Night Riders in Black Folk History

by Gladys-Marie Fry

Book Overview

During and after the days of slavery in the United States, one way in which slaveowners, overseers, and other whites sought to control the black population was to encourage and exploit a fear of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807849634
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating History

This book is one of the most important studies that uses oral history and folklore research. Beginning with stories about night riders and beliefs about the supernatural, Fry documents stories about white people's use of folklore to attempt to intimidate African Americans. The book traces out stories of night riders and legends throughout American history as it demonstrates how the stories began with the patrollers and the KKK. She demonstrates how the stories continued into the 20th century and how the old beliefs transformed into plausible scenarios that make sense in relation to contemporary social tensions. The book has been critiqued for not dealing with black people's resistance to oppression, but this criticism misses the mark of what Fry accomplishes: namely, she has written a careful analysis of relationships between belief, oral history, and systems that establish hegemonies. To further balance out the aspects of resistance that show up in these complex belief systems, I would recommend reading Patricia Turner's excellent study "I Heard it Through the Grapevine."