Appalachians and Race: The Mountain South from Slavery to Segregation

by John C. Inscoe (Editor)

African Americans have had a profound impact on the economy, culture, and social landscape of southern Appalachia but only after a surge of study in the last two decades have their contributions been recognized by white culture. Appalachians and Race brings together 18 essays on the black experience in the mountain South in the nineteenth century. These essays provide a broad and diverse sampling of the best work on race relations in this region. The contributors consider a variety of black migration into and out of the region, educational and religious missions directed at African Americans, the musical influences of interracial contacts, the political activism of blacks during reconstruction and beyond, the racial attitudes of white highlanders, and much more. Drawing from the particulars of southern mountain experiences, this collection brings together important studies of the dynamics of race not only within the region, but throughout the South and the nation over the course of the turbulent nineteenth century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

330 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2000

About the author

John C. Inscoe is the Albert B. Saye Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Georgia.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic smattering of Appalachian scholar contributions that helps to show how slavery and race relations were different in southern Appalachia compared to the rest of the South. Without erasing the historical racism of the region, these essays reveal the forces that made racial dynamics a bit different in the Mountain South.

These authors challenge some myths about Appalachia as some kind of "idyllic white America" or region free from the sins of slavery. "The peculiar institution" was far more prevalent in these mountainous counties than many people wish to admit.

From agricultural labor to convict leasing and dangerous mining, chattel slavery took many forms. Southern highlanders got creative with how they utilized enslaved people. Appalachia had its own class of elite slaveholders that marred our cultural landscape and devastated the lives of more than 500,000 Black Appalachians.

Any essay or book edited by John Inscoe is worth having.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 18, scholastically-written articles on race in Southern Appalachian from slavery to segregation. The collection presents a more complicated story of race in a region once advertised as being racially-pure by local elites recruiting industry and charitable organizations seeking donations to uplift an impoverished people. In particular, I enjoyed the articles by Richard Drake, John E Stealy III, Charles B. Dew, Wilma A. Dunaway, Ronald L. Lewis, and Joe William Trotter Jr.