Books in the Southern Dissent series

Beginning in 1816, the American Colonization Society worked to send American blacks to resettle in Africa. From inception, however, its foundational ethos has been debated. These debates continued long after the effective end of the ACS during WWI through the Civil Rights movement to today, when even historians among the Press's own authors respectfully hold opposing views. In this volume, Beverly Tomek and Matthew Hetrick gather essays from scholars with different opinions and divergent methodologies, offering not only new research to address some of the old questions about American colonization and missionary activities but also new questions to spur further debate.

This book examines the complexities of life for African Americans in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction, showing how enslaved and free African Americans resisted slavery and supported the Union war effort in a borderland that changed hands frequently during the Civil War.

Latino Orlando portrays the experiences of first- and second-generation immigrants who have come to the Orlando metropolitan area from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. While much research on immigration focuses on urban destinations, Simone Delerme delves into a middle- and upper-class suburban context, highlighting the profound demographic and cultural transformation of an overlooked immigrant hub. Drawing on interviews, observations, fieldwork, census data, and traditional and new media, Delerme reveals the important role of real estate developers in attracting Puerto Ricans-some of the first Spanish-speaking immigrants in the region-to Central Florida in the 1970s. She traces how language became a way of racializing and segregating Latino communities, leading to the growth of suburban ethnic enclaves. She documents not only the tensions between Latinos and non-Latinos, but also the class-based distinctions that cause dissent within the Latino population. Arguing that Latino migrants are complicating racial categorizations and challenging the deep-rooted black-white binary that has long prevailed in the American South, Latino Orlando breaks down stereotypes of neighborhood decline and urban poverty and illustrates the diversity of Latinos in the region. A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, German and Irish immigrants were as central to the development of the political economy of Charleston, South Carolina, as white southerners and African Americans. As artisans and entrepreneurs, foreigners occupied a middle tier in the racial and ethnic hierarchy of the South's most economically and politically important city. As agents of change, they provided a buffer, alleviating tensions between the castes until assimilating after emancipation and, in many instances, effectively embracing white supremacy.In Unequal Freedoms, Jeff Strickland examines the complex interplay of race, ethnicity, and class to reveal the pivotal ways in which European immigrants influenced the social, economic, and political development of the South.

This book examines the complexities of life for African Americans in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. Although the Valley was a site of fierce conflicts during the Civil War and its military activity has been extensively studied, scholars have largely ignored the Black experience in the region until now.Correcting previous assumptions that slavery was not important to the Valley, and that enslaved people were treated better here than in other parts of the South, Jonathan Noyalas demonstrates the strong hold of slavery in the region. He explains that during the war, enslaved and free African Americans navigated a borderland that changed hands frequently-where it was possible to be in Union territory one day, Confederate territory the next, and no-man's land another. He shows that the region's enslaved population resisted slavery and supported the Union war effort by serving as scouts, spies, and laborers, or by fleeing to enlist in regiments of the United States Colored Troops.Noyalas draws on untapped primary resources, including thousands of records from the Freedmen's Bureau and newspapers, to continue the story and reveal the challenges African Americans faced from former Confederates after the war. He traces their actions, which were shaped uniquely by the volatility of the struggle in this region, to ensure that the war's emancipationist legacy would survive.A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

In the 1990s, churches across the southeastern United States were targeted and set ablaze. Using oral histories, newspaper accounts, and governmental reports, this book gives an account of the series of church fires. It considers the various forces at work in providing an analysis of the events and their fallout.

Introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different 'spaces of freedom' that fugitive slaves inhabited. The book provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the US South, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

While many scholars have argued that confrontation and protest were the most effective ways for the poor to empower themselves during the social change of the 1960s, Karen Hawkins demonstrates that moderate, local leadership and biracial cooperation were sometimes just as forceful.

Celebrates the work of one of America's most influential journalists who wrote in a time and place of dramatic social and political upheaval. The editor of the Atlanta Constitution from 1960 to 1968, Patterson wrote directly to his fellow white southerners every day, working to persuade them to change their ways.

Expands the chronology and geography of the black freedom struggle beyond the traditional emphasis on the old South and the years between 1954 and 1968.