The eleven essays in this collection explore the variety of ways in which whites and blacks in Georgia interacted from the end of the Civil War to the dawn of the civil rights movement. They reveal the extent to which racial matters infused politics, religion, education, gender relationships, kinship structure, and community dynamics. In their focus on a broad range of individuals, incidents, and locales, the essays look beyond the obvious injustices of the color line to examine the intricacies, ambiguities, contradictions, and above all, the human dimension that made that line far less rigid or absolute than is often assumed. The stories told here offer new insights into, and provocative interpretations of, the actions and reactions of the men and women, black and white, engaged on both sides of the struggle for racial justice and reform. They provide vivid testimony to the complexity and diversity that have always characterized southern race relations.

Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries in Atlanta, Georgia celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the founding of its permanent collection and the sixtieth anniversary of the unveiling of the Art of the Negro murals with this commemorative volume. Initially conceived with works selected from annual exhibitions, the collection today constitutes a rare and remarkable assemblage of African-American art. In the Eye of the Muses tells the story of the Atlanta University Art Annuals held between 1942 and 1970, from which the collection stemmed, cataloging the 887 artists who participated and crucially enhancing our understanding of art by African Americans. In an accompanying essay, Hale Woodruff's Art of the Negro mural suite is eloquently explicated by art critic Jerry Cullum. In the Eye of the Muses presents a monumental catalogue of a unique collection.