THE OXFORD BOOK OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH TESTIMONY, MEMORY, AND FICTION
Edited by Edward L. Ayers Bradley C. Mittendorf
New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1997 Contents
Preface ix
The Old South
Introductory Essay 3 William Bartram from Travels 5 Olaudah Equiano from The Interesting Narrative of 8 the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Thomas Jefferson from Notes on the State of Virginia 13 Francis Asbury from the Reverend Francis Asbury's 18 Journal Nat Turner from The Confessions of Nat Turner 23 Augustus Baldwin Longstreet from Georgia Scenes 28 Frederick Douglass from Narrative of the Life of 37 Frederick Douglass Daniel R. Hundley from Social Relations in Our Southern 46 States Harriet Jacobs from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 50 Mark Twain from The Adventures of 65 Huckleberry Finn W. J. Cash from The Mind of the South 75 Katharine Du Pre Lumpkini from The Making of a Southerner 87 William Styron from The Confessions of Nat Turner 90 Sherley Anne Williams from Dessa Rose 101
The Civil War and Its Consequences
Introductory Essay 111 War Sarah Morgan from The Civil War Diary of 114 Sarah Morgan Contents
Sam Watkins from "Co. Aytch" 126 Ben Robertson from Red Hills and Cotton: An 140 Upcountry Memory Mary Lee Settle from Know Nothing 150 Robert Penn Warren from The Legacy of the Civil War 160 Margaret Walker from Jubilee 163 Barry Hannah "Dragged Fighting from His Tomb" 171 Bobbie Ann Mason "Shiloh" 180 Consequences Black Citizens of Tennessee "Letter to the Union Convention, 194 1865" Charles W. Chesnutt "Dave's Neckliss" 200 Grace King "The Little Convent Girl" 211 Kate Chopin "Desiree's Baby" 218 Booker T. Washington from Up from Slavery 223 W. E. B. Du Bois from The Souls of Black Folk 233 Ellen Glasgow from The Deliverance 238 William Faulkner "Wash" 244 Margaret Mitchell from Gone with the Wind 255
Hard Times Introductory Essay 261 Twelve Southerners from I'll Take M31 Stand 263 Thomas Wolfe from "Boom Town" 270 Erskine Caldwell "Kneel to the Rising Sun" 277 Zora Neale Hurston from Their E^es Were Watching God 297 Eudora Welty "Death of a Traveling Salesman" 306 William Alexander Percy from Lanterns on the Levee 318 James Agee from Let Us Now Praise 329 Famous Men Richard Wright from Black Boy 335 Ralph Ellison from Invisible Man 354 Contents
Maya Angelou from I Know Why the Caged 367 Bird Sings Albert Murray frorrrTrain Whistle Guitar 379 Harry Crews from A Childhood, the Biography 392 of a Place Lee Smith from Oral History 407 Fred Chappell from I Am One of You Forever 417
The Turning Introductory Essay 435 Lillian Smith from Killers of the Dream 437 Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" 447 Flannery O'Connor "Everything that Rises Must 462 Converge" Walker Percy from The Last Gentleman 476 Willie Morris from North Toward Home 487 Ernest J. Gaines "The Sky Is Gray" 492 Alice Walker from Meridian 517 James Alan McPherson "Why I Like Country Music" 523 George Garrett "Good-bye, Good-bye, Be Always 537 Kind and True" Tim McLaurin from Keeper of the Moon: A 546 Southern Boyhood Peter Taylor "The Decline and Fall of the 557 Episcopal Church (in the Year of Our Lord 1952)" Dennis Covington from Salvation on Sand Mountain 577 Anthony Walton from Mississippi: An American 589 Journey
Acknowledgments 593 Author Index 597