lynching Act is circulating thru Congress and not being passed --O'Connor's "The Displaced Person" was published in 1955 -- nation is in midst of Cold War, post-war images of atrocities in Nazi Germany, also beg of Civil Rights Act --"A Good Man is Hard to Find" -- ex. of O'Connor's use of "moment of grace" (usually in seconds before death) --Accdg to DD, it would be fascinating to group "The Displaced Person" with James Baldwin's "Stranger in the Village" with Albert Camus' The Stranger.
 * Richard Wright on "Dissembling" in Twelve Million Voices

**Dr. David Davis, Assistant Professor of English & Southern Studies, Mercer University**

 * Faculty Website:** []

//The Third Life of Grange Copeland// by Alice Walker
__**Q:**__ Can a sharecropper dream? Notable psg on pp. 71-72

__**Q:**__ Does Grange experience a rebirth during the murder scene? p. 192-203

__**Q:**__ A connection between the death of pregnant woman's baby and the death of Margaret's baby? Psg. p. 193

Mem's outrage starts @ p. 123 ---> power is masculine; the gun in Mem's hand becomes phallic symbol of power ---> Grange re-asserts power by impregnating her; when she is pregnant, she is subdued & he has control

According to Northrup Frye, three archetypal female characters: madonna -- pure, maternal sister-virgin -- chaste & pure whore -- sexualized figure

--All characters have three lives

--1st pg-the Buick matters, because by 1920s, Model T is not fashionable, but the Buick is a status symbol (car is also a phallic symbol--extension of Uncle Silas' manhood)


 * __Q:__** In the book, which gender is more powerful?

Trudier Harris, //Exorcising Blackness// (argues that the lynching ritual is a way of removing blkness from a community; blkness represents masculinity, and lynching is a way of "killing the blackness" of the community; argues also that sharecropping is symbolic lynching)

-->The women produce; there are cycles of fertility, fecundity, loss; Grange had a fascination with the pregnant woman (the land ripe with crops)
 * __Q:__** What if the women are not women at all? What if they are signifiers for the "land"?

If that's the case, perhaps the family represents the entire plantation system...

--connection of names to land: Grange, Cope-land, Brown-field, Ruth (redeemer--rescued by kinsman & then saves the family)

Heather Andrea Williams, //Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search For Family Lost in Slavery// []

[//in sharecropping system, contracts would be given based on how many hands would be in the field -- a family was a labor unit; Brownfield could not love his children because in this system, he can only see his child as being worth how much cotton they can pick//...]

Martin Summers, //Manliness & Its Discontents: The Blk Middle Class & the Transformation of Masculinity, 1900-1930// []


 * __Q:__** Is //Meridien// the sequel? the story of Ruth?

Carson McCullers, //The Member of the Wedding// []

Tera Hunter, //To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives & Labors After the Civil War// []

Alice Childress, //Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life// []

Ellen Douglas, //Can't Quit You Baby// []

Susan Tucker, //Telling Memories Among Southern Women// []

Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, //Mammy// []

Rebecca Sharpless, //Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960// []

__**Monday, July 23, 2012**__

**Dr. Charles Reagan Wilson, Professor of History, University of Mississippi**
[]

--"Bible Belt" is a term coined (as pejorative term) by HL Mencken in the 1920s, he was very critical of the South & particularly its religion; called it a "cesspool of Baptists & miasma of Methodists"

--South has had a lot of religious diversity

--in colonial period, if you had asked "Where is the Bible Belt?" it would not have been the South, it would've been New England

--1st bldg constructed in Massachusetts was a church; 1st bldg in Jamestown was a tavern

--MD was initially a Catholic refuge -- earliest religious heritage was religious Catholic missions in FL and TX (during time of explorers); largest Catholic community in antebellum pd was in Savannah because of Irish immigrant population

--NO has the highest rate of ppl with Sicilian ancestry, so Italian Catholicism has been present there for some time

--lrgst Jewish pop in antebellum pd were in Charleston & Savannah; came & usually settled in small towns and started businesses

Eli Evans, //The Provincials// (son of 1950s60s mayor of Durham, NC--story of Jews in South)

--Jews had to negotiate maintaining their own identity, but did become Southerners

--S. was home to reformed Judaism (not orthodox); orthodoxy was difficult because the communities were so small; didn't have enough rabbis -- built synagogues that blended in with landscape (some may even have looked like Baptist churches)

--1920s Jewish peddlers -- took cart from farm to farm, plantation to plantation; though a few did, most Jews didn't typically become planters, usually started businesses

--Catholics also became "southern": owned slaves, blessed the Confederate troops as they went off to war; started segregated parishes, etc.

--Pentecostalism grew out of Methodism & John Wesley's teaching about the second blessing of grace

--Evangelicalism is characterized by religious experience, belief that human nature is wicked, real sense of sin & salvation

--Fundamentalism is more about doctrine & belief system; prioritizes importance of the Bible, occupies a place of unusual authority--in southern revivalist congregations, no need for church fathers or philosophers ONLY the text

--V.S. Naipaul, The Turn in the South (Naipaul from Trinidad)

John Lee Eighmy, //Churches in Cultural Captivity// []

--Southern churches were not especially politically active, until it came to Prohibition

Expressiveness of Southern religion --has had a very strong basis in oral culture; produced great talkers, performers, entertainers, politicians -- South has not produced great theologians, but has produced world-class preachers

--religion influenced culture outside of church -- showed "church fans" (and fans from BB King Museum, tomato & watermelon festivals, etc) as example of influence of religion

The Spirituals and the Blues

Goodbye Babylon (music recording) []

"Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down" media type="youtube" key="il2xXRSJLmc" height="273" width="448" "I Know the Bible is Right" [a contemporary version of the song played in class--arranged in the COGIC (Church of God in Christ) style] media type="youtube" key="2QHaEeYs2SM?feature=player_detailpage" height="282" width="512" A Thomas Dorsey recording, "If You See My Savior" media type="youtube" key="-2-twJpqjFY?feature=player_detailpage" height="282" width="512" Uncle Dave Macon, "The Bible's True" media type="youtube" key="SRvjGbKgl2I" height="312" width="512" Rev. A.W. Nix, Black Diamond Express to Hell, Part II media type="youtube" key="xQbQeGKscOE" height="312" width="512" --in many churches, instruments were connected to evil (the fiddle, for example, was equated with dancing); the voice was the only instrument that was beautiful to God & appropriate for worship

Hank Williams, "I Saw the Light" media type="youtube" key="QVr0M7WCBu4?feature=player_detailpage" height="282" width="512" The Louvin Brothers, "Satan is Real" media type="youtube" key="wdJ_AXje5iI" height="312" width="511" Wynonna Carr, "Life is a Ballgame" media type="youtube" key="ZyxDG2pgqYY" height="312" width="512" The Golden Gate Quartet, "Atom and Evil" media type="youtube" key="BjlJ2F646bA?feature=player_detailpage" height="282" width="512"

Fannie Lou Hamer & Elvis Presley

--Dec 1956 "Million $ Session" @ Sun Studios in Memphis (Elvis Presley, ?, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash)

--Fannie Lou Hamer from Indianola (Sunflower Co.)

**Dr. Bob Jackson, Assistant Professor of English, University of Tulsa**
Faculty webpage: [] Melvin Stokes, //D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation: Story of the Most Controversial Film in U.S. History// //--//Birth of a Nation was highest grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation); when avg price of a movie was $.05, it cost $2 to see BoaN, and people went to see it, some went multiple times Things going on in 1915: --new NAACP --thought that US might be drawn into WWI

--feminist strain in film?

--consider importance of history when watching this film -- presented as almost a documentary

--title of film is significant, by 1915, the idea of "nation" was gaining ground--America is the 2nd oldest democracy in the world (San Marino or some other small principality in Europe was oldest); most places in Europe would still be trying to determine whether there were loyalties to king or ruling family or church; the film created what other nations saw as a "blueprint" for how to establish/characteristics of a nation

--film allowed people to "travel"; most people still lived/worked/played near home, so when films came to one's town, they gave the opportunity for indiv to "travel" to & see other parts of the world

Barry Estabrook, //Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit// []

Orlando Patterson, //Slavery & Social Death: A Comparative Study// []

David Blight, //Race & Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory// []

Nina Silber, //The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the Southerners, 1865-1900// []

Martin Delany, //Blake, or the Huts of America// []

//**Birth of a Nation**// (on YouTube) media type="youtube" key="FDiQWsENgnk?feature=player_detailpage" height="324" width="576"

__Oscar Micheaux's **//Within Our Gates//**__ (created as a response to Birth of a Nation) media type="youtube" key="h1E0NrcnwAE?feature=player_detailpage" height="324" width="576"

**Dr. Bob Jackson, Assistant Professor of English, University of Tulsa**
"The Cabin in the Cotton" (1932) []

--sound films put a lot of people out of work, because some silent film actors didn't have great voices for being on screen

--some ppl would argue that the South had been in the Great Depression since the 1890s, so the Great Depression didn't have as much impact on the South as it did on other regions

--after 1920s, Hollywood started to reflect economic conditions in the country

--in the 1930s, when the Depression hit, many more white southerners were pushed into sharecropping--blks had been sharecropping for a generation (no problem); when whites start having to sharecrop, then sharecropping suddenly becomes a major problem

--pre-code cinema - films developed before codes were instituted that dictated what could & couldn't be shown in films; these films tend to be a bit racy-er and more risque than other films of the era

--welfare capitalism

--Big five movie studios in 1920s: Paramount, MGM, Arcayo, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. (Columbia & Universal are 1930s c additions)

--Warner Bros. was known for producing "blue collar films"

--a great deal of control & manipulation of actors and studio employees; stories of Judy Garland & Wallace ?, both of whom were given drugs by the studio personnel (for Garland, as a child actor, to keep her energetic; for Wallace, to help him deal with the pain of a back injury) -- workers were making A LOT of money for the time period, but were often "stuck" in 7 yr contracts

Robert Burns, //I Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang// []

__Movies about chain gangs__: Cool Hand Luke: [] The Defiant Ones: []

"In the Heat of the Night": []

Commentary by James Baldwin in //The Devil Finds Work// (1976): []

Spike Lee's //Summer of Sam//: []

Charles Burnett's To Sleep With Anger: []

A Face in the Crowd: []

Bamboozled:

South African movie--District 9:

**Dr. John Vlach, Professor of Anthropology, George Washington University**
Faculty webpage: []

To see rice pounding & mortar & pestle--Slavery in the Making of America media type="youtube" key="cqPZ_lwU7r4" height="312" width="512"

UNESCO African Passages (mention of rice production) []

WPA Federal Arts Project [] []

WPA Federal Writers Project [] [] [] []

Angola Prison Rodeo []

"A New Hope"--Documentary about Angola Prison media type="custom" key="20475696" width="227" height="177" Face vessels--crafted by slaves to communicate with spirits

Sweetgrass baskets -- Coastal SC & GA

--place where we most see Afr Am producing things & whites getting credit & profit for them is Edgefield, SC [Strom Thurmond is from this area]

--pine trees used to be signs of bad soil

--Abner Landrum (Dave's owner?) info: []

--Edgefield was site of best porcelain & stoneware; major source of kaolin, which, when flamed, becomes porcelain



--Info about Pottersville pottery: []

--James Henry Hammond, SC planter (former Governor of VA?); Home was "Redcliff"--
 * JHH coined phrase "Cotton is King!"

Dave (Drake) pottery Info: [] []



--Dave pottery was remarkable because of the quality of the craftsmanship, size (some 40-50 gallon vessels), and the fact that he WROTE his name and phrases on them (slaves not allowed to write!)
 * JV also noted the size of the writing: often Dave's name written larger than others' (whites) names; that often whites' names included, but sometimes only first name (like Dave), implying perhaps that Dave decides that if he can't have a last name, neither can white man

--Dave's "great & noble jar" was the largest piece of pottery produced (in US?) at that time

--Dave owned by LM (Louis Miles)?

--Find info about Slave ship "Wanderer" [Biographical article written about the owner of the "Wanderer":] Ana Lee Prieto, "Charles A.L. Lamar: Southern Gentleman and Owner of The Slave Ship 'Wanderer'" []

Tom Henderson Wells (1967), //The Slave Ship Wanderer// (full length text, 117 pgs.) []

Erik Colonius, //The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship & the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails// []

--in the "face vessels", we see slaves from the "Wanderer" were taking an African artform that would normally have been made of wood or clay and, in the US, translating it into a form of pottery

--American "Toby" jar is a cup/vessel made in New England; "Sir Toby" was known as one who could hold his liquor; the cup therefore, became one that held liquor
 * the English "Toby" jars were traded as trinkets to West Africans
 * sometimes, Africans would try to make similar products out of wood (because wood made more sense to them)

Final Discussion
Slave ship "Wanderer" Memorial on Jekyll Island, GA []



__Info on Andersonville__ MacKinlay Kantor, //Andersonville// []

William Marvel, //Andersonville: The Last Depot// []

PBS Documentary, "Slavery By Another Name" [Videos here] []

James C. Cobb, //The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta & the Roots of Regional Identity// []

Peggy mentioned: []
 * pathways.thinkport.org**

[] (compiled after "Abolitionism" NEH Summer Instituted @ Colgate University; has resources for teachers)
 * northstarcalling.net**