Tennessee Books

Memphis Tennessee's fabled Beale Steet brings to mind "the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll", as described on the Beale Street website. Beale Street today is indeed a modern, vibrant district filled with music and nightlife with over 25 clubs and shops in the brief space of three city blocks. But the focus on the current tourist-oriented revival of Beale Street overlooks much of its historical character as "the Main Street of Negro America." This short pictorial history captures in text and photographs the music that pervades Beale Street. It also describes the community as a whole and the changes Beale Street has witnessed over the years. It is a remarkable history. The book, "Beale Street," is part of the Images of America series which offers the opportunity to get to know many local communities in the United States. The authors, Beverly Bond and Janann Sherman, are professors of history at the University of Memphis. They have selected a collection of rare photographs to show the history of Beale Street, and they have accompanied the photographs with good annotations and a particularly insightful introduction.

Beale Street began to grow shortly after the Civil War when, as a result of the migration of newly-freed black people, an epidemic, and other factors, African Americans became an increasling large portion of the Memphis population with Beale Street as its heart. Although most of the people were poor and most of the property on Beale Street was owned by white people, a small number of black people became involved in Beale Street real estate and were among the first African American millionares in the South. Music, entertainment, and black business flourished on Beale Street from roughly 1900 -- 1950 as the Street became known as "the main street of Negro America". In the late 1960s, Beale Street suffered a severe decline with neglect, unrest, and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just blocks from Beale Street. Revitalization efforts stuttered and failed until, in the 1980s, Beale Street became known again as the vibrant area it is today. The revived Beale Street is different from the Street in its years of glory.

Bond and Sherman offer an eloquent picture of historic Beale Street in their introduction to this book. Beale Street was "the center for business, politics, and social and religious life, a vibrant collection of pool halls, saloons, banks, barbershops, dry goods and clothing stores, theaters, drugstores, gambling dens, jewlers, fraternal clubs, churches, entertainment agencies, beauty salons, hotels, pawn shops, blues halls, and juke joints". Bond and Sherman continue: "As lively at night as it was during the day, Beale Street thrummed with music and revelry....The street teemed with all manner of 'carefree humans' .... including sporting men, easy riders,steet-corner preachers, voodoo doctors, conjure women, snow pushers, river men, cooks and housemaids, showgirls, card sharks, laborers and yard men, guitar players, gamblers, country people in to see the sights, the famous, the infamous, and the unknown." It was a street unlikely to be seen or captured again.

In seven chapters of photographs, Bond and Sherman capture the growth of Beale Street, its glory days, decline, and subsequent rebirth. There are wonderfully contrasting photographs of old steamers on the Mississippi (p. 10), the busy, unceasing life of the Street (throughout),churches (p. 15) and mansions and desperately poor areas in close proximity.(pp. 20-21) The book documents the community of black lawyers, doctors, and dentists that flourished on Beale Street as well as the fraternal orders which attempted to improve the economic life and cohesiveness of the the Street, and the lively political life that flourished in the black community for many years, including visits by President Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon.

During the Depression, a group of cotton manufacturers established an annual parade in Memphis to boost their sagging industry. When African Americans were relegated to menial roles in this parade, the Beale Street community established a festival of its own known as the "Cotton Makers Jubilee." This event flourshed during the late 1940s to late 1950s and continues today in a modified form. It is amply recaptured in this book.

The music for which Beale Street is famous receives attention in a chapter titled "The Memphis Sound" with photographs and discussions of W.C. Handy, jug bands, Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Bukka White,Memphis Minnie, B.B.King, Howling Wolf, Ruby Wilson, and many others. It is a part of America's cultural heritage which is unique and precious.

The final two chapters of the book show the death and rebirth of Beale Street. The pivotal moment was the assassination of Dr. King at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968, together with the tension and destruction that both preceeded and followed this tragedy. Beale Street was demolished and deserted and withstood repeated attempts at its revitalization until with entreprenurial interest and civic involvement the Street gained its current identity as a tourist destination.

Old Beale Street can never be recaptured, but it can be remembered for its accomplishments and as a source of creativity and joy. Memphis blues singer Rufus Thomas observed that "if you were black for one night on Beale Street, you would never want to be white again."(p. 8) I enjoyed reliving the triumphs and the sorrows of Beale Street in this book.

Robin Friedman

John Elkington made the impossible happen. Imagine a trashed, off-the-beaten-path Memphis street turning into one of the TOP destinations in the country! He knew the history, his passion and vision was ignited, and he saw it through to resurrect a forgotten landmark....read the story!

I would recommend this book to any genealogist who has ties to Bedford Co. Tennessee; especially during the time period between 1863-1910 as Will Books I & II cover that era. I was greatly impressed with the fact that the book had a full name index as opposed to just being indexed by only the surname. This I'm sure took much time but is one of the most helpful things about a genealogy book as it allows the reader to search with little effort.

An excellent book, accessible to the layman (provided he's studied the poem), but by one of the finest and most rigorous Beowulf scholars. Note that Professor Robinson is listed as simply "Fred Robinson" for this book, but "Fred C. Robinson" elsewhere on Amazon

As there are so many Blue Ridge patterns, I found that I had seven reference books to use in finding names for the patterns I owned. All of the books were useful. If you are serious collector, you will need this book. It is catagorized by the edge types of the plates.
I am going to sell my copy which is NEW as I no longer need it.

The cookbook is full of wonderful basic recipes for all types of dishes. It also includes several nice delicacies for entertaining, special dinners, etc. I have grown up in the South and find this is a great guide to keep me in touch with my roots and the great meals we shared. The book is well written and wonderfully illustrated with pencil sketched country scenes. Many recipes are personalized with comments from the provider that give it great personality without taking away from its main objective; Great Food. My hats off to the editors and all of the contributors!!

I became hooked on Sister Fidelma stories because of the short stories I'd read in other mystery collections. I have since become a big fan of the novels, as well, but I would still have to say that the short stories are some of the best. This is an excellent collection - I had a hard time putting it down to do mundane things like eat, shower, etc.

As Middle Tennessee transplant and new cyclist I was reluctant to get out of my neighborhood till reading this book. The format was clear and I could venture out without risking getting totally lost or on some super dangerous roadway. The commentary that accompanies each route lends interest to the rides and the numerous hints and guides for more information in the back were extremely helpful. This book is worth reading even for an experienced cycling native Nashvillian.

I really dug this book. It looks great on my coffee table at work and everyone always picks it up. I also like "A Tailgater's Guide To SEC Football." It's a good one too.
I highly recommend both titles.

Go Vols!

"The Author:
Minrose C. Gwin is assistant professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University."

"Considering fictional characters and autobiographical reflections of female experience, Minrose C. Gwin explores the volatile, often violent connection between black and white women of the Old South.
She shows that their relationship in American literature offers a paradigm of the Southern racial experience---its antipathy and guilt on the one hand, its very real bonding through common suffering on the other.

Gwin's study encompasses a wide range of books, including abolitionist and proslavery fiction of the midnineteenth century, women's slave narratives and journals, and modern fictional treatments of Southern slavery by Faulkner, Cather, and Margaret Walker.
She analyzes such diverse works as Mary Chesnut's Civil War and Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave, Girl.
Black and white Southern women in modern fiction, Gwin suggests, come to represent a terrible duality in human nature.

Her pioneering interpretation enable us to understand the Southern past more fully, to identify
NEW CRITICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORKS OF LITERATURE, AND TO DISCERN FRESH IMPLICATIONS OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE."

"Also of Interest---
Background in Tennessee
Evelyn Scott
Tennesseana Editions
324 pages

Stories from Tennessee
Edited by Linda Burton
432 pages

Tennessee Writers
Thomas Daniel Young
Tennessee Three Star Series
132 pages Illustrations"

[from the book of the front and back flap]