Filled with historic details of the time, Fire Bell in the Night explores the explosive tension between North and South, black and white, that gripped Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1850. Geoffrey S. Edwards's first novel tells the story of New York Tribune reporter John Sharp, sent to cover the capital trial of Darcy Calhoun, a farmer who stands accused of harboring a fugitive slave. As the trial begins, John quickly realizes that not everything is as it appears in the genteel city of Charleston. A series of mysterious fires in white establishments brings the state militia, a curfew for the black population, and rising tension at the courthouse. To unravel the city's secrets, Sharp must enter Charleston's plantation society, where he is befriended by Tyler Breckenridge, owner of the Willowby plantation, and his beautiful sister Clio. Set against the backdrop of a nation headed toward civil war, Fire Bell in the Night is a page-turning account of a trial and one young reporter's efforts to discover the truth.

When searching for books about black lives in St. Louis most books start around the 1940's or 50's. They reflect the lives of black folks who went to Beaumont, Vashon, Soldan, or other institutions that they were able to attend in what was a segregated St. Louis. ere were blacks in St. Louis since its inception and founding. They worked on the riverboats. they were draymen, laborers, laundresses, and servants. they helped establish St. Louis. They were slaves and 'free'. They endured the perils of the Civil War and its aftermath. They were citizens of St. Louis with their own culture and society. ere were ordinary folks and those of the black aristocracy. Who were the black folks that helped establish St. Louis and its history? There is very little recorded history about them. Where did they live? What did they do for a living? What about their social lives and their interactions with each other and the white residents of St. Louis? A population list from the year 1872 accompanies this narrative and shows where they lived and what they did for a living. Lee Drake was born on a farm in Philadelphia, Mississippi and moved with his family to East St. Louis, Illinois in the 1950's. His family was seeking a better way of life. He spent his formative years in that small town, feeling sheltered and loved by family and friends. Early summers were spent back at the farm in Mississippi with cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. He learned to accept using the back door to enter the small corner store, and thought the balcony was where his family wanted to sit at the movie theatres in St. Louis. His first experience away from that sheltered life came when he was drafted to the jungles of Vietnam. As a young man he became aware that the stories of black Americans and their part in American history were not being told. Throughout his 34 year professional career as a high school art and photography teacher in St. Louis County, Missouri, he began researching and putting together stories of black people in St. Louis. He completed his education with a doctorate from St. Louis University. Dr. Drake lives in St. Louis County and continues to work part time as an art and photography teacher. He spends times playing golf, riding his Harley, and Cowboy shooting at the range.

"This book, planned as the first of two volumes, aims to explore the Missouri Crisis and the many reverberations and ramifications thereof. The volumes are offered as part of the University of Missouri and the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy's contribution to the state's 2021 bicentennial commemoration"--

The acclaimed author and New Yorker columnist delves into the core of American poverty in the early 1980s: “Invaluable.” —The Washington Post First appearing as a three-part series in the New Yorker, Ken Auletta’s The Underclass provides an enlightening look at the lives of addicts, dropouts, ex-convicts, welfare recipients, and individuals experiencing homelessness. Auletta’s investigation began with a seemingly simple goal: to find out who exactly makes up the poorest of the poor, and to trace the many paths that took them there. As the author follows 250 hardened members of this “underclass,” he focuses on efforts to help them reconstruct their lives and find a functional place in mainstream society. Through the lives of the men and women he encounters, Auletta discovers the complex truths that have made hard-core poverty in America such an intractable problem. In a nation where poverty and welfare rolls are declining but the underclass persists, the United States is as conflicted as ever about its responsibilities toward all its people. With his empathy, insight, and expert reportage, Auletta’s The Underclass remains as pertinent as ever.

Mae, a blackjack dealer in a Las Vegas casino, spends her free time wandering the desert with a rifle, or sitting in her trailer obsessively watching replays of an old lover escaping the wreckage of 9/11. What she sees in those images is different from what the rest of us would see. She revels in the pure anarchy, thrills at the destruction. These images recall memories of a childhood marked by unthinkable abuse, of her drift into a cult that committed the most shocking crime of the '60s, of her life since then as a feral and wary outsider, caught in a swirl of events at once personal, political, mythic.

The Great Fire of 1871 was one of most colossal disasters in American history. Overnight, the flourshing city of Chicago was transformed into a smoldering wasteland. The damage was so profound that few people believed the city could ever rise again.By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, Jim Murphy constructs a riveting narrative that recreates the event with drama and immediacy. And finally, he reveals how, even in a time of deepest dispair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again.

Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles of human nature.