Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir

Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir
Average customer rating:

The teacher who enters the classroom ready to learn from his or her students has boundless capacity for growth

okay, I'm the spoiler

had me laughing and crying

Has its moments

sincere, touching, and a very good read.

Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir
Kevin Jennings
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0807071463

Book Description

By age six, Kevin Jennings knew he was going straight to hell. His father, an evangelist preacher, as much as told him so. During the 1960s, Kevin's family moved from one trailer park in the South to another as his dad fought to hold on to a pulpit. Then, on Kevin's eighth birthday, his father suffered a fatal heart attack as Kevin stood, helpless, at his side. When he cried at the funeral, Kevin's older brothers admonished him, "Don't be a faggot." The warning was a key lesson. In school, "faggot" became more familiar to Kevin than his own name. Nobody watching the regular torture of Kevin's schooldays could have anticipated that he would ever want to return to the classroom. Kevin's father may have preached damnation, but his mother showed him the road to salvation. Forced to drop out of school at the age of nine, Alice Verna Johnson Jennings fervently believed in the power education held for her children. While working a series of blue-collar jobs to support her family, she struggled with her conservative Appalachian roots when her oldest son married a black woman and her youngest came out. Alice's story is powerful account of a woman's triumph over huge obstacles, including her own prejudices. When he earned a scholarship to Harvard, Kevin finally found acceptance. His decision to become a teacher, however, forced him back into the closet. In the classroom, reliving the anguish of school bigotry, Kevin realized his true vocation. When his students rallied to his defense-and thereby to their own-Kevin worked with them to form the first gay/straight alliance, and he went on to found GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network, now a national education organization with a presence in all fifty states.

Customer Reviews:

The teacher who enters the classroom ready to learn from his or her students has boundless capacity for growth.......2007-08-20

Kevin Jennings grew up as a preacher's son (the son of a Southern Baptist Minister) and a mama's boy (more interested in intellectual pursuits than athletics). This memoir is not merely the story of a homosexual boy in the Deep South living below the poverty line. Jennings's personal struggles with family and community acceptance are neither extreme nor representative of the majority. The strength of Jennings's life story lies in the experiences and incidents which led to his career as an activist. The author is able to portray the gradual development of his adult activist spirit, so far removed from the boy who lived in fear of school and his classmates.

As a reader, I especially enjoyed the story of young Kevin's black sister-in-law. His decade-older brother came back from military service with (gasp!) a black wife. They were exiled from the family and community and moved to the Northeast. Kevin had been raised to believe that the KKK, while not a part of his immediate family, did good for the whites in the South. He was ingrained with beliefs about scourge of the blacks in the South. He had extreme anxiety about visiting his brother and sister-in-law, but when he arrived at their house, he learned first-hand what a lovely woman Claudette was, and they quickly became friends and confidantes. Kevin's earliest moment of activism was introducing Claudette to all the family members at a funeral, and ensuring that they all shook her hand and talked politely with her, despite her outsider status.

Kevin Jennings was the first member of his family to go to college, but the family was disappointed that he chose a profession as un-important and un-manly a teaching. If there is one lesson from the story of Kevin Jennings, it is this: a teacher learns as much from his students as they do from him. A teacher who goes into the classroom ready to learn from his or her students has boundless capacity for growth. Jennings worked at a number of private institutions in his early career, learning from his students what level of "outness" they could accept (a lot, it turns out). He spoke up against administration policies which did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. He formed early Gay-Straight Alliances, describing the impetus that came directly from both gay and straight students who placed importance on such partnerships.

I highly recommend this book as high school classroom reading. Kevin Jennings has a life story with elements of poverty (classism), sexism, racism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation. These are universal issues, and his personal experiences provide a starting point for dialog about acceptance and the destruction of stereotypes.

okay, I'm the spoiler.......2007-08-16

As a gay preacher's kid (fundamentalist) from the same geography (rural N.C.), I have to say I found Jenning's story to be irritatingly self-indulgent. I know many gay people who suffered a great deal more than he with the lack of acceptance and prejudice in the rural South. Yet they managed to achieve sucess and come out earlier in life and in far less accepting times and places than New England in the 80's. But, unlike Jennings, they do not seem to consider every personal experience they had on the way to self-fulfillment to be worthy of a book. I couldn't wait to put this one down.

had me laughing and crying.......2007-06-12

I had never heard of Kevin Jennings before reading *Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son*. I got this book as a gift for my partner as he is from North Carolina. Read this after my partner read it. My partner loved it as he said he could relate to Kevin.

Kevin cracked me up with his memoirs on religion, family, school, sexuality and perspectives. Some of the things he said had me going 'my thoughts exactly'.

Kevin grew up Southern Baptist with his father as a preacher. However, his father had a hard time hanging on to a congregation. So, like a military brat, he moved around constantly until his father suddenly passed away. Uneducated, his mother set out to get a job. She landed a job with McDonald's and became their best employee. With a job in hand, Kevin's mother was able to provide stability in his life. However, regardless of the stability, Kevin was facing taunts from school, calling him degratory names. For those of us who grew up gay or struggled with our sexuality, we all know what that felt like.

After high school, he went on to Harvard. From there, Kevin took off like a rocket, especially after Harvard where he founded the Gay-Straight Alliance and other similar organizations.

It was such a lovely book that I enjoyed and couldn't put down. I wasn't expecting to be crying at the end where his mother was dying. It was somewhat similar to my mother's death. In fact, they almost thought alike...especially about the flowers. From that point on, I was crying like a baby. But it was a good cry.

Overall, wonderful memoir filled with humor, inspiration and perspectives.

Has its moments.......2007-05-30

I have to admit that I didn't know who Kevin Jennings was before I read this book. I was drawn to the very human side of the story--the idea of growing up poor and gay in the religious south. In the end, I think that was the most enjoyable part of the story for me and I wish there had been a little more. Of course I recognize the importance of the later material on Kevin's contributions to gay rights, especially in the schools, but I didn't find these parts as touching as his reflections on childhood and his family. I had a sense reading this book that writing it was another "coming out" experience for Kevin, this time talking honestly and openly about what it was like to grow up very poor. In some ways, I wonder which is more difficult in today's world: to come out as gay or poor.

sincere, touching, and a very good read........2007-03-25

wow, Kevin.
what a story, ~which I never knew the half of!
This is amazing to read, and I enjoy your writing style ~
Thank you for the opportunity to experience your life as you've written it. I hope that there many readers who benefit from reading your story ~ life lessons learned, and new perspectives and understanding.
I am so proud to know you.

Growing Up in the South (Signet Classics)

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SOUTHERN VOICES SPEAK OF CHILDHOOD
This book is quite boring
This book evokes a sense of belonging.
Great depiction of life in the South.

Growing Up in the South (Signet Classics)

Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Signet Classic Book of Southern Short Stories (Signet Classics)
My Tears Spoiled My Aim: and Other Reflections on Southern Culture
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Stories of the Modern South: Revised Edition
Being a Writer: A Community of Writers Revisited

ASIN: 0451528735
Release Date: 2003-11-04

Book Description

The all-time bestselling authors of the South

Maya Angelou € William Faulkner € Ernest Gaines € Gail Godwin Carson McCullers € Bobbie Ann Mason € Flannery O'Connor Katherine Anne Porter € Elizabeth Spencer € Alice Walker Eudora € Welty € Richard Wright € and others

Twenty-four unmistakably Southern 20th-century voices-of varying race, class, and gender-demonstrate that region's extraordinary range of storytellers in this eloquent coming-of-age collection.

Customer Reviews:

SOUTHERN VOICES SPEAK OF CHILDHOOD.......2000-07-23

Southern literature was not a course of study in my high school nor in my college english classes. I was delighted when I found this anthology which contained modern stories about growing up in the south. As the south experiences an influx of northerners and other groups from around the world it will gradually lose its unique flavor which makes it the south. Growing Up In The South captures the voices of those who grew up in the region and experienced all the ups and downs that this unique region of the country had to offer. Jones brings together a broad cross section of southern writers from across the region. Unlike other anthologies she is inclusive of both Black and White writers who lived in the same region but whose experiences were vastly different but in many cases overlapped. The focus of this volume is on growing up as a child in the south as well as the exploration of regional themes that permeate through all of the fictional and autobiographical selections. All anthologies run the risk of being boring or incomplete. Jones avoids this and gives one a balanced picture of southern childhood as experienced by the authors. Just a sampling of each story will encourage you to seek out the full works of the authors. Southern literature can said to be the soul of America's literary heritage. This volume indeed speaks to us from the souls of its southern authors. Share their stories and learn how they grew and matured in a region full of violence, racism, and misunderstandings but still holds a deep sense of space and place in their lives.

This book is quite boring.......1999-12-01

Being a student of Mr. Walker, I had to read this book for his class, and failed the test on it. I would have read it, but I couldn't keep my eyes open when I tried to. I does have a couple of humerious stories, but most are very boring. TEACHERS: Please do not torture your students with this book.

This book evokes a sense of belonging........1999-11-17

As an English instructor in a South Carolina high school, I have found this collection quite useful as a tool to illustrate the great diversity of characters who live out the Southern experience. The themes of coming of age, race, violence, and the unredeemed sins of past generations are flushed out with intensity and fury. The strongest pieces included are Moody's "Coming of Age in Mississippi," O'Connor's "Everything that Rises Must Converge," and Faulkner's "An Odor of Verbena." If you teach English in the South, you must include this collection.

Great depiction of life in the South........1998-11-06

Do you know where your "home place" is? If not I recomend you reading this book. This book is also great to use as a text book for an English class. Last year as a senior in high school we read this book and analyzed each story. At first everyone thought "Oh no, just another boring book," but after the first story and dicussion everyone was in search of his/her "home place" (the place he grew up in, the people he remembers from his childhood, or a place in particular). The literature took our class on a mental field trip of the South and on an adventure to find the person we are inside. We discovered how the South has changed and also the things which remain the same. I gained respect for southern literature and southern authors. After reading the book, I began to ask myself "Where is my "home place?" I did not grow up on a large plantation with a big beautiful white column house, that -I learned- is how Hollywood sees the South. I learned that inside I have my family, my mother, those people close to me who create my "home place." It isn't only Southern people who have a "home place," but everyone has a "home place." Some poeple just need to look for theirs. It is within them, deep inside their heart, a place no one else knows of, a place they belong, and a place that can never be taken away. I think everyone should read this book as a self assignment to find one's self.

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Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South
Part Memoir, Part History
This book helps me know myself and my family.

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South
Shirley Abbott
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0395901448

Book Description

In a rich blend of memoir and meditation, Abbott focuses her graceful and witty attention on mothers and daughters of the South. Theirs is a world of red dirt and backbreaking chores and roof-raising revival meeting--a far cry from the magnolias and mint juleps of Gone with the Wind.

Customer Reviews:

Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South.......2002-01-07

Any Southern woman who has ever been tempted to transmogrify her prolific, feisty, cow-milking, chicken-plucking, garden-producing grandmothers into delicate, helpless ladies of the manor should read this book first. For in it, Shirley Abbott looks straight in the faces of the proud, independent, and powerful female descendants of the Scots-Irish migration to the Southern states and discovers something far more admirable than the Southern Belle.

In the process, she challenges such old-line interpretations of southern experience as that of W.J. Cash, who claimed the poor Scots-Irish immigrants who stepped off crowded ships at Charleston and Philadelphia fled inland in search of land that would permit them to become part of the English-American slave-holding, plantation-owning power structure of the Southern colonies. Nothing could be farther from the truth, Abbott argues convincingly: their experience had instilled in the Scots-Irish an abiding hatred of all things English, including the political and economic institutions the English established in centers like Charleston. These new immigrants preferred the terrifying, unexplored baclwoods, where they were free of English domination and what they conceived to be English decadence. The pioneer experience, reinforced by continuing poverty, a civil war, and the depredations of a occupying army only reinforced the pride and self-confidence these people brought with them to America.

In a well conceived study driven by her desire to place and understand her own poor, white, rural, and proud forebears, Abbott produces an elegant combination of memoir and cultural history. Her crystalline two-page account of the Scots-Irish trail to America is in itself worth the price of the book. And the memorable descriptions of the homes, tables, and characters of her Arkansas kinspeople demonstrate the consequences of that migration. For anyone wishing to understand Southern culture and southern women in particular, this small volume is a must-read. It takes the reader beyond stereotypes to a realistic picture of people whose lives are far more inspiring than that of any Belle, Sweet Potato Queen, or YaYa. I have spent my lifetime in the South and in the study of its literature and culture. Yet, I came away from this book with a deeper undersanding of the region and my own personal history in it.

Part Memoir, Part History.......2000-06-01

Shirley Abbott has truly captured the southern female experience, both past and present. Her vivid descriptions of her own family and her mother are the best parts of this book. The historical accounts of women from antebellum times to present are interesting, though not quite as engrossing as her own recollections. It is impossible not to regret the passing of an era in the south as one reads this book and realizes the complexities of women who were so often deemed simple hillbillies. Many women, like myself, who grew up in small southerns towns will recognize their own experiences as they follow the author's. I know I did. On occasion, Ms. Abbott wanders off into feminist interpretations that could get a little harsh. I didn't agree with all of her conclusions, but I really enjoyed reading this book.

This book helps me know myself and my family........1997-08-13

I like to read this book once a year to remind me who I am and where I came from. I will never again be critical or ashamed of my rural mothers'and grandmothers' ways. I always feel like crying after I read this book--tears for their toil and for the disrespect society dealt them, but mostly, I cry a little for myself, too. I regret that I can't sit with them all around the table and hear their stories anymore, and I wish I could pile in the car like Shirley and her cousin to ride out to the cemetary to tend the graves. Abbott's story was familiar to me from the first page. I appreciate the opportunity to remember my maternal ancestors--the poor, white, uneducated, transient,hard working women of the south

Growing Up Jim Crow: The Racial Socialization of Black and White Southern Children, 1890-1940

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Growing Up Jim Crow: The Racial Socialization of Black and White Southern Children, 1890-1940
Jennifer Ritterhouse
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Jim Crow Moves North: The Battle over Northern School Segregation, 18651954 (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society)

ASIN: 0807856843

Book Description

In the segregated South of the early twentieth century, unwritten rules guided every aspect of individual behavior, from how blacks and whites stood, sat, ate, drank, walked, and talked to whether they made eye contact with one another. Jennifer Ritterhouse asks how children learned this racial "etiquette," which was sustained by coercion and the threat of violence. More broadly, she asks how individuals developed racial self-consciousness.

Parental instruction was an important factor--both white parents' reinforcement of a white supremacist worldview and black parents' oppositional lessons in respectability and race pride. Children also learned much from their interactions across race lines. The fact that black youths were often eager to stand up for themselves, despite the risks, suggests that the emotional underpinnings of the civil rights movement were in place long before the historical moment when change became possible. Meanwhile, a younger generation of whites continued to enforce traditional patterns of domination and deference in private, while also creating an increasingly elaborate system of segregation in public settings. Exploring relationships between public and private and between segregation, racial etiquette, and racial violence, Growing Up Jim Crow sheds new light on tradition and change in the South and the meanings of segregation within southern culture.

Between Dogs And Wolves: Growing Up With South Africa
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Between Dogs And Wolves: Growing Up With South Africa

Manufacturer: Dewi Lewis Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1904587321

Book Description

Between Dogs & Wolves is a moving portrait of the harsh realities of Johannesburg's toughest neighborhoods. Jodi Bieber focuses on a generation of young people growing up on the fringes of South African society.

Jodi Bieber's work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, GEO, Mare, and L'Express. She works for Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Positive Lives.

More Culinary Kudzu: Recollections & Recipes from Growing Up Southern

Average customer rating:

Like an iced tea on a hot day?
The Power of Food
Me? A cook?
Memories! Traditons! Celebrate!
A Southern Version of Jan Karon's Mitford

More Culinary Kudzu: Recollections & Recipes from Growing Up Southern
Keetha DePriest Reed
Manufacturer: Pecan Street Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Culinary Kudzu: Recollections and Recipes from Growing Up Southern

ASIN: 0971987726

Product Description

"This book is as sweet as a Smith County watermelon on the 4th of July; as fresh as spring water; as tender as the first greens of winter. More Culinary Kudzu has terrific recipes combined with wise, finely crafted essays..." - Judy Tucker, writer, editor, and playwright "This book is evidence of a good Southern "raising" that took. Odd to say about a cookbook, but here it is in black and white and you can read it all for yourself - the family, the food, the fun. Interspersed between recipes is a revealing dramatic monologue that pay rock solid tribute to Keetha Reed's parents - two people who got it so right that their daughter is compelled to capture and share it on paper. Besides a host of good ole Southern recipes, this book makes you want to ring up Keetha and her mother and ask what day you can show up with an apron and a spatula and join them in the kitchen." - writer and editor Charline McCord

Customer Reviews:

Like an iced tea on a hot day?.......2007-04-12

Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (3/07)

Keetha DePriest Reed's "More Culinary Kudzu: Recollections and Recipes from Growing Up Southern" is part cookbook, part collection of wonderful essays on food, family and growing up Southern and altogether great fun. Reading her book made me want to get up and cook and at the same time do nothing and not feel guilty about it.

A deceptively slim volume of 172 pages, this book is packed with immense insight, great wisdom, yummy recipes and sweet reminiscences. As refreshing as a glass of freshly brewed iced tea on a sweltering hot summer day anywhere in the South, this is a book that you will want to keep - either in your kitchen cupboard for the recipes or by the bedside for the great, uplifting essays crafted by Ms. DePriest Reed. After reading and enjoying the book greatly, I also read the author's bio and I was immensely surprised that she is only in her thirties. Such wisdom in somebody so young is rare and I'd venture to say that she owes it at least in part to her obviously great upbringing.

The book is divided into six sections. The first five deal with the four seasons - plus an additional one, the holiday season. Appropriate recipes are interspersed with musings on food, family, friendship and life in general. Lots of great childhood memories as well as photos of author and her family illustrate well how celebrating food is an intricate part of living in the South. The recipes range from very simple to quite involved and cover all kind of dishes, from beverages to salads, main dishes, desserts, canned foods and more. The sixth section is an Appendix - where one can find more interesting information on various websites, places of interest, books and a brief author's bio.

I tried two of her recipes out already and found them to be easy to follow, easy to make and delicious. More of them are on my to-do list, as is getting the first Culinary Kudzu book Ms. DePriest Reed wrote and published earlier.

I would very highly recommend "More Culinary Kudzu" to anybody who enjoys good food and good writing as well as to anybody who wants to find out more about the South. As for me, I only have one question left - how do I get invited to one of their family reunions?

The Power of Food.......2007-02-18

If I could borrow one line from the writer that epitomizes this book, it is "Food is a powerful link to family members and friends, certainly to memories." This is the thought that pervades this second offering from Keetha DePriest Reed. From her grandmother's kitchen in Houston, Mississippi, to the test kitchens at the Viking Range Corporation and at all points in between, Reed once again captures the essence of food as a universal tie that binds us all. With intriguing tales of childhood rememberances and life experiences paired with wonderful recipes and helpful cooking tips, this book makes a wonderful resource and an entertaining read.

Me? A cook?.......2007-02-14

Let's get this straight before I even begin. I'm not a cook. Oh, I do cook, but I'm not "a cook." The thing about "More Culinary Kudzu, is that even I can perform the recipes and they "actually" turn out--like they're supposed to. In my family, we love dips and nibble foods, and this cookbook is filled with scrumptious recipes like sweet potato chips, hot crab dip (yum), and my husband's favorite, roasted pecans. And though author, Keetha Reed, admits to "not" liking grits, my family loves them and the garlic cheese grits are awesome. "More Culinary Kudzu" is a great gift item and a must for the cookbook collection, with lots of humor and stories of the south.

Memories! Traditons! Celebrate!.......2007-01-25

If you've read Culinary Kudzu, you know Keetha DePriest Reed has captured the spirit of the Mississippi Delta and its love of family, friends, storytelling and tradition through the universal language of--food, of course, where every occasion is marked by its signature recipe. Now, in More Culinary Kudzu, Reed captivates us again through the love-language of recipes. More Culinary Kudzu isn't just a cookbook...it's memoir, temptation, and celebration. Reed guides us through the seasons with dishes so delicious they've become a standard for holiday tables, and she traces community ties by the donor's name on a recipe card. In this day of fast food, little time, and grocery store cakes, More Culinary Kudzu reminds us that any day can be an Occasion when it's shared with love and food. More Culinary Kudzu is a must-have for your own cookbook collection, and one that can be shared with a child, your sister, your mother-in-law, your best friend...oh, just anybody. Go ahead, read More Culinary Kudzu, make a list of friends, and pick out your own day to celebrate...make it a tradition. Keetha DePriest Reed will show you how.

A Southern Version of Jan Karon's Mitford.......2006-11-30

Believe me, this book would make the perfect gift for any woman you need to buy for - whether it's a gift exchange at the office, something for your mother-in-law, or a last-minute present for the neighbor who picked up your mail while you were away.

The book has cute reminiscences combined with practical recipes and decorating tips - all presented with quintessential Southern charm. The author, a former caterer, lives in the Mississippi Delta; this book combines her skill in hospitality with her journalistic abilities.

The book is divided into 5 sections: Sweet Summertime, Delta Fall, The Magic Season, Cold and Rainy, and Spring Scrooge. Thus, the tales and recipes are all basically arranged by season. For example, the "Sweet Summertime" chapter starts with a strong showing of those Southern classic recipes - grits, biscuits, cornbread and hummingbird cake. Meanwhile, the "Magic Season" chapter features fried turkey.

I have tried four of the recipes already - red velvet cupcakes, Christmas fruitcake cookies, garlic cheese grits and sausage-cheese balls. All four were quite tasty! Overall, the recipes in the book are all quite easy (except maybe those ice box rolls!) and are recipes that I would definitely be willing to try - and maybe adopt as my "own."

The sketches throughout the book also added a nice visual appeal to the book. The appendix included some of the author's favorite places, books, and sources for Southern foodstuffs. Enjoy!

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Shelby Foote makes it worth it!

Growing Up Southern
Fred Brown , and Jeanne McDonald
Manufacturer: Apocryphile Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews:

Shelby Foote makes it worth it!.......1999-05-16

As a regular reader of "Colonel" Fred Brown in the Knoxville (TN) News-Sentinel, I welcomed the prospects of this new book. It exceeds expectations! This team of writers accomplished the "impossible" by arranging to interview author Shelby Foote personally and that chapter alone is worth the price of the book--then there are Welty and other bonus chapters. Highly recommended!

Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South

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Economics drove slavery - including family life
a thought-provoking study of childhood under slavery
Slavery was an horrid event...

Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South
Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Slavery & Emancipation | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0674001621

Book Description

Each time a child was born in bondage, the system of slavery began anew. Although raised by their parents or by surrogates in the slave community, children were ultimately subject to the rule of their owners. Following the life cycle of a child from birth through youth to young adulthood, Marie Jenkins Schwartz explores the daunting world of slave children, a world governed by the dual authority of parent and owner, each with conflicting agendas.

Despite the constant threats of separation and the necessity of submission to the slaveowner, slave families managed to pass on essential lessons about enduring bondage with human dignity. Schwartz counters the commonly held vision of the paternalistic slaveholder who determines the life and welfare of his passive chattel, showing instead how slaves struggled to give their children a sense of self and belonging that denied the owner complete control.

Born in Bondage gives us an unsurpassed look at what it meant to grow up as a slave in the antebellum South. Schwartz recreates the experiences of these bound but resilient young people as they learned to negotiate between acts of submission and selfhood, between the worlds of commodity and community.

Customer Reviews:

Economics drove slavery - including family life.......2007-06-02

In this intriguing study, Marie Jenkins Schwartz has given us a better understanding of how the economics of slavery drove family life in the Amtebellum South. It comes as no suprise that economics was the key factor in the perpetuation of slavery prior to the American Civil War, but this study gives the reader a new appreciation for how slaveholders viewed slaves, including children, as nothing more than property.

Schwartz delves into many facets of slave family life, including pregnancy, birth of a child, education of the child, the horror of sale and separation from family members, and love and marriage in the slave community. Her work is well documented and is a fascinating look at this topic. She explains how the slaveholders attempted to exert paternalistic control over the families for personal economic gain. For example, in the section on love and marriage, the author explains in great detail how slaeholders often made a mockery of the ceremony by forcing the omission of the standard "'till death do us part" or "what God hath brought together let no man put asunder". She explains that these concepts were left out by the slaveholders to ensure no feelings of guilt or remorse when the newly married couple was broken apart by sale of one partner or the other.

Her study seems to be largely focused on using the documents from the slave narratives collected during the Great Depression during the WPA, but well supplemented with contemporary accounts, including journals, diaries, and plantation records. When combined with quality secondary sources, the author has painted a nice portrait of slave family life.

The area of slave family life is one that has been largely ignored by scholars in the past, and this book is a valuable contribution to the existing scholarly literature on the topic. I would highly recommend anyone interested in family dynamics and relationships between slaveholder and slaves in the Antebellum South read this book.

a thought-provoking study of childhood under slavery.......2002-03-04

This absorbing book both confirms established information (e.g., the prevalence of children among domestic workers) and challenges popular assumptions about slaves' lives (Schwartz suggests that antebellum planter families frequently ignored injunctions against teaching slaves to read and that many, perhaps most, slave children learned the alphabet and basic reading skills, even if few became competent readers). Schwartz draws on WPA narratives of former slaves, as well as the memoirs of former slaves and slaveowners, to construct a surprising vivid picture of young children's lives under slavery. Her writing is smooth and clear, though occasionally repetitive.

Slavery was an horrid event..........2000-10-18

Here's a book that grants the reader a degree of freedom to question where a number of the quotes came from. The voices of the children are still missing.

For thirty-five dollars it lacks merit. But for someone with little understanding of slavery its an interesting library read.

Southern Serendipity: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Rural South
Average customer rating:

A Southern Girl's Biased Review

Southern Serendipity: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Rural South
Tina Rye Sloan
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0595410804

Book Description

Many people might assume that growing up in a town with less than three hundred residents would be quite dull and uneventful. But for author Tina Rye Sloan, growing up in tiny Detroit, Alabama, was anything but boring.

In her delightful memoir Southern Serendipity, Sloan shares some rather entertaining and almost unbelievable accounts of life in the Deep South. From discovering numerous mischievous uses for dish soap to miraculously surviving a slide off the tin roof of a barn-propelled by a slick coating of baby oil-Sloan provides a look at the rich upbringing she was fortunate to have, despite her family's poverty. Southern Serendipity also offers a glimpse into Southern small-town life during the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Sloan inadvertently yet artfully describes many facets of Southern culture, from colloquialisms to gardening to education.

The collection of heartwarming stories in Southern Serendipity is based around several families whose lives in this small Southern town were woven together like strong, colorful threads in a tapestry.

Customer Reviews:

A Southern Girl's Biased Review.......2007-04-02

It's hard for me to be objective because I too was reared in Detroit, Alabama, so my review probably won't mean much. Tina Rye Sloan has simply, yet beautifully captured the elegance of growing up in Detroit. Her book took me home and helped me to remember things that I had sadly forgotten. For that, I am grateful. It's hard for me to be objective because I knew every character. I was friends with Willy and Jake and could probably write a book of my own with just the two of them as the main characters. If you were brought up in a large town wondering what it means to live an unhurried life, read Southern Serendipity. If you find yourself running in circles, and can't seem to take a breath, read this book and breathe in thelessons of simplicity. No matter where you are from- this book can offer you a glimpse into a simple, genuine, and true southern tapestry. Thanks, Tina for writing this book, I will share these stories with my daughter someday.

Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and the Journeys of the Spirit (Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Gay & Lesbian Studies)

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Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and the Journeys of the Spirit (Gay & Lesbian Studies) (Gay & Lesbian Studies)
James T. Sears
Manufacturer: Harrington Park Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Nonfiction | Gay & Lesbian | Subjects | Books

Children's Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Lonely Hunters: An Oral History of Lesbian and Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968

ASIN: 0918393795

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