A warm and intimate account of a complex, contradictory man seen through the eyes of a long-standing friend and confidante. Recognized until his death in 1956 as the outstanding literary critic of his generation, H. L. Mencken also excelled as a journalist, editor, and author. Characterized as the enfant terrible of American letters, he was famous for his vitriolic attacks on the hypocrisy and bigotry he saw in much of American life. Yet Mencken was surrounded by a circle of devoted friends and was known to be a gentle, loving, and compassionate husband. Because of her lifelong friendship with his wife, Sara Haardt, Sara Mayfield was not only part of Mencken's circle but also a trusted confidante of the literary lion himself. Drawing on letters, diaries, notes, and private conversations, The Constant Circle captures the essence of a man who left an indelible mark on American intellectual life and letters. Great and near-great figures of the era move through Mayfield’s candid and unpretentious account: Hemingway, Dreiser, George Jean Nathan, O’Neill, Faulkner, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Tallulah Bankhead, Sinclair Lewis, Rebecca West, Willa Cather, Ellen Glasgow, Thomas Wolfe, and presidents from Wilson to Truman. Richard Freedman notes that "with a minimum of pious hoopla about the Algonquin Wits, Miss Mayfield brings the whole gracefully doomed era of the American literary 20’s to life." When The Constant Circle was first published in 1968, the New Yorker printed a review by Edmund Wilson titled "The Aftermath of Mencken." That review appears in its entirety as the introduction to this paperback edition.

The account of the landmark constitutional law decision on racial redistricting This book was first published in 1962 to critical acclaim. It details the lawsuit that Charles C. Gomillion, chairman of Tuskegee Institute’s Division of Social Sciences and president of the Tuskegee Civic Association, filed against that Alabama city's mayor, Philip M. Lightfoot, to protest the black community'’ loss of voting rights. Because Tuskegee’s black population in 1957 (5,300) far outnumbered its white population (1,400) and because the highly educated black community had made persistent and successful efforts to register as voters, the Alabama Legislature redrew the city’s boundaries to exclude most of the African-American districts, effectively converting Tuskegee to a white city. Gomillion’s lawsuit, which was lost twice in lower courts, alleged that Tuskegee’s black citizens had been illegally gerrymandered out of their constitutional right to vote. In 1960 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, writing, “The inescapable human effect of this . . . is to despoil colored citizens, and only colored citizens, of their theretofore enjoyed voting rights.” As a result of Gomillion vs. Lightfoot, the Supreme Court unanimously questioned the constitutionality of redistricting voting precincts along racial lines, not only in Tuskegee but nationwide. Taper’s well-written, thorough account will be welcomed by students and scholars of constitutional law, Alabama and southern history, and civil rights.

An anthology of Thomas Wolfe’s short stories, novel excerpts, and plays illuminating the Civil War This collection of Thomas Wolfe’s writings demonstrates the centrality of the Civil War to Wolfe’s literary concerns and identity. From Look Homeward, Angel to The Hill Beyond and The Web and the Rock, Wolfe perpetually returned to the themes of loss, dissolution, sorrow, and romance engendered in the minds of many southerners by the Civil War and its lingering aftermath. His characters reflect time and again on Civil War heroes and dwell on ghostlike memories handed down by their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers. Wolfe and his protagonists compare their contemporary southern landscape to visions they have conjured of its appearance before and during the war, thereby merging the past with the present in an intense way. Ultimately, Wolfe’s prose style—incantatory and rhapsodic—is designed to evoke the national tragedy on an emotional level. Selections of Wolfe’s writings in this collection include short stories ("Chickamauga," "Four Lost Men," "The Plumed Knight"), excerpts from his novels ( O Lost, the restored version of Look Homeward, Angel, The Hills Beyond, and Of Time and the River ) and a play, Mannerhouse, edited and introduced by David Madden. Madden, who makes the provocative claim that everything a southern writer writes derives from the Civil War experience, also highlights many issues essential to understanding Wolfe’s absorption with the Civil War.

A poignant account and analysis of the bloody battle in the Pacific. To the Far Side of Hell is the story of the World War II battle for the Pacific island of Peleliu in the autumn of 1944. Although this battle is far less well known—even among U.S. Marine Corps veterans—than Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa, the savagery of the fighting, the courage and determination displayed, and the casualty rate suffered by the units of the 1st Marine Division can claim equal significance. Peleliu was a troubled operation from the start. Since the fast-moving situation in the Central Pacific seemed to have removed any pressing need to occupy the Palau Islands, it is arguable that the battle was not necessary. For the planners of the island-hopping campaign, the operation was a distraction from a more important goal—the Marianas. The 1st Marine Division, weary from earlier campaigns, was not given needed resources prior to the invasion, and there were damaging tensions within the senior ranks. When the Marines landed, they came up against Japan’s new defensive technique—a garrison determined to die where they stood, fortified in deep, complex bunker systems. In searing heat, and exposed to the dug-in Japanese guns amidst the ridges and gulches of an unsuspected labyrinth of concrete-hard coral, the Marines found the predicted short conflict turned into a protracted, bloody 71-day battle.

An archaeological guide to the earliest French settlement on the northern Gulf Coast. Archaeological excavations since 1989 have uncovered exciting evidence of the original townsite of Mobile, first capital of the Louisiana colony, and remnants of the colony's port on Dauphin Island.

Traces the development of Alabama's environmental movement from its beginnings with the establishment of The Alabama Conservancy in the late 1960s and early '70s to the preservation efforts of present-day activist groups The grassroots effort to preserve Alabama's Wilderness Areas spanned thirty years, from 1967 to 1997. The first battle, to establish the Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest, was the catalyst for reform of national policy regarding public land preserves in the eastern United States. It, and the later campaigns—to establish the Cheaha Wilderness, to enlarge the Sipsey, and to create the Dugger Mountain Wilderness—are classic tales of citizen activists overcoming the quagmire of federal bureaucracy and the intransigence of hostile politicians. Early political opposition to proposed designation or expansion of wilderness areas in Alabama was based on the belief that limiting development of these lands would negatively impact the state's powerful timber industry. In response to such opposition, serious environmental activism was born in Alabama. Using newspaper reports, Congressional testimony, interviews, and his own recollections, John Randolph traces the development of Alabama's environmental movement from its beginnings with the establishment of The Alabama Conservancy in the late 1960s and early '70s to the preservation efforts of present-day activist groups, such as the Alabama Environmental Council, the Cahaba River Society, and the Alabama Wilderness Alliance. The Battle for Alabama's Wilderness permits all of the players—pro and con—to speak for themselves, but the heroes—people like Mary Burks, Blanche Dean, Joab Thomas, and Pete Conroy—embody the vision, hope, and persistence required of those who succeed in their preservation efforts. Randolph's account is a testament to the power of grassroots citizen groups who are committed to a common cause and inspired by a shared ideal.

A captivating story of the industry's rise in Alabama. With a wonderful ear for dialogue and in flowing narrative style, Karni Perez weaves together oral histories collected from early hatchery owners, catfish farmers, processors, and researchers to recount the important contributions made by Alabamians to the channel catfish industry. Perez describes the struggles and glories of fish culture from its early days as an experimental venture to the thriving present-day commercial enterprise that supplies warmwater fish for the American food industry. As Perez states, "The catfish industry started out in Alabama as a do-it-yourself and figure-it out-yourself kind of enterprise." We hear how men who were mostly cattle farmers learned to nudge male and female fish into spawning in crudely constructed aquaria, how growers discovered the dissolved oxygen needs of their "herd" when big die-offs occurred, how Lenson Montz and Otis Breland designed the first paddle aerator to remedy the problem, how farmers eventually trained a bottomfeeding species to rise to the water surface to eat so their numbers could be better estimated. In one dramatic story, we learn how a man experimenting with the first skinning machine lost a piece of his hand in front of a crowd of horrified locals. (After it was retrieved from the skin basket, it was reattached by a town doctor and healed perfectly.) Ironically, the man was a representative of the engineering firm tasked with designing the machine; he had never before seen a catfish in his life. The machine was modified and became an essential component of modern fish processing. In addition to telling the remarkable stories of individual contributions by farmers and researchers, Perez explains the positive effects played by improved public infrastructure, continued biological research, state legislation, and federal recognition of aquaculture as agriculture. From Chapter "You're crazy," the bank officer declared with a friendly chuckle. "Why, the Warrior River is full of catfish for anyone who wants them. There are more in there than people will ever eat. And you think you're going to go sell them when folks can go get them for nothing? That's just a bunch of dreams!" From Chapter “A crop duster's error, a visit by a curious feed company researcher, a fluke of the weather, a coincidental encounter at a gas station... How could the three men, or anyone else for that matter, guess that these chance circumstances would play into the birth of an industry that would mushroom over the next forty or so years into one of the largest contributors to the state's economy and that of the entire southeastern United States?”

A German lawyer and member of Hitler's army who embraced new loyalties. Born into landed Prussian nobility, Werner H. Von Rosenstiel lived the largely predictable life of his class until two great changes intersected to forever alter his he attended college in Ohio for a year, and the Nazis came to power in Germany. Von Rosenstiel was drafted into the Wehrmacht, the German army, and had finished his legal education when tthe rising tide of Nazi madness and his affection for an American girl in Cincinnati brought him to resolve to leave Gernmany and return to the United States. Von Rosenstiel's memoir is a straightforward and evocative account of this young man's mixture of ambition, love, and anti-Nazi repugnance that convinced him to forego a promising professional career in the Third Reich for the uncertain future of another country and a new language on the eve of the Second World war. After Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, and the United States entered the war, Von Rostenstiel immediately became an enemy alien as well as subject to the U.S. draft. He was sent to a camp in Pennsylvania where the U.S. Army stockpiled recruits it could not trust. Make-work assignments, loads of KP and laundry details, camp snitches, and hilariously inept FBI interrogations in an idyllic Pennsylvania countryside alternately alarmed, bored, and frustated Von Rosenstiel, until he was finally able to convince the authorities that he was no danger, that indeed his German-language skills and legal training might be assets. Finally sent overseas to serve, Von Rosenstiel was promoted to second lieutenant and attached to legal units that worked their way eastward into a collapsing Third Reich. He later interpreted for Hermann Goering at the Nurember trials and served on the Allied team prosecuting Nazi leaders for their war claims.

Remarkable prose collection from a notable Australian poet. If life is a cosmic stage where illusions are the only reality, says Jacob G. Rosenberg, it is through these illusions that we can sometimes better recognize our world, our fellows, and ourselves. Such is the author's hope in this book. The stories in the first part, Lives, explore dimensions of the human landscape. The shorter pieces that make up Embers, inspired by the midrashic tradition of biblical interpretation, investigate the eternal human drama through the prisms of scripture, history, and folklore.

To make a living here, one had to be capable, confident, clever and inventive, know a lot about survival, be able to fashion and repair tools, navigate a boat, fell a tree, treat a snakebite, make a meal from whatever was handy without asking too many questions about it, and get along with folks. This fascinating and instructive book is the careful and unpretentious account of a man who was artful in all the skills needed to survive and raise a family in an area where most people would be lost or helpless. Smith’s story is an important record of a way of life beginning to disappear, a loss not fully yet realized. We are lucky to have a work that is both instructive and warm-hearted and that preserves so much hard-won knowledge.

A poignant account of the perils and fortunes of an indomitable survivor of violence in Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1939, to escape Nazi occupation, 14-year-old Adam Broner and his older brother Sam left their home and family in Lodz, Poland, and made their way to the Soviet Union. Adam enlisted in the Red Army to join the fight against the Nazis but was sent to work in a Siberian coal mine instead when his nationality was discovered. After a bold and daring escape from Siberia, Broner reached the Soviet Polish Kosciuszko Army, joined the struggle against the Nazis, participated in the liberation of Poland, and rode victorious into Berlin in 1945. He later learned that his parents, siblings (except Sam), and all other close relatives had perished during the war. Broner rebuilt his life, established a family, returned to Moscow for a degree in economics, and then went back to Poland, where he accepted a job in the Polish central planning agency. Eventually fed up with the growing anti-Semitism of the Communist government there, the author emigrated to the United States in 1969. He earned a doctorate from Princeton University and served as an economic adviser to New Jersey governors and the state legislature. In retirement, Broner learned portrait painting and reproduced the likenesses of his parents and siblings from memory, which are presented along with their biographies in this book. In recounting his struggle for survival during some of the most dramatic upheavals of the 20th century—the Great Depression, Nazism, World War II, and the spread of Communism in Central Europe—Broner reveals a life dedicated to the ultimate goal of freedom, which he achieved through a combination of arduous effort and fortunate circumstance.

A riveting oral history/biography of a pioneering woman aviator. This is the story of an uncommon woman—high school cheerleader, campus queen, airplane pilot, wife, mother, politician, business-woman—who epitomizes the struggles and freedoms of women in 20th-century America, as they first began to believe they could live full lives and demanded to do so. World War II offered women the opportunity to contribute to the work of the country, and Nancy Batson Crews was one woman who made the most of her privileged beginnings and youthful talents and opportunities. In love with flying from the time she first saw Charles Lindbergh in Birmingham, (October 1927), Crews began her aviation career in 1939 as one of only five young women chosen for Civilian Pilot Training at the University of Alabama. Later, Crews became the 20th woman of 28 to qualify as an "Original" Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) pilot, employed during World War II shuttling P-38, P-47, and P-51 high-performance aircrafts from factory to staging areas and to and from maintenance and training sites. Before the war was over, 1,102 American women would qualify to fly Army airplanes. Many of these female pilots were forced out of aviation after the war as males returning from combat theater assignments took over their roles. But Crews continued to fly, from gliders to turbojets to J-3 Cubs, in a postwar career that began in California and then resumed in Alabama. The author was a freelance journalist looking to write about the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) when she met an elderly, but still vital, Nancy Batson Crews. The former aviatrix held a reunion of the surviving nine WAFS for an interview with them and Crews, recording hours of her own testimony and remembrance before Crews' death from cancer in 2001. After helping lead the fight in the '70s for WASP to win veteran status, it was fitting that Nancy Batson Crews was buried with full military honors.

In April 1735, twenty-year-old William MacGregor, possessing little more than a bottle of Scotch whiskey and a set of Shakespeare’s plays, arrives in Charles Town, South Carolina, to make his fortune in the New World. The Scottish Highlands, while dear to his heart, were in steep economic decline and hopelessly entangled in dangerous political intrigue. With an uncle in Carolina, the long ocean voyage seemed his best chance for a new start. He soon discovers that the Jacobite politics of Scotland extend to Carolina, and when his mouth gets him in trouble with the Charles Town locals, dimming his employment opportunities, he seizes the one option still open for him and takes a job as a frontier packhorseman. Soon young MacGregor is on the Cherokee trail to Indian country, where he settles in as a novice in the deerskin trade. Along the way William learns not only the arts of managing a pack train and trading with the Indians, but of reading the land and negotiating cultural differences with the Cherokee—whose clan system is much different from the Scottish clans of his homeland. William also learns that the Scottish enlightenment he so admires has not made much headway in the Carolina backcountry, where the real challenges are to survive, day to day, during the tense times after the Yamasee War and to remember that while in Indian country . . . it is their country. A scholar of the native Southeast, Charles Hudson has turned his hand to this work of historical fiction, bringing to life the packhorsemen, Indian traders, and southeastern Indians of the early 18th-century Carolina. With a comfortable and engaging style, Hudson peoples the Carolina frontier with believable characters, all caught up in a life and time that is historically well-documented but little-known to modern popular readers.

In the second year of the Korean War, Jack Siewert commanded a platoon of five M-46 tanks. Temporarily assigned to provide fire support for an infantry battalion on the front, he eventually found himself in the midst of intense fighting for a relatively unknown and unimportant hill, code named Outpost Kelly. Those four days of battle against Chinese forces form the heart of this memoir, which is unique in its focus on the hill fighting that dominated two thirds of the Korean War. Trained to take advantage of his tanks’ mobility, his orders—to provide direct fire support for advancing infantry—along with the mountainous terrain and the torrential monsoon rains that created shin-deep fields of impenetrable mud, forced him to abandon doctrine and improvise. At the height of the fighting, Siewert was able to bring to bear the guns from only one of his five tanks against the enemy. Nevertheless, his platoon played a key role in allowing members of the 15th Infantry to retake Outpost Kelly, and he offers an excellent analysis of how theory and experience come together in a point-of-the-spear military situation. Siewert's platoon played a key role in allowing members of the 15th Infantry to retake Outpost Kelly, and he offers an excellent analysis of how theory and experience come together in a point-of-the-spear military situation. Outpost Kelly also paints a fascinating picture of the type of fighting, often overlooked, that characterized the second and third years of the Korean War. With truce talks proceeding in Panmunjom, both sides fought to claim incremental pieces of real estate along the demarcation line between North and South. In the grand scheme of the war, the battle for Outpost Kelly might not ahce meant much. But for 3rd Infantry Division, and the men, like Jack Siewert, who fought there, it was the entire focal point of the war during the last four days of July, 1952.

A bestselling, up-to-date evaluation of a legendary Indian leader. Named Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights. "Osceola's Legacy is significant for its geneology and archaeological study of this Native American and his interaction with the federal government during the 1800s. The catalog of photographs of Osceola portraits and his personal possessions makes this a worthwhile reference book as well." —Georgia Historical Quarterly

A Mesoamerican travel book from two perspectives and two centuries. In 1839 John Lloyd Stephens, then 31 years old, and his traveling companion, artist Frederick Catherwood, disappeared into the vast rain forest of eastern Guatemala. They had heard rumors that remains of a civilization of incomparable artistic and cultural merit were moldering in the steamy lowland jungles. They braved Indian uprisings, road agents, heat, and biting insects to eventually encounter what is today known as the lost civilization of the Maya. In 1841 Stephens published Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan to instant acclaim with both American and international audiences. His conversational style was fresh and crisp and his subject matter, the search for lost cities on the Central American isthmus, was romantic and adventurous. Stephens' book has been characterized as the "great American nonfiction narrative of the 19th century." Indeed, what Stephens wrote about the Maya makes a major contribution to Maya studies. Steve Glassman retraces Stephens' route, visiting the same archaeological sites, towns, markets, and churches and meeting along the way the descendants of those people Stephens described, from mestizo en route to the cornfields to town elders welcoming the Norte Americanos. Glassman's work interlaces discussion of the history, natural environment, and architecture of the region with descriptions of the people who live and work there. Glassman compares his 20th-century experience with Stephens' 19th-century exploration, gazing in awe at the same monumental pyramids, eating similar foods, and avoiding the political clashes that disrupt the governments and economies of the area. Stephens' books are still widely available, but his importance to literary professionals has been overlooked. With this new travelogue, Glassman reaffirms Stephens' reputation and brings his work to wider critical and public attention.

On December 11, 1954, Charles Patrick drove to downtown Birmingham to buy a Boy Scout uniform for his son. Christmas traffic around the downtown department stores was heavy, and Patrick circled unsuccessfully until at last a streetside spot opened up and he began to pull in. As he did so, he was cut off by a woman who ordered him out of the way, as she was the wife of a city police officer. Patrick pulled away, remarking, “Ma’am, he doesn’t own the streets of Birmingham.” Normal low-level urban hassle? Not in 1954 Birmingham, when the woman was white and Patrick black. The woman reported to her husband that a black man had sassed her, and Patrick was summarily arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, and placed in a cell where he was beaten by the husband and another police officer. Usually that would have been the end of it, but Patrick was not the sort of man to meekly endure an injustice. He found an attorney, went to court to fight the charges, and brought his assailants to justice—as whites, blacks, politicians and the press offered public support. This book tells the story of Patrick’s quest for justice in segregated Alabama on the eve of the civil rights movement and represents a telling instance of the growing determination of African Americans to be treated fairly, part of the broadening and deepening stream of resolve that led to the widespread activism of the civil rights movement.

In the University Club’s early years, the major force behind the gracious dining at that elegant antebellum house was Alline P. Van Duzor, who presided over the club with a will as strong as the cast-iron skillets that hung in her kitchen. Her tempting cuisine attracted many loyal diners to the club who invariably asked for the recipes. This cookbook was the result, written by Van Duzor in 1961 in characteristically straightforward style, and when originally published, it sold through at least eight printings. The more than 250 mouth-watering recipes from the Old South contained in the now-classic cookbook are written with easy-tofollow instructions, using common fresh and store-bought ingredients. This new edition has been augmented by a guide to portions and food brand names, an index to the recipes, and an appendix of past presidents of the University Club Board. Cookbook collectors, local history buffs, the university community, and happy cooks everywhere will welcome this reissue of a popular cookbook that preserves easy recipes from the Old South! NOTE : Mrs. Van Duzor often left out ingredients in recipes. She felt that the reader should make each recipe their own. “Altogether, there is a quaintness about the recipes in this volume that made it almost entertaining reading, and there were several recipes that really called out to be tried, especially Chicken Livers with Pineapple and Almonds.”— Bookmark with Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio

A coming-of-age story set in the isolated, murky swamps of Louisiana When the mighty wind blows through the swamps of southern Louisiana, it changes not only the land, but the inhabitants as well. Just such a wind brought a lone infant into the care of the Chitimacha Indians deep in the Atchafalaya swamp. Raised by the tribal holy man, Storm Rider grows to adolescence as a respected tribal member, steeped in the wisdom and traditions of his adopted people. Their clan competitions, life-cycle rituals, social interactions, and subsistence labors are well explained in this historical novel. When captured by an enemy raiding party, Storm Rider and his nemesis, the village bully, forge a bond that delivers them from danger and charts their futures. Love, hate, friendship, and loyalty ride the dark bayou waters and converge at the sacred Rain Tree. Swamps, hurricanes, cannibals, and unforgettable characters are interwoven as tightly as one of old Cane Basket's watertight baskets in this anthropologically accurate story of American Indian cultures in conflict.

A unique guide to Florida's frontier history along Indian River. The Winter Sailor is a historical adventure that details the yearly winter travels of Francis R. Stebbins to Florida's Indian River. Stebbins, a writer from Michigan, visited Florida in March of 1878 and became entranced by its pristine beauty. Subsequently, Stebbins and his traveling companions made annual visits to Indian River—until 1888 when tragedy struck and ended Stebbins' yearly journeys. Being an observant traveler, Stebbins began a series of descriptive articles for his hometown newspaper that chronicled his journeys to the Indian River area. Stebbins' articles tell of his own personal experiences during his leisurely visits, which included such activities as hunting and fishing, studying the natural surroundings, and excavating Indian mounds. What Stebbins enjoyed most was sailing down the river interviewing townspeople and examining local attractions as he went. His articles also detail the lifestyle of the region, food, fashion, industry, history, environment, and changes that occurred over time. Stebbins' articles not only entertained and informed but also became a travelogue for his readers. He inspired northern travelers to go south and visit Florida, which contributed to the beginnings of large-scale tourism in the region. The Winter Sailor combines Stebbins' 49 articles along with three by his companions, to provide an enjoyable, historical guide. Unique among 19th-century travelogues, this fascinating look into Florida's past documents a decade of change to the Indian River wilderness and becomes Stebbins' gift to the present.

An engaging account of one woman’s overcoming the Depression and small town mores. Viola Goode Liddell’s short memoir tells the story of her return to Alabama in search of a husband and a new life. Thirty years old and recently divorced, Liddell comes back to her home state—with her young son—determined to survive, during the depths of the Depression. Liddell narrates the obstacles she faces as a single mother in the 1930s Deep South with self-deprecating humor and a confessional tone that reveal both her intelligence and her unapologetic ambitions. Unable to earn, borrow, or beg enough money to support herself and her child, Liddell uses her family connections to secure a teaching position in Camden, Alabama. Even though an older sister’s status within the community helps her land the job, Liddell is warned that she must be very careful as she navigates the tricky social terrain of small town life, particularly when it comes to men. A commentary on the plight of women of the time is woven into the narrative as Liddell recounts her experience of being refused a loan at the local bank by her own brother-in-law. Despite all the restrictions on her behavior and the crushing reality that she has become "the biggest nuisance in the family" because of her past, Liddell cheerfully and successfully builds a new life of respectability and hope.

A compendium of Indian-derived names from the three languages of the Muskhogean family—Seminole, Hitchiti, and Choctaw. The first Native peoples of what is now the United States who met and interacted with Europeans were the people of the lower Southeast. They were individuals of the larger Maskókî linguistic family who inhabited much of present-day Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and eastern portions of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Today, sixteen federally recognized tribes trace their heritage from these early Maskókî peoples, and many of them in both Florida and Oklahoma still speak and understand this root language. The continuing vitality of this core language, and of Seminole culture and influence, makes this linguistic examination by William Read ever more valuable. A companion to his study of Indian Place Names in Alabama, this long out-of-print guide offers a new introduction from Patricia Wickman in which she provides current understandings of Seminole language and derivations and a brief analysis of Read's contribution to the preservation of the Native linguistic record.

The original book on the renowned Freedom quilters of Gee's Bend. In December of 1965, the year of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, a white Episcopal priest driving through a desperately poor, primarily black section of Wilcox County found himself at a great bend of the Alabama River. He noticed a cabin clothesline from which were hanging three magnificent quilts unlike any he had ever seen. They were of strong, bold colors in original, op-art patterns—the same art style then fashionable in New York City and other cultural centers. An idea was born and within weeks took on life, in the form of the Freedom Quilting Bee, a handcraft cooperative of black women artisans who would become acclaimed throughout the nation. "The author expertly weaves the history, the hardships of poor blacks in a downtrodden racist society and the economics of the long struggle to become self-sufficient. Callahan proves she can handle a complex, multi-charactered, significant piece of Southern history." —Atlanta Constitution

The camp, battle, and prison experiences of a common soldier This fast-paced memoir was written in 1905 by 61-year-old Samuel W. Hankins while he was living in the Soldiers Home in Gulfport, Mississippi. It vividly details his years as a Confederate rifleman from the spring of 1861, when at a mere sixteen years of age he volunteered for the 2d Mississippi Infantry, through the end of the war in 1865, when he was just twenty years old and maimed for life. The 2d Mississippi was part of the Army of Northern Virginia and as such saw action at Bull Run/Manassas, Seven Pines and the Peninsular Campaign, and Gettysburg. Besides being hospitalized with measles, suffering severely frostbitten feet, and being wounded by a minié ball at Railroad Cut, Hankins was captured by Federal forces and sent to a prisoner of war camp on David’s Island, New York. Later, he was transferred to a South Carolina hospital, returned home on furlough, joined a cavalry unit that fought at Atlanta. He was stationed in Selma, Alabama, when the war ended. The strength of Hankins’s text lies in his straightforward narrative style virtually free of Lost Cause sentiment. Both Union and Confederate veterans could relate to his stories because so many of them had faced similar challenges during the war. Full of valuable information on a common soldier’s experience, the memoir still conjures the sights, sounds, and smells of warfare.

A notable and tragic case of the struggle between legal and social justice. Reelfoot Lake has been a hunting and fishing paradise from the time of its creation in 1812, when the New Madrid earthquake caused the Mississippi River to flow backward into low-lying lands. Situated in the northwestern corner of the state of Tennessee, it attracted westward-moving pioneers, enticing some to settle permanently on its shores. Threatened in 1908 with the loss of their homes and livelihoods to aggressive, outsider capitalists, rural folk whose families had lived for generations on the bountiful lake donned hoods and gowns and engaged in “night riding,” spreading mayhem and death throughout the region as they sought vigilante justice. They had come to regard the lake as their own, by “squatters' rights,” but now a group of entrepreneurs from St. Louis had bought the titles to the land beneath the shallow lake and were laying legal claim to Reelfoot in its entirety. People were hanged, beaten, and threatened and property destroyed before the state militia finally quelled the uprising. A compromise that made the lake public property did not entirely heal the wounds which continue to this day. Paul Vanderwood reconstructs these harrowing events from newspapers and other accounts of the time. He also obtained personal interviews with participants and family members who earlier had remained mum, still fearing prosecution. The Journal of American History declares his book “the complete and authentic treatment” of the horrific dispute and its troubled aftermath.

A provocative telling of "The Phenix City Story." On June 18, 1954, former state senator Albert Patterson, the Democratic Party's nominee for state attorney general, was shot to death as he left his law office in Phenix City, Alabama, infamous for its prostitution, gambling, bootlegging, and political corruption. Patterson had made cleanup of Phenix City his primary campaign promise. With millions of dollars in illegal income and hundreds of political and professional careers at stake, the question surrounding Patterson's murder was not why the trigger was pulled, but who pulled it. When Good Men Do Nothing is the definitive study of the Albert Patterson murder case. Alan Grady has mined the state's original murder case files; the papers of John Patterson, Albert's son; records from the Office of Alabama Attorney General (who directed the murder investigation); the case files of the Alabama Department of Toxicology and Criminal Investigation; National Guard reports; and more than 30 interviews with eyewitnesses and interested parties. Grady takes a complex story of multiple dimensions—a large cast of judicial, criminal, and political players; a web of alliances and allegiances; and a knotted sequence of investigative revelations and dead ends—and transforms it into a readable, incisive analysis of the powers and loyalties that governed, and corrupted to the core, the body politic of the state. Readers will be enthralled and educated by this authoritative account of the most compelling crime drama in Alabama during the 20th century.

An affectionate, humorous account of small town Alabama during the civil rights era. When Frank Sikora's six-year-old daughter contracted pneumonia in 1962, his wife Millie vowed that would be the last winter she would spend in Ohio. Despite their misgivings about the racial tensions erupting there, they moved their family of six south, where Frank hoped to fulfill his dream of becoming a newspaper reporter. But when those dreams didn't materialize immediately, mounting bills, repossession, and eviction forced them to move in with Millie's parents, Dan and Minnie Belle Helms, in rural Wellington, Alabama. With even slimmer prospects for employment in impoverished Calhoun County, the Sikoras came to depend heavily upon the Helmses and extended family members and all their lives became closely intertwined. The Helmses were uneducated, unpolished people, but Sikora's narration of his life with them—often humorous but never condescending—provides a compelling portrait of the attitudes and lifestyle of poor whites in Alabama during the second half of the 20th century, just as James Agee's monumental work, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, illuminated the Depression years in Hale County, Alabama. Sikora illustrates how resourceful, southern women, in particular, held their families together through trying times. Interwoven with this commentary on rural white culture in the Deep South is the story of Sikora's developing career as a newsman. Determined to succeed, he finally lands a job with the Gadsden Times reporting the news of black citizens. From that introduction to journalism, Sikora becomes one of Alabama's most acclaimed chroniclers of the civil rights movement, eventually writing some of the acknowledged masterpieces about the subject. Like his landmark book, Selma, Lord, Selma, Sikora's newest work tells the stories of ordinary Alabamians and their perspectives on extraordinary times.

An important study of the First Spanish Period in Florida’s history Trade and Privateering examines the illegal yet highly profitable and mutually beneficial trade between Spanish Florida and the English colonies on the eastern seaboard in the mid-18th century. In St. Augustine, the arrival of subsidies from Spain was erratic, causing shortages of food and supplies, so authorities ignored the restrictions on trade with foreign colonies and welcomed British goods. Likewise, the British colonists sought Spanish products from Florida, especially oranges. But when England and Spain became declared enemies in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and the French and Indian Wars, this tacit trade arrangement was threatened, and the result was a rise of privateering in the region. Rather than do without Spanish goods, the English began to attack and capture Spanish vessels with their cargoes at sea. Likewise, the Spaniards resorted to privateering as a means of steadily supplying the Florida colony. Harman concludes that, both willingly and unwillingly, the English colonies helped their Spanish neighbor to sustain its position in the Southeast.