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.

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

Chartered in 1821, Columbus, Mississippi, was originally part of Monroe County. With the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek nine years later, Columbus found itself in the newly formed Lowndes County. The name Columbus was given to the settlement by Silas McBee as early as 1819. Columbus has been a pioneer in many areas: the first public school in Mississippi, Franklin Academy; the first public college for women in the country, Industrial Institute and College (now Mississippi University for Women); and the first celebration of Decoration Day (now Memorial Day). Columbus even served as the state capital in 1865 when Union forces occupied Jackson during the Civil War. Columbus is also the birthplace of several national figures, such as playwright Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams (1911-1983); boxer Henry Jackson Jr., or Henry Armstrong, (1912-1988); Walt Disney artist Joshua Meador (1911-1965); and sports announcer Walter Lanier "Red" Barber (1908-1992).

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.