Book Cover
E-book
Author DeBerry, Roy, author.

Title Voices from the Mississippi hill country : the Benton County civil rights movement / Roy DeBerry, Aviva Futorian, Stephen Klein, and John Lyons
Published Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2020]

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xli, 203 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color), maps
Contents Beginnings -- Generations -- Siblings -- White reactions -- Observers -- Service -- Looking back, looking ahead
Summary "Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country is a collection of interviews with residents of Benton County, Mississippi-an area with a long and fascinating civil rights history. The product of more than twenty-five years of work by the Hill Country Project, this volume examines a revolutionary period in American history through the voices of farmers, teachers, sharecroppers, and students. No other rural farming county in the American South has yet been afforded such a deep dive into its civil rights experiences and their legacies. These accumulated stories truly capture life before, during, and after the movement. The authors' approach places the region's history in context and reveals everyday struggles. African American residents of Benton County had been organizing since the 1930s. Citizens formed a local chapter of the NAACP in the 1940s and '50s. One of the first Mississippi counties to get a federal registrar under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Benton achieved the highest per capita total of African American registered voters in Mississippi. Locals produced a regular, clandestinely distributed newsletter, the Benton County Freedom Train. In addition to documenting this previously unrecorded history, personal narratives capture pivotal moments of individual lives and lend insight into the human cost and the long-term effects of social movements. Benton County residents explain the events that shaped their lives and ultimately, in their own humble way, helped shape the trajectory of America. Through these first-person stories and with dozens of captivating photos covering more than a century's worth of history, the volume presents a vivid picture of a people and a region still striving for the prize of equality and justice"-- Provided by publisher
"An in-depth oral and hyperlocal history of a rural county and its fight for civil rights"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on June 09, 2020)
Subject African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- Interviews
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination & Race Relations
African Americans -- Civil rights
SUBJECT Benton County (Miss.) -- History -- Interviews
Subject Mississippi -- Benton County
Genre/Form interviews.
History
Interviews
Interviews.
Interviews.
Form Electronic book
Author Futorian, Aviva, author.
Klein, Stephen, 1936- author.
Lyons, John, 1981- author.
LC no. 2020007606
ISBN 9781496828866
1496828860
9781496828835
1496828836
1496828844
9781496828859
1496828852
9781496828842