Alabama Books

Beyond The Burning Bus: The Civil Rights Revolution In A Southern Town by Presbyterian minister Phil Noble is the riveting story of Anniston, Alabama, a small industrial city, and how it was desegregated in the 1960s. Though there was violence and hatred opposing the end of the city's post-Civil War Jim Crow laws against the backdrop of one death, several cross burnings, as well as the publicized beatings of two black ministers, the social and political chaos was not as bad as it could have been because both black and white community leaders worked together through a biracial Human Relations Council to help their city get through difficult times. Researched meticulously and narrated from a personal point of view, Beyond The Burning Bus offers a unique, informative, and highly recommended microcosm of the civil rights era and the overall positive changes that took place within this typical and representative community in the American south.

Having been a professor of Race Relations and Minority Peoples at an African-American College during the Civil Rights Movement,
I was thrilled to read Beyond the Burning Bus and to learn how three ministers in Anniston, Alabama--one White and two Blacks--came together after the Bus Burning during the Freedom Rides and the miracles they were able to accomplish. In spite of threats and beatings, they were able to win the cooperation of leaders of both races. Through the first, if not only, mayor appointed Human Relations Council, the city of Anniston was desegregated. This is a heart warming story of the kind of courage and determination to work for better relationships that we still need in our society 40 years later.

I was living in Alabama as a young adult during the times about which Dr. Phil Noble writes. I kept in close touch with the hapenings regarding those events and remember them quite vividly.
Dr. Noble's recount of those events is exceedingly accurate, and he has succeeded so well in causing the reader to feel and experience the tension and fear of those terrible events.
He, also, gives behind the scenes workings of persons of good will who put their lives, and the lives of families, at risk in taking bold steps and actions to prevent a fine Southern community from exploding in what could have become a major racial riot.
I recommend this book for the reading of any age person, but I hope adults will encourage their youth to read this account of an important event in the life of this country.

In "Beyond the Burning Bus", Phil Noble has helped me past the fear of reflection on the violence and inhumanity which we experienced in the Deep South during the 50's and 60's. Told from his vantage point in the city of Anniston, Alabama, Noble helps us enter the delicate process of harmonizing race relations and establishing trust and confidence between white and black. The humanity and compassion with which this chronicle is laid before us is, in itself, inspiring. Not only a great read, this book should attract today's students and all of us who are interested in the transformation of violence into compassion and healing

My long-time readers are aware that I am drawn to essayists as unswervingly as I am drawn to essaying. In my online journal (The Soupletter, 1993-2003) I reviewed collections by Diane Ackerman, Annie Dillard, Stephen Jay Gould, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Lamott, Kurt Vonnegut, E.B. White, Terry Tempest Williams and many others. Each and all are wonderful wordsmiths, and Crowther belongs right up there with the best of them. CATHEDRALS OF KUDZU is largely drawn from the author's regular contributions to The Oxford American a lofty journal, with a regretably small readership. Though Crowther's newspaper column runs regularly in the Independent of Raleigh, and irregularly elsewhere in the alernative press, he deserves a much wider audience. On the other hand, one cannot ignore the fact that writing at his level is aimed a little high for a general readership. Crowther draws on wide knowledge of literature and history, a marvelous vocabulary, a well-honed scepticism, and his enormous good nature, in delineating, skewering, praising and confessing to the sins and glories of his South. His discussion of race relations is the sanest I have seen in print, period. His consideration of the meaning of the Confederacy and its lingering traces is thought provoking and deep, as his consideration of bourbon and hurricanes, evangelists and trees. Well done, I say, well done. A book of southern grace and southern cussedness, showcasing a writer fully deserving of the H.L. Mencken Award he received in 1992, who is still at the top of his form.

A WONDERFUL read! Great for any Southern culture enthusiast! Good source for other Southern books as many refernces are made in the text. Excellent!!!

This book is really worth your time. Hal Crowther is funny and serious and highly original, even with the South's easy targets, like Elvis or the Southern Belle. Even when Hal Crowther is highly critical, he really gets at the essence of why regionalism is relevant, especially when he's writing about about literature and religion.

I was born, raised and educated through college in Alabama, and I was riveted by Hal Crowther's account of life and culture in the South. I couldn't put it down; my husband kept asking why I was laughing out loud. It covers the gamut of everything Southern--from race relations to dogs to barbeque to Elvis. Crowther is a sympathetic writer, but pulls no punches and is not (in my view) the least bit revisionist about the South's mottled history. You'll enjoy the book more if you've paid homage at the altar of Southern literature--Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Walker Percy. I would recommend it especially to any Southern ex-pats. Fire up your grill, make some iced tea (or pour yourself a bourbon if you're so inclined), put an Elvis CD on the stereo, and kick back.

This edition of "Company K," by William March (a native of Mobile, graduate of The University of Alabama's law school, and WW I veteran), is one in a series called The Library of Alabama Classics, and it warrants its status as a classic. It's a beautiful little book, nicely typeset in a somewhat nostalgic manner, and deserves to be better known than it is--as does its author. Kudos to Alabama's UP for making this book available in paperback for a wide audience.

The book, first published in 1933, is a collection of short first-person narratives by the members of a company caught in the frontline in the first World War. Remarkable is March's ability to place himself (and the reader) in the positions of a great many very different characters--the company is a cross section of American society. This, his first novel, shows that March is an intelligent and sensitive storyteller.

More remarkable, perhaps, is how easily this book might be hypertexted--since all the narratives intersect, and various characters appear in various guises in other's narratives, it would lend itself easily to an HTML version in which a reader could click their way through the book without having to follow the book's order. Surely March must have seen this as a possible way of reading, since the chapter headings are the characters' names, allowing a reader of the book to easily flip from one character to another. The book, which seems to be suitable more for a spatial than a chronological way of reading, disrupts the boundaries of its printed format. I don't mean to call March a post-structuralist avant la lettre, but it is a feature that enhances, in my opinion, one of the themes of the book: the horror of war recognizes no hierarchy; war disrupts the human order.

As for horror, there is plenty of that. The point of view March has chosen is excellent in that it allows for multiple readings of the same event (for instance, the unnecessary and criminal shelling of a recon party); some of the voices come from beyond the grave and are particularly chilling.

One final note on the edition: it is introduced (not designed, as the Amazon heading states erroneously) by Phil Beidler, a professor of American lit at U of A. Beidler has shown a great interest in and loyalty to the literature of Alabama (see, for instance, his anthologies "The Art of Fiction in the Heart of Dixie" and "Many Voices, Many Rooms"), and his introduction to this book is insightful and touching. Beidler obviously knows his stuff; he knows both war and Alabama.

I believe that this book, as has been noted by others, is of the rank of Remarque's "All Quiet," and it is a wonderful and chilling read. Like most good war novels, it says "don't let this happen again," while realizing that it probably will, knowing human nature.

Slaughterhouse-five, and Catch-22 both borrowed from a powerful predecessor. Company-k is a simple read, short chapters each one a character of many narratives. Each one an insightful and heart-rending tale. It would be easy to ignore Company-K and most don't know it - except that it's written by a man who was there. Hemingway glorified war made it seem almost fun - March tells it as it was. Only Johnny Got His Gun, and All Quite On the Western Front come close to this passionate and shocking book.

Do not take it from me, Graham Greene, one of the most respected names in Twentieth Century Fiction hails March's "Company K" as the greatest of all anti-war novels, while Hemingway thought it superior to almost all other WWI novels. This novel is not an almost-classic, it is a classic, borrowing the format made popular by Edgar Lee Masters, March expounds on the concept of individual soldier stories encompassing the full breath of the war. This novel is as appropriate now as it ever was in the post-WWI era. This novel is a must read for anyone remotely concerned with WWI and the impact war has on the survivors.

March makes a compelling case in this text that he should be well entrenched in the second tier of American authors, if not the first. His WWI recollections do a fine job of bringing out the terrors and guilts of a war long forgotton and little remembered, except for the short period of the Twenties. If there is any shortcoming in this fine work, it is that it draws far too much from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthologies. My guess is that March, who was trained as a lawyer like Masters (a former partner of the unethical (...) Clarence Darrow) grasped onto Masters' then-current work . It's not a heroic idea, but one that's occurred to me. In any event, Company K is a work that ought to be read far more than it is a century later. WWI [is] seldom remembered as the great trauma that it was in the US. Here's a book that tells how bad it was, and more importantly, why.

for all of us laymen to see. If you're interested in Civil War history, Confederate history, or Florida history, this complete account of the events leading up to the Battle of Olustee in February 1864 will satisfy; Nulty, a former Marine Lt. Col. and current high school teacher, really gets down deep into the political and social undercurrents of the time, and sheds light on the complex circumstances of the fateful Union campaign. Particularly of interest are the great chapters on the blockade and raid strategy of the Federal forces, and Nulty's final deconstruction of the apocalyptic four-hour battle itself.

William Nulty takes what seems to be a battle book, transforms it into a campaign study and a quick history of Confederate Florida. While doing this, he grabs our attention and holds it with a combination of excellent writing and solid facts.

This very readable book, gives us a quick history of Civil War Florida and the position it assumes in the CSA. Without missing a step, we jump to the Union side covering the history of efforts to retake Florida. This leads us into a logical discussion of the objectives of what becomes the Olustee Campaign. The author debunks the standard political objective with facts and documents. Yes, Lincoln would like a restored Florida but that was not the reason for the campaign. The reasons vary from disrupting the movement of cattle to preventing the stripping of rails for use elsewhere to hopes of recruiting more blacks to fill the ranks of the USCT. When the troops arrive at Jacksonville, the reader understands the reasons and problems of both sides.

This ability to switch sides without disrupting the story provides an outstanding account of the battle. The reader is treated to a combination of personal experience, professional judgments and historical fact that produces a complete picture of the battle. Together this produces a complete account coupled with an intelligent summary of the campaign.

The CSA was more upset by the invasion and willing to commit more resources than the Union. While this may have been a sideshow in Washington, Florida's logistical support was vital to Richmond. The South's scrambled to put together a force to respond to the invasion is a story within the story. Badly short of men, officers and logistics they strip other areas to counter the threat.

Olustee is one of the battles where the USCT is a major force on the field. This adds an interest to the battle and is fully explored in the book. Both USCT's actions on the field, treatment after the battle and the commanding general's responses are covered. This coverage is factual and well supported with documentation making it even more convincing.

An excellent book about Florida's largest and most important Civil War battle.

Nulty did an excellent job of presenting the small but bloody battle of Olustee/Ocean Pond. He also did a fine job educating this reader about Florida's role in the war effort, its demographics, and the limitations the sparsely populated state faced. Nulty's product appears to be well researched and balanced and is recommended to anyone interested in the Civil War.

The battle was poorly fought by the two commanders, but in the case of the CSA forces, the subordinate experienced officer, Col. Colquitt, did fine work deploying the regiments and extending the line as his superior sent regiments to him. He never allowed the Union forces to fully deploy and gained the victory.

There were three U.S. Colored regiments in the battle. As in so many other battles involving negro troops where rebels were in control of the field following the battle, a number of wounded black soldiers and/or captives were apparently killed on a spontaneous basis (but not by officers' orders.)

I've not yet been to the battle site, but the terrain of the time seems to have been somewhat unusual compared to most other ACW battles--an open pine forest free of undergrowth with good visibility according to some participants. It was bordered by marshy areas.

The accompanying maps for the battle are well rendered at regimental level and placed appropriately with the text. Strategic maps are also present and well conceived and executed.

A weakness is that there is no unified order of battle and casualty breakdown in tabular form. The order of battle with regimental strengths is presented apart within a chapter of the text for the CSA forces, but is a bit more hidden in a paragraph for the Union (and lacks strengths.)

Note: I believe that in George Hill's review he was referring to Spencers rather than Henrys. There was indeed an exchange of Spencers for Springfields for an infantry regiment prior to Olustee.

First things first,if the union general hadn't taken the Henry rifles from one unit and had them given to a unit that ended up taking no real part in the battle,the outcome would have surely been different-a little thing.My father died a couple weeks ago.One of his earliest memories was going to the battle site with his father & grandfather,Thaddeus A.Hill,who,along with brothers and cousins were present and firing at the invaders in blue.The old gentleman walked and pointed with his cane to the various sites and movements of troops.T.A.Hill's father,James Hamilton Hill was a surgeon with the con.army who had the singular honor to be court martialed for ignoring orders and taking too much time caring for the wounded.trying to save limbs rather than just chopping them off w/o a thought.His case went to the supreme court in Richmond where the case was thrown out on the technical reason that a civilian could not be court martialed.He went back to work.The war destroyed his health and he died young in 1869.A lot has been made,rightly so,of the use of black troops in the battle and their valor.What the history does not tell is that there were dozens,or more,blacks fighting on the confederate side,some slave,some free.I even know the names of two.I won't reveal them,for the sake of their great-great grandchildren.The ugly truth is not all blacks regarded the union troops as liberators.Being pressed into work gangs by the blues wasn't the thrill it might first sound like.The details of the book show what the war was like down on ground level.the everday trials and tragedies.The spunk of Mrs.Canova in Sanderson,telling the yanks they'd soon be heading back defeated,show that the war had all kinds of bravery.Diana Greene Canova went on to many great things.Ck the Thomas Canova family org web site.Read her testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,the joining of which caused the murder of her husband and the near death of his brother-in-law,one T.A.Hill.Mrs Canova,being a blood relative,I take great pride in her spirit on both occasions.As the battle is joined,the factors leading to it taking place where and when it did,the troop movements and leadership on both sides are accidents of history and the blind leading the el stupido.Yeh,the darn yankees lost,but it could have gone either way.It was a really compelling book.I loved it.

My intro CJ class was assigned this textbook and about half of our test came out of assigned readings, so I spent a good deal of time with this book. I found the book to be professionally written yet easy to digest, even for a college freshman. It gets updated every year, but I compared my 1yr old text with the newer version a classmate had and almost nothing had changed besides these little real-world story blurbs that are spread throughout the book, so you could save some money that way.

GREAT TO BUY FROM! SHIPPED QUICK AND THE BOOK IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!!

I found this book, while currently enrolled at a local 2 year college in Criminal Justice,to be very helpful in explaining how the Criminal Justice system works, from early initiaion of law enforcement practices to modern day. There are many fascinating aspects to explore, and learn from within this text. It also helps to have an instructor that is knowledgeable with the text, so the teaching can be understood.

This book is very educational for those who are majoring or minoring in Criminal Justice. The book itself explains how the Criminal Justice works. In addition to this, the book helps you understand the laws. It also allows you to understand each and every law that the government of the United States has set. The author of this book seems to be very detailed and specific about every law and details of these. Another thing that makes this such a great book to any college student who has great interest in learning Criminal Justice is that it has great illustrations to explain the rights and wrongs of the law.

If you want to learn about history it is best to read the reflections, diaries and memoirs of those who lived it. Samuel H. Sprott, 40th Alabama Infantry, Army of Tennessee, wrote his memoir 34 years after the War Between The States for a now defunct southern newspaper. This memoir was recently discovered tucked away in county probate records and probably not studied by historians for details about the W.B.T.S. in the deep South.
Sprott, tells the story of the 40th Alabama Infantry, Stone's Battalion and Ector's Brigade. I was especially interested in information about General Ector and his brigade as little is written about this unit especially at the battle of Chickamauga. He will educate you about the everyday life of the Confederate soldier in the Army of Tennessee. His and fellow comrade's trials and jubilations are all there.
The editors do a fine job coordinating Sprott's manuscript, filling in his thoughts and corroborating historical evidence.
Highly Recommended!

This is an excellent primary source for a soldier's eye view of the daily experinece of the civil war. Unembelished with romantic bravado or the mythology of causes, Captain Samuel Sprott's journal of the experiences of the 40th Alabama regiment presents the reality of war for the common soldier- general bordome and petty detail alongside short episodes of battle, tragedy, and confusion. Smith and Quist do an excellent job of providing essential supporting information in the preface and appendix while avoiding the temptation to intrude upon Sprott's narrations. The book should be a hit in the classroom as a primary document that is brief, easy to read, and relatively inexpensive. For the same reasons it is recommended to the general reader.

Any Civil War buff will find Dr. Louis Smith's "Cush" to be an outstanding addition to his/her personal library. It is an account that brings countless historical facts that will enrich that library in terms of the military engagements fought by Samuel Sprott and his men. But there is more to this work than the simple regurgitation of historical fact -- this is a book that reflects the struggles and privations of the everyday Civil War soldier as he endured the reality of his world: rotten weather, whizzing minnie balls, the deaths of his comrades. "Cush" is a look at the humanity behind the facts. It puts the reader in the Civil War -- fighting next to Sprott and his compatriots.

As a high school US History teacher, I have found that it is books such as "Cush" that makes history come alive to students. They can feel the emotion with which Sprott's story is told. And, because it is a primary source - straight from the "horse's mouth", it has much more credibility to it than the facts they can glean from their text books.

Dr. Smith has done a marvelous job of editing Sprott's papers. The work was no doubt tedious but at the same time must have been intensely rewarding when it was finished. After reading the book, I have come to feel like I knew Samuel Sprott on a personal basis!

"Cush: A Civil War Journal" is a great book from the point of view of a "run of the mill" Alabama infantry soldier. That is, the grunt who did most of the work and most of the dying.

Samuel Sprott was under 90 days of constant bombardment from Sherman's forces during the Atlanta campaign. It becomes so common that when he encounters a General of a Texas regiment whom he had met during the siege of Vicksburg, he casually and calmly sits down to breakfast with bullets wizzing by and artillery exploding around the two of them.

I cried when I read of their charge over an open field against the breastworks of the entrenched Union soldiers. They marched over the first hundred yards, dropped down taking a rest, and then jumped up and charged the rest of the way. People dying left and right. Brave or crazy these men were... but it made me cry.

I laughed when Sprott got caught out on a picket line when the Yankees charged. He relates the Yankee telling him to stop but he turned and ran for his life determining better to die than be captured. The Yankee got off shot after shot as Sprott zigged and zagged trying not to be shot. When you read it, you will see the humor.

I was struck by his observations of women in South Carolina versus the women in North Carolina. I was also struck by how little he says when his older brother is mortally wounded.

If you enjoy reading real history of the Civil War, you will love this book.

This is the most complete Book on this Subject, I have ever found. Mr. Harris did extensive research to compile such an informative and educational Book. I comand him, for his ideals, and even in a few areas, imagnation into reality.

Reliable and exact, are the only words I can use to refer to the excellance of the research that went into this work of Art. Every page has information described to perfection, the areas, locations, times, dates, descriptions of everything are so real, I felt I was there. I learned more, about Alabama than I will ever know, about my own Home State.

Thank YOU Mr. Harris; I spent hours re-reading your excellent work. Please, inform me of any future Publications by you. ( The Author )

Being an Alabama native, I found this book fascinating! I learned about towns, villages, and communities that I never knew existed. Some of them were very near my hometown. The book contained several types of dead town information. It told of former Indian villages, Spanish, French, British, and American settlements. The earliest date was an Indian village which began around 1200 and died about 1500. When the Spanish explorer and Conqueror, Desoto, came to Alabama, many of his findings were written down. Desoto found Alabama as it existed when the Indians were it's only residents. Harris gives many details of these early events. He also shares later stories of conflict between Indians and early settlers. When people think of Indian/American conflict, they usually think of the Wild West. There are great stories from Deep South too! He also shares stories and events from more modern towns that have failed to last. Some of them existed during the Civil War and some even existed into the twentieth century. Many of these are very interesting as well. If you do not live in Alabama, you might find the book boring. If you live here, you may find there is a Dead town very near you, waiting for you to explore.

While this is an excellent study of Alabama's lost towns of old, I recommend it only for the most die-hard Alabama student/historian. The listings are well-presented and there is much esoteric historical information contained within the covers, but the average seeker of Alabama history tidbits should look for a more general reference.

A decent general and relatively recent Alabama history book is "Alabama The History of a Deep South State" (currently available from Amazon & other sources). Although I don't completely agree with a few of the subjective opinions/views expressed in this publication, I certainly consider it the best history of Alabama to have been published in the last 50 years and do indeed recommend it!

This is the most complete Book on this Subject, I have ever found. Mr. Harris did extensive research to compile such an informative and educational Book. I comand him, for his ideals, and even in a few areas, imagnation into reality.

Reliable and exact, are the only words I can use to refer to the excellance of the research that went into this work of Art. Every page has information described to perfection, the areas, locations, times, dates, descriptions of everything are so real, I felt I was there. I learned more, about Alabama than I will ever know, about my own Home State.

Thank YOU Mr. Harris; I spent hours re-reading your excellent work. Please, inform me of any future Publications by you. ( The Author )

For 300 years the Atlantic Slave Trade brought 12 million people from Africa to the New World. But in spite of the huge numbers of people who made the trip there have been only a handful of first-person accounts left by those who made that horrible trip. Most of the slaves lived and died without having a chance to tell their story. It was not until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement that much needed attention was finally given to one of the saddest chapters in American history.
That makes Dreams of Africa in Alabama, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America such a welcome addition to the field of African-American and Southern history. In Dreams, Dr. Sylviane Diouf, who is the curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, tells the story of the last Africans brought to the United States on the ship Clotilda.The slave trade was outlawed in 1807, but that did not stop slave traders from bringing slaves into the United States. In 1860, the year before the outbreak of the Civil War, Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile businessman from Maine, bet a group of friends that he could bring a shipful of Africans right into Mobile Bay "under the officers noses." He won the bet.
The 110 people that Meaher brought from the kingdom of Dahomey on the west coast of Africa were named Oluale, Pollee Allen, Zuma, Ossa Keeby, and Cudjo Lewis, who would be the last of the shipmates to die in 1935. Slaves for only five years before they won their freedom at the end of the war, they failed in their quest to get back home and instead carved out a life for themselves in their own town outside of Mobile, Africa Town.
Forgotten for years, their story is brought to life by Svlviane Diouf, who thanks to her outstanding research and writing skills brings to life the dreadful trip during the Middle Passage,and then the dehumanzing, backbreaking life of a slave in Alabama during the Civil War. Even years later, the shipmates would break down when they tried to talk about the trip on the Clotilda. Looked down upon by whites and other blacks as "savage Africans," a bias that would haunt them and their families into the 20th century, they lived through slavery, war,and Jim Crow and created the only town of its kind in the United States, a town founded and lived in by people who had been brought to this country as slaves from Africa.
For 50 years, memebers of the shipmates' families and others have worked to preserve the history of Africatown and the story of the men and women who founded it. There is still much that is needed to be done to save that legacy before it is too late. Hopefully Dr. Diouf book will help to raise awareness about this important and little known chapter from American history.

This book is wonderful, excellent, and educational and knowledge filled, without being an academic bore. I don't even know where to start. I will say buy your hardback copy now. This author deserves financial support through the purchase of this book. The story of the Clotilda Africans should be known. I beg y'all to please read this book, and if you love it encourage others to read it. This is one of a few first hands accounts of Africans telling their stories by an unbiased storyteller. Ms. Diouf's writing skills make this an easy read.

Dreams tell us about the lives and the journey of 110 Africans who were brought from Dahomey, known today as Benin in West Africa. Benin is situated between Nigeria and Togo. A schooner, by the name of Clotilda, was built and dispatched from Mobile Bay Alabama to the Kingdom, by Timothy Meaher, wealthy businessman in Mobile. In a drunken stupor he bragged to his associates that he could bring Africans into the Mobile without detection from authorities. Coincidentally, an advertisement appeared in the Mobile Press Register that the King of Dahomey was doing a brisk sale in Africans. So it was an open secret that Africans could still be brought into the country.

Timothy decided to commission the building of the Clotilda for the journey to Dahomey, even though the transportation of Africans was abolished in 1808. The Clotida was an efficient, light and swift boat. It would criss cross the Atlantic in record time.

The Africans were primarily spoils of warfare and the raids of villages other ethnic Africans. They came from various ethnic groups and cultures. However, the core group, were Yorubas. The Yorubas are a large ethnic groups, with many subgroups who live in what is now Benin and southwest Nigeria. They had names like "Kossola,, Abache, Abile, Omolabi, Kupollee, Kehounco, and Arzuma."

The Yorubas are generally an urban people. They live in towns and city-states. However, they all have home villages that their people hail. These Africans were brought to South America and the Caribbean islands in very large number. However, out of the 480,000 or so Africans brought to the US, less than 5% came from this group. Whereas the people out of the Bight of Biafra(Ibos and Ibibio) comprise about 24% of African population brought to the US, which is pretty much in dead competition as far as numbers to the BaKongo and Angolans. So this group is quite unique.

Ms. Slyviane tells us their story primarily through the eyes of the last survivor of the Clotilda Africans, Cudjo Lewis aka Kossola, a Yoruba. He survived all of his children, wife, and shipmates.

This is a fascinating story of African American history, American history, and African history. Cudjo and his shipmates had dreamed and planned to get back to their homeland, but it never happened.

What makes this book so fascinating is that we actually know the slaver, the captain, the ship, and where they came from. Not only that, about 30 of the Africans lived on Meaher's land. So there is first hand information and resources from the slavers, the Africans, and their descendents.

What is more fascinating to me is I am a native Mobilian. I grew up and was schooled there from kinder garden to college. Yet I don't recall ever hearing anything about the Clotilda until years later after I left home. Again, I am a Mobilian. Y'all talkin' about the Miss Education of the Negro. I am raise my hands without shame. I was one.

Again, I am begging folks to read this book, especially my folks(AAs) and other folks of Central and West African descent, i.e. Angola, Kongo(Zaire), Senegambia, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leon, etc. Knowledge of self and ones history is the ultimate self-love. Y'all want regret it.

I also encourage others who are genuinely interested in a truthful and accurate telling of history to read this wonderful book.

I cannot recommend this book any more feverishly. It is incredibly well researched and written. The author lays down the historical facts in a clear manner and then leaves the characters to entice you into their lives and speak to you. The stories are never sensationalized, if anything, it is this lack of dramatization that enables the stories to unfold naturally.

The book clearly shows how within a relatively short space of time certain aspects of a culture may vanish, but other aspects which form the core of a community's make-up are improvised regardless of the circumstances and continued down the line (the communal spirit of the Africans, reverence to authority, conflict resolution etc). Cudjo's life was the one delved into in the greatest detail and it evolved to be as remarkable as it was melancholic.

After the last of the African deportees dies, I can only imagine the loneliness that would have haunted him - being alone in America, a land that he had lived in for three quarters of his life, but one that was still alien to him, one where no other local born Africans were in his immediate vicinity would surely have quelled his tenacious will and defiant spirit. For him to have lived the rest of his years, not being able to converse in his native tongue or to express his innermost feelings in a manner capable of being immediately understood by his neighbors would surely have been unbearably painful. There is an African proverb that states that "you know who a person really is by the language they cry in". When all he had ever known was gone and he lamented for them in his native tongue, I wonder, did the people around him understand the depth of his despair? After all his personal losses and tragedies in America, he finally relents of his desire to go back to Africa and surmises that he was indeed alone on earth - his family in America was no more and he figured that his family in Africa would also be no more - an unbearable set of circumstances to accept. The author should be commended for unearthing and bringing to life such a great story, but even more importantly, for doing so in as lucid a manner as is possible. My only question is how on earth do we let a story as remarkable as this just dawdle with no attempt to publicise it more. It would be great if we could have a children's book on the story.
A trip to AficaTown in Alabama is in the offing for my family.

Dreams of Africa in Alabama is a beautifully written and meticulous book. It's evident that Ms. Diouf spent a considerable amount of time and detail with her research. The author describes the Alabama slave trade and the events that lead to the maiden voyage of the modified schooner, Clotilda. She devotes two chapters to the lives of the "shipmates" - one prior to their capture and the other chronicling their imprisonment in the barracoons (slave pens) and their subsequent Middle Passage voyage. The remaining chapters recount the lives of the deported Africans during their enslavement and post emancipation.

In 1808 the United States abolished the international slave trade. In order to circumvent the law, many Southerners modified existing ships to camouflage their true intent and evade naval officials. The Clotilda was one such ship. Seeking to make a profit on the sale of Africans, the Meaher brothers and their associates went about the business of arranging a slaving run. Many of the captured Africans were placed into slavery as a result of lost tribal wars and/or suspect alliances between African Kings and European and American merchants.

When the humiliation and brutality of slavery was over, the shipmates endured Jim Crow, disenfranchisement and other forms of maltreatment. In spite of those obstacles, the Africans purchased land just outside of Mobile, Alabama, and became a self-sufficient community with a bank, farms, schools and churches. The shipmates limited their interaction with non-African people. Other than their contact with Americans and African Americans in the workplace, the Africans made little effort to interact anyone who wasn't from the continent in their personal lives. Intermarriages between Africans and African Americans occurred in small numbers. There were attempts to return to their families and homes in Africa; run-ins with the law; and a desire to dispel the rumors of their savagery and cannibalism.

This book is a sobering and painful account of some of the atrocities Africans endured. Ms. Diouf interviewed the descendants of the Mobile, Alabama slaves, and poured over mountains of archives in libraries and private collections to give the reader an up close and personal view of the lives of the shipmates of the Clotilda. There are many more stories and details to be discovered when you read Dreams of Africa in Alabama.

This book is an excellent resource for any who are studying the American frontier. I am currently using this book as a resource for my Master's thesis.

I found the narrative of this book very enlightening. The mind's eye could
see the descriptions of land and waterway problems of our ancestors. I recommend it for the historical value and the referenced materials. Enjoyed the comments made by the travellers on the roads and the inns in which they stopped.
Sadly, the maps were not of a very good quality. Too small and required a magnifying glass to read the numbers along the trails pictures.
Hopefully the next edition of the book will have enhanced maps of the roads and perhaps also an added overlay map with the counties through which the road ran for a better perspective of the route the roads took.

Enlarged beyond its earlier incarnation as an article in "The Alabama Review", this work has emerged as a highly valuable resource for readers and researchers of early Alabama history. Utilizing maps and exhaustive primary and secondary sources, the authors present evidence of the profound impact of the Federal Road upon the Alabama in its formative years. Here, the reader will learn that antebellum Alabama was far from a unified state, but rather a politically polarized collection of sectional counties, interspersed with tribal lands of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw. North Alabama, with a citizenry constituted largely of emigres of Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina, held political power from Alabama's Territorial period (1817-1818) and through early statehood (1819-1840). Entering Alabama at a point roughly near present-day Columbus, Georgia/Phenix City, Alabama, and proceeding southwesterly to New Orleans, the Federal Road accomodated the massive influx of settlers emanating from Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. This book reveals how the surge in America's westward expansion affected the present-day formation of Alabama. With pent-up demand for land, and a sympathetic Andrew Jackson in the White House, the Federal Road became the venue through which the white combatants prevailed in the Creek War of 1836-37. The resultant final removal of Creek and Cherokee tribes to Oklahoma, caused such a rush of new settlers into South and Central Alabama that Alabama's political structure underwent a drastic and lasting transformation. The shift in legislative power to South Alabama and, particularly, the Black Belt of Central Alabama, resulted in the 1846 removal of the state capitol from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. The rise of the "Bourbon Democrats" of this region was to shape the landscape of Alabama politics for over 140 years thereafter. The authors, through scholarly, annotated research, offer the reader an opportunity to attain a thorough understanding of the significance of the Federal Road as the single most important element in the formation of Alabama's geography, government, economy and sociology. This reviewer highly recommends this book as not only valuable, but essential for anyone seeking to attain a thorough understanding of Alabama history.

Most enlightening. I was able to track my ancestors as they traveled thru Georgia and Alabama. With the aid of a good map, one can pinpoint their exact route. Highly recommend for anyone doing research on their family that settled in Georgia or Alabama.

As a student of the civil rights movement, this is a must read. The book explores the life and times of a great man who made it possible for Rev. King and others to make the changes that were made in Birmingham. Andrew Manis has written a great history book that covers not only Rev. Shuttlesworth's life but you get a sense of what people felt during this horrible time in U.S. history. You will see how Rev. Shuttlesworth had "set the table" so that Rev. King was able "serve the dinner" in Birmingham. Without Rev. Shuttleworth's persistence, President Kennedy would never be able to have said, Eugene Connor was the best thing that happened to the civil rights movement.

A compelling portrait of a real unsung hero. Emerge Magazine says it well: "The greatest battles of the civil rights movement come alive in this biography of the man Martin Luther King Jr. called "one of the nation's most courage freedom fighters." Manis is to be congratulated for bringing us this powerful story.

This is a real page turner of a biography--a book you can't put down. The contest between Fred Shuttlesworth and "Bull" Connor is classic, full of violence and poignancy. Manis has done the nation a service by putting his magnifying glass on Fred Shuttlesworth's heroics, and rightly explained them from the context of black religion. This book should be made into a movie!

The story of Fred Shuttlesworth is a powerful, dramatic story that everyone interested in the black freedom movement should read. Manis' compelling portrayal captures the spirit and spirituality of a great unsung hero. The book has been honored by the Lillian Smith Book Award, the South's oldest literary prize, and deserves a wide reading.