Rooted in Place
Family and Belongings in a Southern Black Community
Throughout the twentieth century, millions of African Americans, many from impoverished, historically black counties, left the South to pursue what they thought would be a better life in the North. But not everyone moved away during what scholars have termed the Great Migration. What has life been like for those who stayed? Why would they remain in a place that many outsiders would see as grim, depressed, economically marginal, and where racial prejudice continues to place them at a disadvantage?
Through oral history William Falk tells the story of an extended family in the Georgia-South Carolina lowcountry. Family members talk about schooling, relatives, work, religion, race, and their love of the place where they have lived for generations. This “conversational ethnography” argues that an interconnection between race and place in the area helps explain African Americans’ loyalty to it. In Colonial County, blacks historically enjoyed a numerical majority as well as deep cultural roots and longstanding webs of social connections that, Falk finds, more than outweigh the racism they face and the economic disadvantages they suffer.
Introduction. A Brief Autobiographical Note
One. A Region, a Place, a Man
Two. The World of Work - as Experienced and Interpreted by Older Men
Three. Strong Women
Four. What Did You Learn in School Today?
Five. In the Lord's House
Six. Race and Everyday Life
Seven. Home is Where the Heart Is
Eight. The Power of Place
Appendix. Some Notes on Methods, the Study Site, and Emergent Theory
Notes
Index