south to america a journey bel summary

"South to America" focuses on the South and race. As Andre 3000 declared, The South got something to say. And its a breathtaking something from fine arts to reality television, internationally traded corporations to roadside rib-shacks whose flavors inform the American palate. Most Caucasians want nothing but equal treatment in life and law for every human, so work from the premise instead that modern Caucasians arent the devil and arent out to kill you, and we all might get along as a society SO much better! It's also the case that it is still a place of profound inequality. "If America was forged and reforged in the South, then it can be healed and reinvented there as well (and perhaps it must be so)." South to America is a new addition to a rapidly growing body of recent work that explores the Black experience in historical and contemporary framing. That change, however, requires truth-telling and acceptance of accurate history, rather than mythmaking. He recalls fending off the flirtations of a 12-year-old boy in France, frustrated by the language barrier and other factors that kept him from supporting a young gay man. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. (He refers to one such person as a snacktivist.) Such impolitic material, though, puts serious essays in sharper, more powerful relief. While a patriotic narrative of American history would count these men as enlightened thinkers, Perry points out that both were slave owners. Finally, Americans view coal miners as Appalachias heroic archetype (18), but Black miners in West Virginia died of silicosis after they were recruited to blast through Gauley Mountain. And if you squint just a little, South to America helps fill in the picture. As a non-Black person, I had hoped to see the South through a different lens that would help me better understand the vast significance that Black people have had on America. In Alabama, Perry reflects on the Civil Rights Movement, as well as Christianity and the God of masters versus the God of slaves.. Her insides clench, fearing that she is witnessing some cruel antebellum cosplay. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow . Her portraits of her grandmother combine elegiac longing and the rigor of a historian setting the record straight. A 1939 Fourth of July celebration, St. Helena . An Oprah Pick of Recommended Reads. South to America, by Imani Perry (Ecco). The values of men who willingly owned other humans are written into the countrys founding documents. It's quite meandering and nonlinear; it also assumes the reader learned about or remembers the historic events mentioned. And so I turn to Wright and the way that he describes growing up in the Black Belt, in this place with so much incredible beauty, and abundance, and being hungry, to really get what it was like in recent history for people to essentially live in a plantation economy. However, the reality is that the South has had a deep and undeniable impact on nearly every facet of American culture, from its founding political documents to its modern-day race relations. Imani Perry argues that the South is actually central to understanding the arc of American historyits . When done well, the combination of memoir/history/cultural commentary is a powerful format for exploring and explaining a place. Perrys acceptance speech was beautifulcheck it out! There were instances where I felt the South enter her writing and I feel like that this did wonders for this history and Dr. Perrys arguments. In their newest book, Dr. Perry opens up the South for her readers and reveals extraordinary things that will definitely keep you on your toes. SOUTH TO AMERICA: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry, 2022. In South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, she explores the varied land and much . She points out. Even though the South has a difficult history, Perry contends, it provides important context for America today. In the hands of a capable writer, this book would likely be overshadowed by Clint Smith's excellent "How the Word is Passed" Smith's work is driven by his curiosity, thoughtfulness and desire to understand. SOUTH TO AMERICAA Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a NationBy Imani Perry. However, she also points out those things that comfort her about the South that she can't find elsewhere. Jan. 26, 2022. The authors ancestor Esther/Easter/Stace would be so proud that her descendant was able to be so successful in her life, but would not understand her descendants naked hatred carried over from a situation that no longer exists. For those with only a cursory knowledge of the history of Being Black in America, it will come as a shock. It's hard for me to give this book a star rating, partly because it's difficult to classify, so I'm not sure how to evaluate it. CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | But it is unfair to group modern day Caucasians in with slaveholding southerners. Books Add to Wishlist South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (National Book Award Winner) by Imani Perry Write a review Paperback $19.99 Hardcover $23.99 Paperback $19.99 eBook $13.99 Audiobook $0.00 Large Print $30.99 View All Available Formats & Editions SHIP THIS ITEM Qualifies for Free Shipping Race is at the heart of the South, and at the heart of the nation, Perry writes, and wherever she goes, she listens for its beat. But what that means is not in fact easily described in political terms., BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | To be an American is to be infused with the plantation South, with its Black vernacular, its insurgency, Perry writes, and also its brutal masculinity, its worship of Whiteness, its expulsion and its massacres, its self-defeating stinginess and unapologetic pride.. From the three essays that examine Alabama its clear that despite a childhood in New England, Perrys heart belongs to the idiosyncratic Yellowhammer State. South to America follows author Imani Perry as she journeys throughout the Southern United States in order to learn more about the unique history and culture of the region. (After thirty years, sleeping is the new having sex.) Even more serious stuff rolls off him. The author is deeply aware of these injustices from her own personal experiences and from growing up in a family involved with the Civil Rights Movement, so she doesn't pull any punches when there is criticism to give. She also emphasizes that the Constitutions original three-fifths compromise did not simply mean that an enslaved person counted three-fifths as much as a White citizen. In South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, Perry gazes from West Virginia to Florida, stops in Kentucky and the Carolinas, visits Mississippi and Georgia, and lingers in Louisiana and her native Alabama to contemplate a nation and a people fractured over history, race and justice. GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | But it's also the case that people in my home are still suffering. As she gets closer, Perry hears the men speaking Spanish. Ecco And so, to get over the romanticism was for me to both hold on to what I think of as these sort of incredibly noble parts of Southern tradition, and also grapple with the fact that it remains the poorest region; it remains a region where many, many people are disenfranchised; remains a region where people are exploited. Read this book with an open mind and you'll be a better person when you're done. South Dakotas Mount Rushmore, a source of national pride, and Georgias Stone Mountain, a source of regional angst, each display two Virginia-born Southerners: at Rushmore, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who practiced slavery; at Stone Mountain, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who fought to preserve it. She does not offer grand solutions, save for her hope that the written word can yield moral redemption; she is distrustful of memorializing even while recognizing its power; she identifies many distinct origin moments for America; and she has found her own literary muse to guide her soul-searching. It's not a neutral term for most Americans. While traveling through Huntsville, Alabama, and different cities in North Carolina, Perry reflects on the religiosity of both the United States and Black communities. Intertwining personal, political, and social histories, Perry takes on a journey through the Southern States. Who toiled? AFRICAN AMERICAN | They did not count at all, Perry emphasizes. WINNER OF THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American Southand thus of Americaby an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. hide caption. She explores it region by region, starting in Appalachia, relating histories, folkways, foods, industries, everything that makes that region unique, and ties it all back in to race relations and the struggles and triumphs of Black Americans in those regions. HISTORY | Through a combination of history, memoir, and just some simply stunning storytelling, Imani Perry has redefined not only what the South is, but what a reckoning of it could look like. A #1 Amazon bestseller. BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | Received as an ARC via my employer Barnes & Noble. But I couldnt let go of the question, he writes, after realizing that his goals didnt quite fit in an English department. Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect? So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay. The authors empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his proseas well as the moral purpose underscoring itsuggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. South to America blends Imani Perry's personal experiences, historical events and reporting on the current cultural moment into a work of creative non-fiction about the American South. it's modeled after Albert Murray's 1971 book about his . She points out that the South is a misunderstood region, with the cultural narrative depicting it as a bastion of racism and backwards thinking. She has published widely on topics ranging from racial inequality to hip-hop and is active across various media. Summary. Dont let any politician spouting anti-woke nonsense or book-banning suburban moms tell you that their comfort warrants your erasure from the facts of history. Perrys travels next take her to the so-called Deep South of Georgia and Florida. Her parents are civil rights activists, and Perry recalls growing up surrounded by community organizers. Those splits, she contends, are integral to our national identity. All Rights Reserved. Sedaris remains stubbornly irreverent even in the face of pandemic lockdowns and social upheaval. But love it or hate it, a new. Important Quotes Part 1, Chapters 1-3 Chapter Summaries & Analyses Chapter 1 Summary: "An Errand into the Wilderness: Appalachia" Perry, a Philadelphia resident, begins her trek through the Southern US in the region most adjacent to her current home. His relationship with his partner, Hugh, remains contentious, but its mellowing. And the odds are pretty good that I would be irked by the things he thinks about the world.) Deep in the book, readers still find relatively generic summations of the region or various locales. These commonalities are especially significant for Black Americans. Assuming hell speak about Northern aggression, Perry chooses not to question him, and this, too, is the legacy of the intimacy of slavery we have lived together so long that we believe we can read each others minds. South to America by Imani Perry offers narrative nonfiction of the Southern U.S. centering Black perspectives. Who overcame? While in some places, Perry has the benefit of a guide, here she doesnt cite the personal conversations that led to her insights, and the resulting observations feel a bit chilly. I have a whole shelf dedicated to The South (it's capitalized, fight me.) An acolyte of Toni Morrison, Perry nevertheless takes pointed issue with the Nobel laureates characterization of the women of Mobile. GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR, by Yet there is no other way to live., GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | After all, Perry addresses everything from hip-hop to the United Fruit Company and her own grandmother. Perry declares that the major metropolis of the South doesnt have a sufficient mass transit system or a polyglot culture. but goes on to suggest that survivors of dirt roads take comfort, instead, in the shiny baubles hawked in Lenox Mall. July 28, 2023. Perry, professor of African American studies at Princeton, melds memoir, travel narrative, and history in an intimate, penetrating journey through the South, from the Mason-Dixon Line to Florida, West Virginia, and the Bahamas. Retrieve credentials. Told in beautiful prose, Imani Perry's South to America takes us to the heartland of the American South. During her visit to Maryland, Perry sees people wearing muslin shirts and straw hats while laboring in a field. But love it or hate it, a new book says you must appreciate its good, bad and ugly sides to understand the country. The next stop on the journey is Washington, DC, the capital of the United States. At moments of crisis, it always makes sense to return to the past to try to figure out if the arrangement of what is remembered and what is forgotten, or what is retained and what has been thrown away, are part of the problem, Perry writes. And its not just the music or dance. Such a perspective can suffer through time and distance, she admits, yet it allows her to delve into an archive of historical memory in a quest that can be less detailed and more impressionistic but ultimately more profound. In South to America, that effort is rendered through a mix of travelogue, memoir, and literary and historical inquiry, an ambitious project that becomes enlightening and frustrating for its very scope. There is little money for food, and Margo deprives herself to feed her .
Land For Sale In Newton County, Ga, Articles S