Local legend says that Marquis Charles Cornwallis, Revolutionary War hero, rode into this area and declared, "How fair are these hills" and thus, Fairfield County was born. Fairfield County is a unique blend of tradition, culture, and history. Freedom-seekers, farmers, and religious folks came from the northern trails, while many aristocrats and plantation owners traveled from the coast. These citizens bred a unique and proud folk ranging from sturdy military men who protected their land during the American Revolution and the Civil War to educators who started well-known educational institutions and produced prominent military men and politicians who forever changed the world. Fairfield County is also known for its culture and music. Many recognized beauty queens, artists, musicians, and sports figures hail from this midland region of South Carolina.

“Reminds readers that the history of lynching and racial violence in the United States is not a closed book, but an ever-relevant story.” —Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books Before daybreak on February 17, 1947, twenty-four-year-old Willie Earle, an African American man arrested for the murder of a Greenville, South Carolina, taxi driver named T. W. Brown, was abducted from his jail cell by a mob, and then beaten, stabbed, and shot to death. An investigation produced thirty-one suspects, most of them cabbies seeking revenge for one of their own. The police and FBI obtained twenty-six confessions, but, after a nine-day trial in May that attracted national press attention, the defendants were acquitted by an all-white jury. In They Stole Him Out of Jail, William B. Gravely presents the most comprehensive account of the Earle lynching ever written, exploring it from background to aftermath and from multiple perspectives. Among his sources are contemporary press accounts (there was no trial transcript), extensive interviews and archival documents, and the “Greenville notebook” kept by Rebecca West, the well-known British writer who covered the trial for the New Yorker magazine. Gravely meticulously recreates the case’s details, analyzing the flaws in the investigation and prosecution that led in part to the acquittals. Vivid portraits emerge of key figures in the story, including both Earle and Brown, Solicitor Robert T. Ashmore, Governor Strom Thurmond, and West, whose article “Opera in Greenville” is masterful journalism but marred by errors owing to her short stay in the area. Gravely also probes problems with memory that resulted in varying interpretations of Willie Earle’s character and conflicting narratives about the lynching itself.

A case study in Upcountry community development in the colonial and early republic era

For fans of the blues, Drink Small is synonymous with South Carolina. Drink rose from the cotton fields of Bishopville to become a music legend in the Palmetto State and beyond. The self-taught guitarist has written hundreds of songs and recorded dozens of albums spanning the genres of country, blues, folk, gospel and shag. The success of that music allowed him countless honors, such as playing the stages of the Apollo and Howard Theaters, touring with legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke and playing the best blues festivals in the world. He even developed his own philosophy: Drinkism. Author Gail Wilson-Giarratano details the dream, the music and the life that created the Blues Doctor.

In The Durhams of Fairfield: An African American Geneaology, Robert L. Uzzel traced his wife Debra's roots to the slaves of the family of Robert Winfield Durham. Evidence indicates that Gobi, the patriarch of the Durham family, along with his wife Mary and five older sons, were slaves in Fairfield County, South Carolina and that Gobi died there. Mary gave birth to their youngest son, Isaac Durham, in 1860 near Fairfield, Texas, where their five older sons (who came with their masters to Desoto Parish, Louisiana) had settled by 1870. The six Durham brothers- Belton, Allen, Minor, Christopher, Anderson, and Isaac-lived east of Fairfield in the Butler community of Freestone County. Some of the descendants of these brothers still farm land in Butler, where Durham is a common surname. Debra Uzzel is a sixth generation descendant of Allen Durham. The author has conducted research in Fairfield County, South Carolina and DeSoto Parish, Louisiana as well as Freestone County, Texas. He received much help from Eddie Marie Jones Durham, the wife of Bobby Jean Durham, a fifth-generation descendant of Allen Durham. He concurs with Eddie's words in her book Mama, "Babe" and Me: "It is either ironic or intentional that being born in the Fairfield District of South Carolina that Allen brought his family to the area of Fairfield, Texas " The Durhams of Fairfield continue to make their mark. They are now scattered throughout the United States, involved in many businesses and professions and contributing much to their communities and to the world as a whole. There can be no doubt that members of this outstanding family to whom the author is related by marriage will always make their mark. It is his prayer that this book will inspire the present generation and generations to come to do all they can to preserve the Durham legacy.

Author, intellectual, and social critic, Ralph Ellison (1914-94) was a pivotal figure in American literature and history and arguably the father of African American modernism. Universally acclaimed for his first novel, Invisible Man, a masterpiece of modern fiction, Ellison was recognized with a stunning succession of honors, including the 1953 National Book Award. Despite his literary accomplishments and political activism, however, Ellison has received surprisingly sparse treatment from biographers. Lawrence Jackson’s biography of Ellison, the first when it was published in 2002, focuses on the author’s early life. Powerfully enhanced by rare photographs, this work draws from archives, literary correspondence, and interviews with Ellison’s relatives, friends, and associates. Tracing the writer’s path from poverty in dust bowl Oklahoma to his rise among the literary elite, Jackson explores Ellison’s important relationships with other stars, particularly Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, and examines his previously undocumented involvement in the Socialist Left of the 1930s and 1940s, the black radical rights movement of the same period, and the League of American Writers. The result is a fascinating portrait of a fraternal cadre of important black writers and critics--and the singularly complex and intriguing man at its center.