Download or read book Following the Drums written by John M. Shaw and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-05-23 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the Drums: African American Fife and Drum Music in Tennessee is an epic history of a little-known African American instrumental music form. John M. Shaw follows the music from its roots in West Africa and early American militia drumming to its prominence in African American communities during the time of Reconstruction, both as a rallying tool for political militancy and a community music for funerals, picnics, parades, and dances. Carefully documenting the music's early uses for commercial advertising and sports promotion, Shaw follows the strands of the music through the nadir of African American history during post-Reconstruction up to the form's rediscovery by musicologists and music researchers during the blues and folk revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although these researchers documented the music, and there were a handful of public performances of the music at festivals, the story has a sad conclusion. Fife and drum music ultimately died out in Tennessee during the early 1980s. Newspaper articles from the period and interviews with music researchers and participants reawaken this lost expression, and specific band leaders receive the spotlight they so long deserved. Following the Drums is a journey through African American history and Tennessee history, with a fascinating form of music powering the story.

Download or read book Crisis and Commission Government in Memphis written by Lynette Boney Wrenn and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This centralization of political power in a small commission aided the efficient transaction of municipal business, but the public policies that resulted from it tended to benefit upper-class Memphians while neglecting the less affluent residents and neighborhoods.

Download or read book An Unseen Light written by Aram Goudsouzian and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars examine the activist efforts of Black Americans in Memphis in a series of essays ranging from the Reconstruction era to the twenty-first century. In An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee, eminent and rising scholars present a multidisciplinary examination of African American activism in Memphis from the dawn of emancipation to the twenty-first century. Together, they investigate episodes such as the 1940 “Reign of Terror” when Black Memphians experienced a prolonged campaign of harassment, mass arrests, and violence at the hands of police. They also examine topics including the relationship between the labor and civil rights movements, the fight for economic advancement in Black communities, and the impact of music on the city’s culture. Covering subjects as diverse as politics, sports, music, activism, and religion, An Unseen Light illuminates Memphis’s place in the long history of the struggle for African American freedom and human dignity. Praise for Unseen Light “From the aftermath of the post-Civil War race massacre to continuous violence, murder, and bitter confrontations into the twenty-first century, contributors illuminate An Unseen Light on those Black Memphians forging lives nonetheless, through negotiation, protest, music, accommodation, prayer, faith and sometimes sheer stubbornness . . . . Scholars intellectually and personally invested in the city as a site of family and community, and career, bring an unequivocal depth of understanding and richness about place and belonging that textures the pages with life, from the church pews, the music studios, or the myriad of social or political organizations, to the land itself, adding more layers to underscore how black lives have mattered in the historical grassroots building of the nation. This is thoughtful and beautiful work.” —Françoise Hamlin, author of Crossroads at Clarksdale: The Black Freedom Struggle After World War II “This rich collection covers a broad range of topics pertaining to the African American freedom struggle in Memphis, Tennessee. One of its greatest strengths is the breadth of the essays, which span a long period from the end of the Civil War to the twenty-first century. An Unseen Light is a valuable addition to civil rights scholarship.” —Cynthia Griggs Fleming, author of Yes We Did?: From King's Dream to Obama's Promise “The collection did an excellent job in explaining the inner workings of Memphis . . . . The works highlighted the past actions, organizing and insurgency which created the dynamics of racism, classism, social, and political power seen in modern Memphis. I recommend this collection to those interested in the shaping of a large southern city. I also recommend to new and lifelong Memphians to provide a blueprint of the historical legacy of Memphis and how this legacy continues to impact the lives of African Americans.” —Tennessee Libraries

Download or read book Isham G Harris of Tennessee written by Sam Davis Elliott and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isham Green Harris rose to prominence as leader of the southern rights wing of the Democratic Party in the 1850's. During the secession crisis of 1861, he used his influence and constitutional power as governor to trample on the Tennessee constitution in order to align Tennessee with the Confederacy; he tirelessly supported the Confederate war effort. When the war ended, he went into voluntary and temporary exile in Mexico, returning home in late 1867. He eventually became the best known of the state's Bourbon Democrats and was elected United States Senator in 1877, remaining in that office until his death.

Download or read book Heroes Rascals and the Law written by James L. Robertson and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James L. Robertson focuses on folk encountering their constitutions and laws, in their courthouses and country stores, and in their daily lives, animating otherwise dry and inaccessible parchments. Robertson begins at statehood and continues through war and depression, well into the 1940s. He tells of slaves petitioning for freedom, populist sentiments fueling abnegation of the rule of law, the state's many schemes for enticing Yankee capital to lift a people from poverty, and its sometimes tragic, always colorful romance with whiskey after the demise of national Prohibition. Each story is sprinkled with fascinating but heretofore unearthed facts and circumstances. Robertson delves into the prejudices and practices of the times, local landscapes, and daily life and its dependence on our social compact. He offers the unique perspective of a judge, lawyer, scholar, and history buff, each role having tempered the lessons of the others. He focuses on a people, enriching encounters most know little about. Tales of understanding and humanity covering 130 years of heroes, rascals, and ordinary folk--with a bundle of engaging surprises--leave the reader pretty sure there's nothing quite like Mississippi history told by a sage observer.

Download or read book Watching The House Divide written by John Brackman and published by BookLocker.com, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1860, the country was once again having a presidential election. This election and its results would prove to be one of the most contentious of any that the United States had ever faced since becoming a nation. John Brown had attempted a slavery revolt which caused concern because it went beyond the normal abolition methodology of speeches and editorials degrading slavery. But the revolt had been quickly put down and John Brown had been hung. As the year progressed however, it became very clear that the security of the country was changing; minds were being hardened and sides were being chosen. This change initially manifested itself in the Democratic Presidential convention. The old Democrat Party was torn in two by the failure of the northern and southern Democrats to agree on a platform and a candidate, so consequently two Democrat Party conventions emerged and two Presidential Democratic candidates were on the ballot. However, the new Republican Party, its candidate Abraham Lincoln, and its platform of no slavery in the territories had found a following in the northern states. And to further complicate matters, a fourth party emerged, named the National Union Party, with its slogan. “The Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of the Laws,” and put forth its own candidate. The election of Abraham Lincoln was seen by the South as a sectional victory for the abolitionists who favored the elimination of slavery. Although the Republican Party platform did not have a plank of slavery elimination, it did have a plank stating that slavery was to be excluded from the territories. The South saw this as an unconstitutional act and also believed that a Republican administration would actively work to eventually eliminate slavery everywhere and consequently, destroy their way of life. So, the southern states began utilizing the method they had threatened since the administration of Andrew Jackson, which was secession. The act of dissolution which most citizens had never seriously considered was now being actively utilized by the slave-holding states. The country immediately looked for solutions to resolve their differences, but these solutions generally involved amending the Constitution in ways beneficial only to the slave-holding states. The Republicans, having just won an election were in no mood to compromise and the seceded states had no inclination to return to the Union they had just left. In addition, the two sections of the country began gearing up for war; the South especially needed the armaments and property that the U.S. Government held on their soil. So, the engagement of wills coalesced at Ft. Sumter; the vital coastal defense and customs facility snuggled squarely in the Charleston harbor. Both sides showed their mettle here and the country slid into the abyss; not emerging as a new nation for four years and after the lives of almost three-quarters of a million men were extinguished. All of these events were printed in the numerous local newspapers which the average citizen relied upon for local news, state news and national news. But the various newspapers were generally edited to present the local editors views on the various subjects under consideration which influenced their readers. There were generally three views, depending in what section of the country you lived. The South was pro-slavery; the North was generally anti-slavery and the Border States could fall into both categories, depending on location. This book is the story of how five of those newspapers reported these happenings to a worried and divisive nation.

Download or read book The Life and Wars of Gideon J Pillow written by Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commonly portrayed in Civil War literature as a bungling general who disgraced himself at Fort Donelson, Gideon Johnson Pillow (1806-78) is one of the most controversial military figures of nineteenth-century America. In this first full-length biography,

Download or read book The Moving Appeal written by Barbara G. Ellis and published by Mercer University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ellis relates the story of the Memphis Daily Appeal , the mobile newspaper that rallied Southern civilians and soldiers during the Civil War, and eluded capture by Yankee generals who chased the Appeal's portable printing operation across four states. The study also serves as a biography of the news

Download or read book To the Ramparts of Infinity written by Jack D. Elliott Jr. and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-10-21 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before William Faulkner, there was Colonel William C. Falkner (1825–1889), the great-grandfather of the prominent and well-known Mississippi writer. The first biography of Falkner was a dissertation by the late Donald Duclos, which was completed in 1961, and while Faulkner scholars have briefly touched on the life of the Colonel due to his influence on the writer’s work and life, there have been no new biographies dedicated to Falkner until now. To the Ramparts of Infinity: Colonel W. C. Falkner and the Ripley Railroad seeks to fill this gap in scholarship and Mississippi history by providing a biography of the Colonel, sketching out the cultural landscape of Ripley, Mississippi, and alluding to Falkner’s influence on his great-grandson’s Yoknapatawpha cycle of stories. While the primary thrust of the narrative is to provide a sound biography on Falkner, author Jack D. Elliott Jr. also seeks to identify sites in Ripley that were associated with the Colonel and his family. This is accomplished in part within the main narrative, but the sites are specifically focused on, summarized, and organized into an appendix entitled “A Field Guide to Colonel Falkner’s Ripley.” There, the sites are listed along with old and contemporary photographs of buildings. Maps of the area, plotting military action as well as the railroads, are also included, providing essential material for readers to understand the geographical background of the area in this period of Mississippi history.

Download or read book Arkansas Union List of Newspapers written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Life of Albert Pike written by Walter Lee Brown and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Life of Albert Pike, originally published in 1997, is as much a study of antebellum Arkansas as it is a portrait of the former general. A native of Massachusetts, Pike settled in Arkansas Territory in 1832 after wandering the Great Plains of Texas and New Mexico for two years. In Arkansas he became a schoolteacher, newspaperman, lawyer, Whig leader, poet, Freemason, and Confederate general who championed secession and fought against Black suffrage. During his tenure as Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite—a position he held for more than thirty years beginning in 1859—Pike popularized the Masonic movement in the American South and Far West. In the wake of the Civil War, Pike left Arkansas, ultimately settling in Washington, D.C., where he lived out his last years in the Mason's House of the Temple. Drawing on original documents, Pike’s copious writings, and interviews with Pike’s descendants, Walter Lee Brown presents a fascinating personal history that also serves as a rich compendium of Arkansas’s antebellum history.

Download or read book But There Was No Peace written by George C. Rable and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive examination of the use of violence by conservative southerners in the post-Civil War South to subvert Federal Reconstruction policies, overthrow Republican state governments, restore Democratic power, and reestablish white racial hegemony. Historians have often stressed the limited and even conservative nature of Federal policy in the Reconstruction South. However, George C. Rable argues, white southerners saw the intent and the results of that policy as revolutionary. Violence therefore became a counterrevolutionary instrument, placing the South in a pattern familiar to students of world revolution.

Download or read book To Care for the Sick and Bury the Dead written by Leigh Ann Gardner and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benevolent Orders, the Sons of Ham, Prince Hall Freemasons—these and other African American lodges created a social safety net for members across Tennessee. During their heyday between 1865 and 1930, these groups provided members with numerous resources, such as sick benefits and assurance of a proper burial, opportunities for socialization and leadership, and the chance to work with local churches and schools to create better communities. Many of these groups gradually faded from existence, but their legacy endures in the form of the cemeteries the lodges left behind. These Black cemeteries dot the Tennessee landscape, but few know their history or the societies of care they represent. To Care for the Sick and Bury the Dead is the first book-length look at these cemeteries and the lodges that fostered them. This book is a must-have for genealogists, historians, and family members of the people buried in these cemeteries.

Download or read book Before the New Deal written by Elna C. Green and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War and Reconstruction changed the face of social welfare provision in the South as thousands of people received public assistance for the first time in their lives. This book examines the history of southern social welfare institutions and policies in those formative years. Ten original essays explore the local nature of welfare and the limited role of the state prior to the New Deal. The contributors consider such factors as southern distinctiveness, the impact of gender on policy and practice, and ways in which welfare practices reinforced social hierarchies. By examining the role of the South’s unique political economy, the impact of racism on social institutions, and the region’s experience of war, this book makes it clear that the South’s social welfare story is no mere carbon copy of the nation’s.

Download or read book Andrew Jackson Donelson written by Richard Douglas Spence and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly detailed biography of Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799-1871) sheds new light on the political and personal life of this nephew and namesake of Andrew Jackson. A scion of a pioneering Tennessee family, Donelson was a valued assistant and trusted confidant of the man who defined the Age of Jackson. One of those central but background figures of history, Donelson had a knack for being where important events were happening and knew many of the great figures of the age. As his uncle's secretary, he weathered Old Hickory's tumultuous presidency, including the notorious "Petticoat War." Building his own political career, he served as US chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Texas, where he struggled against an enigmatic President Sam Houston, British and French intrigues, and the threat of war by Mexico, to achieve annexation. As minister to Prussia, Donelson enjoyed a ringside seat to the revolutions of 1848 and the first attempts at German unification. A firm Unionist in the mold of his uncle, Donelson denounced the secessionists at the Nashville Convention of 1850. He attempted as editor of the Washington Union to reunite the Democratic party, and, when he failed, he was nominated as Millard Fillmore's vice-presidential running mate on the Know-Nothing party ticket in 1856. He lived to see the Civil War wreck the Union he loved, devastate his farms, and take the lives of two of his sons.

Download or read book Newspapers in Microform written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Between Freedom and Progress written by David Prior and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2019-11-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between Freedom and Progress recovers and analyzes the global imaginings of Reconstruction’s partisans—those who struggled over and with Reconstruction—as they vied with one another to define the nature of their country after the Civil War. The remarkable technological and commercial transformations of the mid-nineteenth century—in particular, steam engines, telegraphs, and an expanded commercial printing capacity—created a constant stream of news, description, and storytelling from across and beyond the nation. Reconstruction’s partisans contended with each other to make sense of this information, motivated by intense political antagonism combined with a shared but contested set of ideas about freedom and progress. As writers, lecturers, editors, travelers, moral reformers, racists, abolitionists, politicians, suffragists, soldiers, and diplomats, Reconstruction’s partisans made competing claims about their place in the world. Understanding how, why, and when they did so helps ground our understanding of Reconstruction—itself a mysterious, transatlantic term—in its own intellectual context. Three factors proved pivotal to the making of Reconstruction’s world. First, from 1865 to the early 1870s, the interconnected issues of how to remake the Union and how to remake the South exerted a powerful hold on federal politics, defining the partisan landscape and inspiring rival arguments about what was possible and what was good. The daunting nature of these issues created a sense of crisis across the political spectrum, with political discourse ranging in tone from combative to euphoric to apocalyptic. Second, though domestic in nature, these issues were refracted through two broadly held beliefs: that the causes of freedom and progress defined history and that distinctive peoples with their own characters composed the world’s population. These beliefs produced a disposition to think of developments from across and beyond the United States as essentially relatable to each other, encouraging an intellectual style that favored wide-ranging comparisons. Third, far from being confined to the elite, this mode of thinking and arguing about the world lived and breathed in public texts that were produced and consumed on a weekly and daily basis. This commercialized and politicized world of mass publishing was highly unequal in structure and content, but it was also impressively vibrant and popular. Together, these three factors made the world of Reconstruction a global landscape of information, argumentation, and imagination that derived much of its vigor from domestic political battles.