Mississippi: An American Journey

by Anthony Walton

  To most Americans, Mississippi is not a state but a scar, the place where segregation took its ugliest form and struck most savagely at its challengers.  But to many Americans, Mississippi is also home.  And it is this paradox, with all its overtones of history and heartache, that Anthony Walton—whose parents escaped Mississippi for the relative civility of the Midwest—explores in this resonant and disquieting work of travel writing, history, and memoir.

Traveling from the Natchez Trace to the yawning cotton fields of the Delta and from plantation houses to air-conditioned shopping malls, Walton challenged us to see Mississippi's memories of comfort alongside its legacies of slavery and the Klan.  He weaves in the stories of his family, as well as those of patricians and sharecroppers, redneck demagogues and martyred civil rights workers, novelists and bluesmen, black and white. Mississippi is a national saga in brilliant microcosm, splendidly written and profoundly moving.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, School, Race, Memoir, High School

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 1996

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is mostly about race relations in Mississippi and it definitely challenged me in terms of my thinking about relations in the state. I found myself thinking about the book often when I wasn't reading it, particularly in relation to current events. It's a book I'll probably be thinking about for a long while.

[Samantha Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must-read for anyone who lives in or is from Mississippi. It will make you recognize your role in Mississippi culture, whether you're white or black, rich, poor, or middle class.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

More like 4.5 but worth the five star rating. I'm honestly shocked that the overall reviews for this book, both here on GoodReads and on Amazon, are so low. This is a searing, heartbreakingly honest meditation on race, history, family, and geography that deserves to be much better known. I found this book in an independent bookstore in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I was driving through the Deep South back towards home in the Midwest after a Florida vacation. I had long wanted to see Vicksburg and Shiloh, and road trip alone through the south, where I had never been. I found the experience...deeply moving and unsettling. I picked up Walton's book, and had to purchase it when I randomly turned to a page about Vicksburg, a battlefield I had just left to wander around uptown Vicksburg and planned to return to after lunch. Walton became my guide, so to speak, an insider voice that didn't so much as explain as just illuminate the history of where I was and what I was seeing and experiencing. The book is interesting, sad, heartbreaking, and should be required reading for anyone wanting to understand race and politics today, even though the book is pushing 30 years. It is just as relevant and important today.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think it's possible to understand how much hate builds up when a person is enslaved. We see it in movies, read it in books, but how can we understand it? How can we possibly feel it?

It's not something we as white people sit around trying to understand. Slavery is over--at least in America--and it's never coming back. My attitude has always been, it's ancient history--let it go already!. But we need to understand that slavery didn't end in 1862--it only went underground. For years to come, for generations of people--people who are still alive today--black people lived knowing they could be fired without cause, killed without retribution, and worked without hope of saving a dime over what they owed at the company store. They had to put up with whatever the white man dished out or risk being jailed. Or killed. And those people really hate white people.

In Mississippi, the only hope was in escape to the big cities in the north. But even when people successfully escaped the Jim Crow south, like Mr. Walton's father, they were still feeling the rage for years to come. Who wouldn't?

"At school we would get our books and in the cover there would be this person's name; our schoolbooks were always used books. I remember this was like the second or third grade. There would be a person's name in there, and grade, and race, and it would always be 'white'.

[Me: Can you imagine that? Having to write your race in schoolbook?]

"We always got the old books, the white kids got 'em first. And there's always be pages missing, where if you read two chapters relative to something, you couldn't finish. if the third chapter completed the subject matter, then that chapter would be deliberately cut out, or the pages torn up, and you'd never know how it finished. I didn't understand it, why it was happening, but I talked to my parents and teachers and they said there was this school superintendent, a white woman, and she did this on purpose. She also never gave us enough books, or all the units on a particular subject. I think it was to keep us from doing enough work to get a high school diploma. She succeeded in my case.

His father spoke of walking to school and having insults yelled from white kids passing in the school bus; of taking verbal abuse and threats from bosses; of digging ditches in hundred degree temperatures for a man who wrote his paycheck, threw it on the ground, and told him he was never coming back.

This book is not just a recitation of wrongs--nothing like it. It's a deep, thoughtful journey of a man trying to understand his history, especially the one big puzzle of why his mother and father worked so hard and denied themselves simple luxuries. Their kids grew up in the north, getting a good education and going on to college--and taking equal opportunity for granted, as children should. But--at some point--children should ask questions. Mr. Walton did.

Good questions. Painful answers.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This combination of “travel writing, history, and memoir,” as blurbed on the back cover is a profound work. Walton, noted poet and author, takes the reader on a multilayer journey. One of those journeys may be the physical. He tells of the move his Mississippian parents make from their home state to Chicago as young adults to establish a better life for their children. One is always aware of the physical: the hot Mississippi summer days, the fields of blindingly white cotton, the cool of air conditioning and iced drinks. Walton takes pains to give us a full history of the state, beginning with the Native Americans who occupy the land for centuries before others arrive and kill or move them off. He doesn’t stop there but gives us a history of the slave, the African-American: lynchings, beatings, the cold war that Whites take up against Blacks after the Civil War. But Walton’s journey of Mississippi, which begins mostly after he is an adult, includes memories of visiting family there, interviewing a broad range of white and black citizens. He describes the “polite” way that citizens treat each other, as long as one observes one’s role. He also describes the fight for the vote, which continues to this day. Included in his personal comments are original poems of note that help to illuminate his narrative. History. Travel. Poetry. He appeals to the broad spectrum of human perception and sensibility. I regret that it took me this long to read a book I bought in 2006, ten years after it was published. Walton’s message is still a vibrant one of truth.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written 20 years ago and one would hope that some things have changed but I fear not. My grandparents lived in Gulfport, MS so I spent many years in that state, but Gulfport may not be reflective of the rest of the state. But I have an Aunt and cousins that we visited in Jackson and Columbus and much of the book resonates with me from my preteen years in the '50's. Walton traces his family roots in MS which is pretty grim. But the book also takes you through much of the history of the state beginning with Native Americans un through the Civil War. I especially liked his information on the music and how the blues came to me. Not a long book but packed with so much.

[Ian Mullet · Rating 3 out of 5]

a mixture between a history of the civil rights movement in mississippi and one man's personal narrative of his return to his family's home state after growing up in chicago, it could have been a disaster, but it turned out to be quite good. it would have a chapter on medgar evers followed by one where the guy was just talking to his aunt and uncle about how the civil rights movement changed (or didn't change) their lives. that juxtaposition worked quite nicely. overall, not a bad book, and maybe deserving of 4 stars.

[Jlnelso · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a white "Northerner" (I grew up in Colorado), my experience living in Mississippi for part of my early adulthood has been one I have cherished. But reading this book helped me see why the place and even just the word "Mississippi" evokes very different emotions for those who were oppressed here for generations. This book taught me so much, is written beautifully, and I am thankful for how it brought me closer to understanding Mississippi, which, if Faulkner is right, brings me also a step closer to understanding the world.

[Kiara Ynocencio · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's not that bad at all. I like the nice balance between the history and his own experiences resulting in him comparing and reflecting throughout the book. It can get a little boring because of loads of information all at once, but at the same time, it was thought-provoking and led me to view and reflect our society today differently.

[Audrie Sifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

An empathetic, yet truthful, account of Walton’s personal journey through Mississippi. Walton was born and raised in Chicago, after his parents left Mississippi because of the violence and oppression directed towards African Americans. Walton states his disconnect to the South early on, and his journey comes from a place of wanting to earnestly understand the deep Southern state of Mississippi. A state with a particular history that holds a lot of pain for African Americans. This book can be searing, beautiful, and funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a Mississippian. I think it’s especially important as a white Mississippian to read Walton’s account and see it through his eyes, and ultimately the eyes of his parents, who suffered here and fled. Would definitely recommend.

[Maya Westbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocked by the rating of this book. Having a similar upbringing to the author I do have some bias. However, I view this book as an honest emotional memoir instilled with the perfect amount of historical content to supplement and provide context for the author's anecdotes, which ranged from tragic to funny. I read this book for class and it prompted many interesting discussions about race, class, colorism, and our own lives.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a mixed bag but one that I found moving and memorable.
It veers from poetry to technical music primer to history to personal narrative to geography. But somehow it all worked and I was very glad indeed that I had stumbled upon it in a very condensed history section at the Margaret Sherry branch of the Harrison County Library.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Faulkner says: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Vital reading for people living in MS today.

[samuel bragg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t remember much about this book.

[Jane Koestring · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[William Beardsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Mississippi, a place I knew very little about, is possibly the most American story. We’ve come so far, and we have so much farther to go.

[Lia · Rating 1 out of 5]

ugh. I wanted to curl up into a hole and die reading this book.

But believe me, it was indeed interesting and eye-opening, reading about these experiences that these people faced, but it was definitely not my cup of tea.

Also it didn't help that I had to cram it in, trying to finish reading it for a week before school starts. Yeah. Yikes.

And also, the fact that it is both a nonfiction [which I now realize/confirm, seeing the genre on goodreads, whoops.] and [at least for me] a school book made me dread reading this book ever so more.

0.5 stars.

[Annika · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some parts that were quite interesting/easy to get through, interesting interviews and stories, beautiful imagery. But during certain segments, I was falling asleep- at times it was too much like reading a history textbook. Overall, it did make me think more critically about the hardships African-Americans have endured through out US history, so from that perspective, it was certainly a worthwhile undertaking, even if it was challenging at times.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written by a sociologist, so the writing can get bogged down at points. But the subject matter is fascinating. Having not grown up during the 1960's, I was quite ignorant to what black/white relations were really like at that time. I added this in response to my adding Roll of Thunder to my page.

[Shirley]

A personal exploration of what life was like for family members and elders in Mississippi, from the time of European settlement, up to 1990. As a Canadian transplant living in the American South, Mr. Walton provided answers to things that had been troubling me and for which I sought understanding. An excellent compliment to more formal histories.

[Cassie Bentley-Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend this book! Very interesting insights into the history of Mississippi and the relationship that heritage has with racial issues all over the country. I'm so glad I chose this book for my AP class!

[John Jung · Rating 5 out of 5]

A worthwhile and insightful perspective showing how an African American from the north experiences the post-1960s Deep South.

[Sruthi · Rating 1 out of 5]

oh my gahd I totes loved this book.

[Ryan Kos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative and thought provoking book about race relations in the United States. Read this for English, didn't hate it as much as most of my classmates did.

[Alondra Solis]

Mississippi: An American Journey by Anthony Walton is a non-fiction book of a telling of his personal story with his father and mother and how it was to live during the time of segregation. This book is so truth revealing and so real, it's the personal story about Anthony Walton and how it was to be a Black man while being placed in the middle class, the struggles of racism. The emotions that are felt in this book is such an empowering feeling knowing that we have come a long way of overcoming the battles of racists from the South, the biggest surprise while reading this book was that White people were being treated as Black people because of their economic status but they were still fighting for their place in the white community, its shocking. Even though the book overall has the purpose of making this impact to people of the continuous fight of racism, I believe anyone who pleases to know more about the South and their difficulties should get comfortable reading this book as it can be very revealing and infuriating for the history of this country.