Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South

by Brenda E. Stevenson

Book Overview

Life in the old South has always fascinated Americans--whether in the mythical portrayals of the planter elite from fiction such as Gone With the Wind or in historical studies that look inside the slave cabin. Now Brenda E. Stevenson presents a reality far more gripping than popular legend, even as she challenges the conventional wisdom of academic historians. Life in Black and White provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195118030
• ISBN13: 9780195118032
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Black and White of It

Prof. Stevenson's book does not attempt to capture the essence of the entire American south or of the entire history of American slavery. Instead, she attempts a historical reproduction of the lives of American Black women and American white women, two collective voices which are all too often forgotten in the sexualized debate over race relations and slavery. Rather than seeing that debate as a battle between Black men and White men Stevenson's work is meant to compliment the works of earlier researchers, notably Blassingame, Genovese, Herskovitz, and Jones to provide a complete and concerted picture of slave life for all involved: black and white, male and female. By providing the evidence of primary sources she lets the dead speak for themselves about their conditions rather than creating academic hyperbole in an Ivory (or Ebony) Tower. Any dismissive criticisms of political correctness or sanitized objectivity directed against this amazing accomplishment miss the point entirely. Stevenson is being academically precise, intellectually faithful, and ethically professional in detailing these stories that would have otherwise been smeared in the miasma of American history. In distinguishing heterosexual relationships from homosexual, which are increasingly coming to light as more and more evidence of the truth of slavery is exposed, her book signals a change in historical materials that seek to be more comprehensive in examing past lives. Her book is a necessary element in the ongoing narrative of American history.