Provides state-by-state listings of the museums, monuments, and historic landmarks of the South that played a role in the civil rights movement.

A moving debut novel about female friendship, endurance, and hope in the South. Roxanne Reeves defines her life by the committees she heads and the social status she cultivates. But she is keeping secrets that make her an outsider in her own town, always in search of acceptance. And when she is given a job none of the other white women want-researching the town's African-American history for a tour of local sites-she feels she can't say no. Elderly Grace Clark, a retired black schoolteacher, reluctantly agrees to become Roxanne's guide. Grace takes Roxanne to Catfish Alley, whose undistinguished structures are nonetheless sacred places to the black community because of what happened there. As Roxanne listens to Grace's stories, and meets her friends, she begins to see differently. She is transported back to the past, especially to 1931, when a racist's hatred for Grace's brother leads to events that continue to change lives decades later. And as Roxanne gains an appreciation of the dreams, courage, and endurance of those she had so easily dismissed, her own life opens up in new and unexpected ways.

It’s 1855, and with a war over slavery looming on the horizon, all bachelor Clark Shellcross wants to do is get married. But when his hopes are dashed he succumbs to temptation and takes a weird drug that claims it will change his life. And it does! He wakes up the next morning with black skin! It doesn’t take long for him to realize that 1855 is not a good time to have darkly hued skin, even in the northern city of Boston. The story of his frantic odyssey in search of his former life could only have sprung from the anarchic imagination of Harry Stephen Keeler. NOTE: This book is not politically correct by current standards. It contains language and ideas relevant to the age in which it is set (1855) and was written in the 1930s, a less progressive time. It is dated, but remains a fascinating artifact of its era. Although it deals with race, it is decided anti-racism (which may be why it remained unpublished until discovered among Harry Stephen Keeler’s papers). A note to the sensitive: the language is of its time period and it is not policitally correct by contemporary standards.

Includes: public acts, local and private acts.

Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891–1967) was for some forty years the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus--known to locals as "Possum Town." His body of work recalls many FSA photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider with an agenda; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town and its residents. He photographed his fellow white citizens and Black ones as well, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi's last public and legal executions by hanging, and a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images of events in the moment, Pruitt's documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers today an invitation to meditate on the interrelations of photography, community, race, and historical memory. Columbus native Berkley Hudson was photographed by Pruitt, and for more than three decades he has considered and curated Pruitt's expansive archive, both as a scholar of media and visual journalism and as a community member. This stunning book presents Pruitt's photography as never before, combining more than 190 images with a biographical introduction and Hudson's short essays and reflective captions on subjects such as religion, ethnic identity, the ordinary graces of everyday life, and the exercise of brutal power.

I wrote this book called “Escape from Mississippi”: The Diary of a Boy Growing up in the South in the 40s and 50s.’I’m going to take you to place’s tell you about people, that’s unique to me. . I will start in Columbus; go to Papa’s house and beyond. Everybody shopped in Columbus the biggest little town that was the closest to most of the country people. The hitch lot’s, where everybody parked their horses, Mules and wagons, for a fee. The proprietors in the little town of Columbus Jews owed. Most of it . There were a couple of black owed store’s. I will tell about the all White girls collage. Tell you about the County Fair. I will take you from up town through Seventh Avenue. The most popular street the most popular places. I will tell you about the schools in Columbus. Talk about the night life. The back door users, making love, through the floor. We’ll go to Steen’s, a little cross Road Town this was my Town. I’ll tell you about the Sand Road a hood within itself. A juke joint, people came from all over to hang out all night. Tell you about the churches the schools. Next to papas, two hundred and eighty five, acres of land. I’ll tell you about my best friend I grew up with. Tell you of the coal tin top house I was born in, only kerosene lamps, one working fireplace, to keep fourteen of us warm in winter. Tell you all about my sisters and brothers, about the hard work, Papa’s womanizing words papa and mama said when they were mad, slang words we used for a laugh. Tell you of the Uncles and Aunt’s Cousins. Tell you about friends of the family, people that worked for papa. Tell about papa’s saw mill. Tell you of Cattle and cops we raised. Tell you about the con men, the con preachers, the fireside ghost stories, the insane people stories. The baby with the man’s head, the poor, uneducated happy people, the biggest party in the country, the good year’s bad years… the crawling deadly creatures, the packs of wild dogs that roomed around in the fall… Moonshine makers, Moonshine runners.. I’ll take you to town Caledonia. I’ll tell you about the people the Schools Ball game’s Bar-b-q.