In the years immediately following the Civil War--the formative years for an emerging society of freed African Americans in Mississippi--there was much debate over the general purpose of black schools and who would control them. From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse is the first comprehensive examination of Mississippi's politics and policies of postwar racial education. The primary debate centered on whether schools for African Americans (mostly freedpeople) should seek to develop blacks as citizens, train them to be free but subordinate laborers, or produce some other outcome. African Americans envisioned schools established by and for themselves as a primary means of achieving independence, equality, political empowerment, and some degree of social and economic mobility--in essence, full citizenship. Most northerners assisting freedpeople regarded such expectations as unrealistic and expected African Americans to labor under contract for those who had previously enslaved them and their families. Meanwhile, many white Mississippians objected to any educational opportunities for the former slaves. Christopher Span finds that newly freed slaves made heroic efforts to participate in their own education, but too often the schooling was used to control and redirect the aspirations of the newly freed.

The Red Cotton Fields is story written in the tradition of great historical epics. The story begins on a Georgia plantation in the year 1850, ending on the gold fields of Australia in the year 1884. This is a story surrounding three southern families (the plantation owners, the plantation overseer's family and a Negro slave family) leading up to and including the Civil War. The reader will experience the demise of a southern plantation and follow two of plantation's previous occupants (Bart Royal, the white overseer's son, and Reiner Washington, an escaped slave) as they rise to become two of the richest men in the world. Also, The Red Cotton Fields is a classic love story between the plantation's owner's daughter, Holly Ballaster, and the overseer's son, Bart Royal, The Red Cotton Fields is destined to become a classic. Read it and you will understand why.

The renowned leader in higher education provides “a testament to the power of aspiration, character and education to overcome poverty and adversity” (Michael L. Lomax, President & CEO, United Negro College Fund). Charlie Nelms had audaciously big dreams. Growing up black in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s, working in cotton fields, and living in poverty, Nelms dared to dream that he could do more with his life than work for white plantation owners sun-up to sun-down. Inspired by his parents, who first dared to dream that they could own their own land and have the right to vote, Nelms chose education as his weapon of choice for fighting racism and inequality. With hard work, determination, and the critical assistance of mentors who counseled him along the way, he found his way from the cotton fields of Arkansas to university leadership roles. Becoming the youngest and the first African American chancellor of a predominately white institution in Indiana, he faced tectonic changes in higher education during those ensuing decades of globalization, growing economic disparity, and political divisiveness. From Cotton Fields to University Leadership is an uplifting story about the power of education, the impact of community and mentorship, and the importance of dreaming big. “In his memoir, the realities of his life take on the qualities of a good docudrama, providing the back story to the development of a remarkable educational leader. His is ‘the examined life,’ filled with honesty, humor, and humility. While this is uniquely Charlie’s story, it is a story that will lift the hearts of many and inspire future generations of leaders.” —Betty J. Overton, Director, National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good

We've all had cotton-field experiences. Your cotton-field experience may not have been like mine, but if you have been in a place or position where you said to yourself that there has to be a better way or that you wanted something different in life, you've had a cotton-field experience. Things look good from afar until you're placed directly in it. Once there, you see that what looked good from a distance isn't good up close. When you find yourself wondering why you're where you are at certain times in life, you're being equipped to qualify for your creative purpose in life. How you got there is hindsight, but how you get out answers and tells who you are and what you're made of. Come and walk with me through my journey from the cotton field to Capitol Hill.

Moving from rural Georgia in 1959 with $35 saved from picking cotton and a high school diploma tucked away in his pocket, Joseph D. Greene embarked on a long journey in pursuit of success. His first stop landed him a job with an insurance company as a door-to-door salesman. After a long string of promotions, he became executive vice president/chief marketing officer and a member of the company's board of directors. He continued his education while enjoying an astounding fast-track career, earning a bachelor's and master's degree. The author's commitment to public service would lead to a series of firsts. He became the first African-American elected to public office in McDuffie County, Georgia when he was elected to the county's board of education. He would become the first African-American to sit on dozens of governing boards. He would eventually become chairman of Georgia's University System Board of Regents, presiding over the state's thirty-four colleges and universities. Today, in addition to teaching at Augusta State University, Greene serves as a director of the Georgia Council on Economic Education, conducts financial-planning workshops, and publishes articles on finance and economics. Joseph Greene's triumph over poverty and adversity will inspire you to look at your own life and ask if you've done everything you can to pursue your own dreams, be the best you can be, and give back to your community.

No general history of southern farming since the end of slavery has been published until now. For the first time, Gilbert C. Fite has drawn together the many threads that make up commercial agricultural development in the eleven states of the old Confederacy, to explain why agricultural change was so slow in the South, and then to show how the agents of change worked after 1933 to destroy the old and produce a new agriculture. Fite traces the decline and departure of King Cotton as the hard taskmaster of the region, and the replacement of cotton by a somewhat more democratically rewarding group of farm products: poultry, cattle, swine; soybeans; citrus and other fruits; vegetables; rice; dairy products; and forest products. He shows how such crop changes were related to other developments, such as the rise of a capital base in the South, mainly after World War II; technological innovation in farming equipment; and urbanization and regional population shifts. Based largely upon primary sources, Cotton Fields No More will become the standard work on post-Civil War agriculture in the South. It will be welcomed by students of the American South and of United States agriculture, economic, and social history.

A young black girl relates the daily events of her family's migrant life in the cotton fields of central California.