Illuminating the moral dilemmas that lie at the heart of a slaveholding society, this book tells the story of a young slave who was sexually exploited by her master and ultimately executed for his murder. Celia was only fourteen years old when she was acquired by John Newsom, an aging widower and one of the most prosperous and respected citizens of Callaway County, Missouri. The pattern of sexual abuse that would mark their entire relationship began almost immediately. After purchasing Celia in a neighboring county, Newsom raped her on the journey back to his farm. He then established her in a small cabin near his house and visited her regularly (most likely with the knowledge of the son and two daughters who lived with him). Over the next five years, Celia bore Newsom two children; meanwhile, she became involved with a slave named George and resolved at his insistence to end the relationship with her master. When Newsom refused, Celia one night struck him fatally with a club and disposed of his body in her fireplace. Her act quickly discovered, Celia was brought to trial. She received a surprisingly vigorous defense from her court-appointed attorneys, who built their case on a state law allowing women the use of deadly force to defend their honor. Nevertheless, the court upheld the tenets of a white social order that wielded almost total control over the lives of slaves. Celia was found guilty and hanged. Melton A. McLaurin uses Celia's story to reveal the tensions that strained the fabric of antebellum southern society. Celia's case demonstrates how one master's abuse of power over a single slave forced whites to make moral decisions about the nature of slavery. McLaurin focuses sharply on the role of gender, exploring the degree to which female slaves were sexually exploited, the conditions that often prevented white women from stopping such abuse, and the inability of male slaves to defend slave women. Setting the case in the context of the 1850s slavery debates, he also probes the manner in which the legal system was used to justify slavery. By granting slaves certain statutory rights (which were usually rendered meaningless by the customary prerogatives of masters), southerners could argue that they observed moral restraint in the operations of their peculiar institution. An important addition to our understanding of the pre-Civil War era, Celia, A Slave is also an intensely compelling narrative of one woman pushed beyond the limits of her endurance by a system that denied her humanity at the most basic level.

With an executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, the United States Marine Corps--the last all-white branch of the U.S. military--was forced to begin recruiting and enlisting African Americans. The first black recruits received basic training at the segregated Camp Montford Point, adjacent to Camp Lejeune, near Jacksonville, North Carolina. Between 1942 and 1949 (when the base was closed as a result of President Truman's 1948 order fully desegregating all military forces) more than 20,000 men trained at Montford Point, most of them going on to serve in the Pacific Theatre in World War II as members of support units. This book, in conjunction with the documentary film of the same name, tells the story of these Marines for the first time. Drawing from interviews with 60 veterans, The Marines of Montford Point relates the experiences of these pioneers in their own words. From their stories, we learn about their reasons for enlisting; their arrival at Montford Point and the training they received there; their lives in a segregated military and in the Jim Crow South; their experiences of combat and service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam; and their legacy. The Marines speak with flashes of anger and humor, sometimes with sorrow, sometimes with great wisdom, and always with a pride fostered by incredible accomplishment in the face of adversity. This book serves to recognize and to honor the men who desegregated the Marine Corps and loyally served their country in three major wars.

In Separate Pasts Melton A. McLaurin honestly and plainly recalls his boyhood during the 1950s, an era when segregation existed unchallenged in the rural South. In his small hometown of Wade, North Carolina, whites and blacks lived and worked within each other's shadows, yet were separated by the history they shared. Separate Pasts is the moving story of the bonds McLaurin formed with friends of both races—a testament to the power of human relationships to overcome even the most ingrained systems of oppression. A new afterword provides historical context for the development of segregation in North Carolina. In his poignant portrayal of contemporary Wade, McLaurin shows that, despite integration and the election of a black mayor, the legacy of racism remains.

“A rare combination of vivid science, compassionate storytelling, and lasting spiritual lessons. A delight to read.” –Philip Yancey Our bodies are designed to heal. We fall off our bikes and skin our knees—and without effort on our part, the skin looks like new in a few days. But while our skinned knees easily heal, it can sometimes feel like our emotional and relational wounds are left gaping open, broken beyond repair. If our bodies instinctively know how to heal physical injuries, could they also help us understand how to restore painful emotional and relational ruptures? In their groundbreaking debut book, physician Jennie McLaurin and scientist Cymbeline T. Culiat write Designed to Heal: a fascinating look at how the restorative processes of the body can model patterns we may adapt to heal the acute and chronic wounds of our social bodies. Through engaging patient stories, imaginative travels through the body’s microcellular landscapes, accessible references to current research, and reflections on the image of God, Designed to Heal offers a new perspective for healing our social divisions. By learning how the body is created with mechanisms that optimize a flourishing recovery from life’s inevitable wounds, we are given a model for hopeful, faithful, and enduring healing in all other aspects of our lives. Our wounds don’t have to have the last word.

We all have that special someone who has made an everlasting impact on our lives. I was lucky to have met my person the day I was born. My Gram small in stature but big in heart left such an impression that I felt what she meant to me should be shared with the world. Gram brought our family together every Sunday to overindulge in laughter, love, and her food. Inspired by my family, countless weekends and summers spent at Gram's and Paw Paw's house, and the best dish she's ever made me, I wrote Sweet Potato Pie. Heartfelt and warming, Sweet Potato Pie is a dedication to our special people who hugged us ever so tightly, lifted us when we were down, bandaged our wounds, and whose hearts we've become bound. This story makes for the perfect gift to the loved ones here with us and those we're expecting. Gram, I love you.

For less than eighteen months in 1942 and 1943, a young African American photographer named Roger Smith was the sole photographer for the Negro Section of the segregated United States Office of War Information (OWI). From the agency's office in Washington, DC, he worked in a rigidly segregated city and in an equally segregated federal government civil service. Despite the handicaps under which he labored, in that brief time Smith created a remarkable photographic record of the African American home front in and around the nation's capital. His photographs, many of them arresting candid shots, provide a vivid record of African Americans supporting and contributing to the war effort of a nation that deemed them inferior and continued to treat them as second-class citizens. While Smith himself, about whom we know little, slipped from the pages of history, his photographs remain to attest to both African American support for the war and to a people's continued hope that the nation would someday redeem its promise of equality for all. Despite his accomplishments, the rules of segregation that governed the society in which he lived restrained Smith and his work for the OWI has gone largely unrecognized. The primary history of the OWI to date mentions neither the Negro Section nor Smith. Yet during his time with the OWI, Smith encountered any number of talented white photographers, many of whom would go on to exceptional careers, some to fame. In the exact period Smith worked with the OWI, the Farm Security Administration (FSA), one of Roosevelt's Depression era agencies, was merged with the OWI until it was eliminated at the end of 1943. The cadre of photographers in the FSA photographic unit headed by Roy Stryker had gained a national reputation presenting the American public with graphic images of the human suffering endured during the Depression, images that still loom large in the public recollection of that era. Among their ranks were Stryker, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Arthur Rothstein, and the African American photographer Gordon Parks. As the Negro Section's sole photographer, Smith produced the photographs the OWI sent to some 240 black-owned newspapers located in every region of the country. Among the largest African American-owned papers at the time were the Atlanta World (the nation's only black-owned daily) and the large weekly papers with circulations in the hundreds of thousands, including the Pittsburg Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the New York Amsterdam News, each enormously influential and each reaching numerous subscribers beyond their city. Papers with a more local circulation in cities such as Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, and Los Angles each reached an additional audience of tens of thousands. The Negro Section also sent its stories and photographs to the few black-owned papers published in Southern cities, including Nashville, Tennessee, and Greensboro and Wilmington, North Carolina, all of which found a small local readership.

This thesis examines the ongoing trends in depictions of Native American Indians in popular mainstream media from the last two decades. Stereotypes in general and in relation to Native American Indians are discussed, and a pattern of stereotype reactions to colonists' perceived strains is identified. An analysis of popular television shows, movies, and books with contemporary Native characters will demonstrate new trends which we might consider transformed or emerging stereotypes of Native people in non-Native media. These trends will not only be shown to have emerged from more general national and regional stereotypes of Native identity, but will also demonstrate a continuation of the historical willingness of colonists to rely on more virulent Native stereotypes in cases where they perceive some Native threat. Particular attention will be paid to the denial of Indian identity in the southeast and northeast through comedy and mockery and, on the other hand, the exaggeration of Indian identity in the western United States through shape-shifting, paranormal encounters, mystery, and more conventional Native interests. At the end of the thesis, some possible methods for grappling with these problematic portrayals will be discussed.