This book presents most of the religious traditions North Carolinians and their ancestors have embraced since 1650. Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Jews, Brethren, Quakers, Lutherans, Mennonites, Moravians, and Pentecostals, along with African American worshippers and non-Christians, are covered in fourteen essays by men and women who have experienced the religions they describe in detail. The North Caroliniana Society is a nonprofit, nonsectarian, membership organization dedicated to the promotion of increased knowledge and appreciation of North Carolina's heritage through the encouragement of scholarly research and writing and the teaching of state and local history, literature and culture.

This book gives a historical and contemporary overview of the redistricting process, using North Carolina for the different political, electoral, and legal issues and debates over the practice of drawing legislative district boundaries. Redistricting has been characterized as “the most political activity in America,” and North Carolina has often been at the heart of recent controversies over this particular activity. In fact, the Tar Heel state was once described as “long notorious for (its) outrageous reapportionment.” Through legislative construction to significant legal challenges, the Tar Heel state has been a noted case study for the past thirty years. From the contentious issues of redistricting principles to the matters of gerrymandering, based on race and politics, North Carolina’s past three decades have seen major U.S. Supreme Court cases deal with redistricting controversies. By exploring this state’s dealings with gerrymandering and redistricting, readers will have a better sense of the dynamics facing the nation as it confronts the 2020 Census and the subsequent redistricting efforts in 2021.

Eastern North Carolina is a land of contrasts, and its crime stories bear this out. A lovelorn war hero or a stalker? Conniving wife or consummate homemaker? Murder or suicide? The answers can be as puzzling as the questions. Mystery author Cathy Pickens details an assortment of quirky cases, including a duo of poisoning cases more than one hundred years apart, a band of folk hero swamp outlaws, sex swingers and a couple of mummies. Each story has, in its way, helped define Eastern North Carolina and its history.

On the eve of the American Revolution, nearly three-quarters of all African Americans in mainland British America lived in two regions: the Chesapeake, centered in Virginia, and the Lowcountry, with its hub in South Carolina. Here, Philip Morgan compares and contrasts African American life in these two regional black cultures, exploring the differences as well as the similarities. The result is a detailed and comprehensive view of slave life in the colonial American South. Morgan explores the role of land and labor in shaping culture, the everyday contacts of masters and slaves that defined the possibilities and limitations of cultural exchange, and finally the interior lives of blacks--their social relations, their family and kin ties, and the major symbolic dimensions of life: language, play, and religion. He provides a balanced appreciation for the oppressiveness of bondage and for the ability of slaves to shape their lives, showing that, whatever the constraints, slaves contributed to the making of their history. Victims of a brutal, dehumanizing system, slaves nevertheless strove to create order in their lives, to preserve their humanity, to achieve dignity, and to sustain dreams of a better future.

First published in 1965 under title: Nicknames of cities and States of the U.S.

From blue skies to raging hurricanes, from ice storms to droughts, North Carolina's weather varies widely from season to season and from day to day. In this delightful and informative book, Peter Robinson provides a layperson's guide to the state's weather and climate and an introduction to the science that describes it. What is North Carolina's "typical" weather? How does it vary from the coast to the mountains? How do we forecast it? With dozens of color maps and tables to make understanding easier, Robinson covers big issues such as the role of weather and climate in daily life, severe weather threats and their causes, and the meteorological effects of seasons. He also explains more specific phenomena including the causes of heating and cooling, the effects of acid rain, and the role of groundwater in weather. Robinson addresses the state's weather history as well as long-term concerns associated with how air pollution affects weather and our health, and he explores why issues of local and global climate change matter. Throughout, he discusses weather in ways that can inform daily life, whether you're planting a garden, building a climate-friendly and energy-efficient home, or choosing a time and place for vacation.