Histories of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 typically focus on Rose Parks, who refused to yield her bus seat to a White man, and on a young Martin Luther King Jr., who became the spokesman for the Black community organization set up to pursue a boycott of Montgomery's segregated city buses. In an important revision of the traditional account, this extraordinary personal memoir reveals an earlier and more important role played by a group of middle-class Black Montgomery women in creating the boycott.
As head of the Women's Political Council, the most active and assertive black civic organization in the City, Jo Ann Robinson was centrally involved in planning for a boycott far in advance and was able to immediately initiate it the evening Rosa Parks was arrested. Robinson also took part in crucial but ultimately unsuccessful negotiations with White officials both before and during the protest. Her proud, moving narrative vividly portrays her colleagues in the struggle, their strategies and decisions, and evokes the complex emotional currents in Montgomery during the boycott.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott ignited the civil rights movement and has always been vitally important in southern history and African American history. This seminal publication, named to Wall Street Journal's top ten list of books on the civil rights movement, has long been a milestone publication in understanding America's complicated racial history.

This is the most comprehensive manual written on natural dyes since the early 1800s. Jim Liles has rescued ancient skills from near-extinction and shared them in a book that will inspire, challenge, and guide the modern dyer.--Rita Buchanan, author of A Weaver's Garden and editor of the new Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Handbook on Natural Dyes
A must for every dyer. The recipes are explicit and detailed as to success and failure.--Mary Frances Davidson

For several thousand years, all dyes were of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin, and many ancient civilizations possessed excellent dye technologies. The first synthetic dye was produced in 1856, and the use of traditional dyes declined rapidly thereafter. By 1915 few nonsynthetics were used by industry or craftspeople. The craft revivals of the 1920s explored traditional methods of natural dyeing to some extent, particularly with wool, although the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dye manuals, which recorded the older processes, remained largely forgotten.

In The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing, J. N. Liles consolidates the lore of the older dyers with his own firsthand experience to produce both a history of natural dyes and a practical manual for using presynthetic era processes on all the natural fibers--cotton, linen, silk, and wool. A general section on dyeing and mordanting and a glossary introduce the beginner to dye technology. In subsequent chapters, Liles summarizes the traditional dye methods available for each major color group. Scores of recipes provide detailed instructions on how to collect ingredients--flowers, weeds, insects, wood, minerals--prepare the dyevat, troubleshoot, and achieve specific shades.

The book will appeal not only to beginning and veteran dyers but also to students of restorations and reconstruction as well as to craftspeople--spinners, quilters, weavers, knitters, and other textile artists--interested in natural dyes for their beauty and historical authenticity.

On a November afternoon in 1864, the weary Gen. John Bell Hood surveyed the army waiting to attack the Federals at Franklin, Tennessee. He gave the signal almost at dusk, and the Confederates rushed forward to utter devastation. This book describes the events and causes of the five-hour battle in gripping detail, particularly focusing on the reasons for such slaughter at a time when the outcome of the war had already been decided.

The genesis of the senseless tragedy, according to McDonough and Connelly, lay in the appointment of Hood to command the Army of Tennessee. It was his decision to throw a total force of some 20,000 men into an ill-advised frontal assault against the Union troops. The Confederates made their approach, without substantial artillery support, on a level of some two miles. Why did Hood select such a catastrophic strategy? The authors analyze his reasoning in full. Their vivid and moving narrative, with statements from eyewitnesses to the battle, make compelling reading for all Civil War buffs and historians.

A Good Morning America Pick of the Week!

Born a German Jew in 1915, Rudy Baum was eighty-six years old when he sealed the garage door of his Dallas home, turned on the car ignition, and tried to end his life. After confronting her father's attempted suicide, Karen Baum Gordon, Rudy's daughter, began a sincere effort to understand the sequence of events that led her father to that dreadful day in 2002. What she found were hidden scars of generational struggles reaching back to the camps and ghettos of the Third Reich.

In The Last Letter: A Father's Struggle, a Daughter's Quest, and the Long Shadow of the Holocaust, Gordon explores not only her father's life story, but also the stories and events that shaped the lives of her grandparents--two Holocaust victims that Rudy tried in vain to save in the late 1930s and early years of World War II. This investigation of her family's history is grounded in eighty-eight letters written mostly by Julie Baum, Rudy's mother and Karen's grandmother, to Rudy between November 1936 and October 1941. In five parts, Gordon examines pieces of these well-worn, handwritten letters and other archival documents in order to discover what her family experienced during the Nazi period and the psychological impact that reverberated from it in the generations that followed.

Part of the Legacies of War series, The Last Letter is a captivating family memoir that spans events from the 1930s and Hitler's rise to power, through World War II and the Holocaust, to the present-day United States. In recreating the fatal journeys of her grandparents and tracing her father's efforts to save them an ocean away in America, Gordon discovers the forgotten fragments of her family's history and a vivid sense of her own Jewish identity. By inviting readers along on this journey, Gordon manages to honor victim and survivor alike and shows subsequent generations--now many years after the tragic events of World War II--what it means to remember.

Originally published in 1906 as one volume, Camping and Woodcraft was expanded into a two-volume edition in 1916 and 1917. Ranked sixth among the ten best-selling sporting books of all time, Camping and Woodcraft remains a classic for campers and a veritable outdoor enthusiast's bible. This manual reflects Horace Kephart's practical knowledge and covers, in depth, any problem that campers might confront. Kephart lived in the Great Smoky Mountains and spent most of his time in the wild. Consequently, he became an expert on all aspects of camp life from living in a semipermanent lean-to to traveling with only the bare essentials in a backpack. More than simply a hunting or fishing guide, Kephart's book covers a wide variety of subjects from how to dress game and fish to how to shoot accurately. Every chapter is filled with tips that remain useful even after nearly a century of improvements in equipment and technology.

The history of Tennessee is full of dramatic episodes and colorful characters that give the Volunteer State a major place in the American saga. From the bloody battle of Shiloh in 1862 to the Dayton monkey trial of 1925 to the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in 1968, Tennessee has been the locale for many of America's most important events.

This new book presents a synthesis of Tennessee history from earliest times to the present. Striking a balance of social, economic, and political perspectives, it moves from frontier times to early statehood, antebellum society through the Civil War to Reconstruction, then establishes Tennessee's place in the New South and in modern times. Full coverage is devoted to the Civil Rights era and to events in the later years of this century, including environmental issues. The text deals honestly with slavery and segregation and also corrects shortcomings of previous works by placing the state's history in the context of national issues and events within the South.

The authors introduce readers to famous personages like Andrew Jackson and Austin Peay, often using quotations to give them voice. They also tell stories of ordinary people and their lives to show how they are an integral part of history. Sidebars throughout the text highlight stories of particular interest, and reading lists at the end of chapters further enhance the text's utility.

Tennesseans and Their History was written for students needing a basic introduction to state history and to general readers looking for a lively introduction to Tennessee's past. Written to be entertaining as well as instructive, it makes the state's
history relevant to a new generation of Tennesseans.
The Authors: Paul H. Bergerson is professor of history at the University of Tennessee and the editor of The Papers of Andrew Johnson.
Stephen V. Ash is associate professor of history at the University of Tennessee and author of Middle Tennessee Transformed, 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South.
Jeanette Keith is associate professor of history at Bloomsburg University and the author of Country People in the New South: Tennessee's Upper Cumberland.

First published in 1992, Cherokee National Forest Hiking Guide has been a vital companion to thousands who have explored the 650,000-acre Cherokee National Forest. Now in its third edition the guide has been expanded once again to cover numerous additional trails and the almost 20,000 acres of additional congressionally designated Wilderness in the decades since the second edition. Stretching across the Tennessee-North Carolina state line, the Cherokee National Forest includes much of the western slopes of the southern Appalachian Mountains, north and south of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The area encompasses a tremendous diversity of wildlife, vegetation, and scenic vistas of high mountain peaks and beautiful creeks, waterfalls, and valleys. Over 840 trail miles and 226 trails are described and mapped in the book. These trails and footpaths wind throughout this wildlife haven, inviting everyone who loves the outdoors--hikers, backpackers, hunters, anglers, and horseback riders--to explore the forest's natural beauty. The Cherokee National Forest Hiking Guide provides maps and specific directions for all the forest's current trails along with a wealth of general information on its present and past wildlife, vegetation, and geology, as well as a history of the forest's human inhabitants--including the political battles that have been waged to protect it. This book remains the definitive guide to this expansive and alluring landscape sure to thrill outdoor enthusiasts for many generations to come.

When was the best time to panic about the varying crises facing humanity? Twenty years ago. But the next best time? Now?

In line with other considerations of what we have come to call the Anthropocene, in Panic Now? Tools for Humanizing, Ira J. Allen takes the reader on a journey through difficult feelings about the various crises facing humanity, and from there, to new ways of facing impending dread with a sense of empowerment. The interrelated threats of climate collapse, an artificial intelligence revolution, a sixth mass extinction, a novel chemical crisis, and more are all brought to us by what Allen describes as CaCaCo, the carbon-capitalism-colonialism assemblage. After suggesting that it is absolutely time to panic, he asks: how do we manage to panic productively?

Admitting there is no one script for everyone to follow, the author traces how we might adopt attitudes and practices that allow us to move through this liminal space between fear and action collectively. This book is a master class in how to create better, more humanizing outcomes by confronting the panic that goes along with the realization that the world as we know it is ending. Rather than remaining mentally, emotionally, imaginatively, and practically stuck in this historical condition, Allen invites us to a very particular, action-oriented mode of panic, which can indeed incite our imaginations to move from panic to empowerment.

Winner of the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award

Drawing on a rich trove of documents never before available to scholars, Durwood Dunn sketches the early pioneers, their daily lives, their beliefs, and their struggles to survive and prosper in this isolated mountain community, now within the confines of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In moving detail this book brings to life an isolated mountain community, its struggle to survive, and the tragedy of its demise.

An invaluable resource for the home or commercial gardener who wishes to plant native species.--Edward W. Chester, Austin Peay State University

The natural landscape of Tennessee represents a unique treasure for gardeners and nature lovers. Encompassing several geographically distinctive regions, from the 6,000-foot peaks of the Unaka Mountains to the swampy floodplain of the Mississippi River, the state boasts nearly 3,000 native plant species. This stunning diversity of life owes much to Tennessee's prime location at the crossroads of mountain and prairie ecosystems and in the transition area between northern and southern climate patterns.

In Gardening with the Native Plants of Tennessee, Margie Hunter gives gardeners the knowledge they need in order to nurture this natural heritage in their own gardens. Beginning with a survey of the state's ecology--including geology, geography, plant life and animal species--Hunter takes a holistic approach to the process of gardening with native plants. The book's main section provides detailed accounts of 450 species of wildflowers, ferns, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees native to Tennessee and adjacent states. These descriptions, arranged according to plant type, include both scientific and common name, flowering and fruiting times, propagation methods, soil and light requirements, and distribution patterns within the state. Nearly 400 color photographs illustrate the species discussions.

No other book designed for the home gardener includes such area-specific information on native species or such a comprehensive listing of plants. Appendixes refer readers to other sources of information and seeds, including mail-order nurseries, botanical gardens, state agencies, native plant organizations, and subject-specific conferences. A detailed bibliography also contributes to the reference value of this book for gardeners, landscapers, and nature lovers throughout Tennessee and in neighboring states.

The Author: Margie Hunter, a long-time volunteer at Cheekwood Botanical Garden, lives in Nashville.

While taking a graduate course in Appalachian literature at the University of Tennessee, Stacy Sivinski was surprised to discover that much of the folklore she had heard while growing up in Schuyler, Virginia, was rarely represented in popular published collections. In particular, they lacked the strong female heroines she had come to know, and most anthologies were full of Jack Tales--stories that focus on the adventures of the character from Jack and the Beanstalk. Feminist critics have long discussed the gender inequalities and stereotypes that fairy tales often promote. With Fairy Tales of Appalachia, Sivinski asks whether such conclusions are inevitable and invites a fresh analysis of these regional tales with a contemporary sense of wonder.

These tales, carefully and thoughtfully transcribed by Sivinski, have been passed down through Appalachia's oral histories over decades and even centuries. This wonderful selection was mainly drawn from the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University and special collections at Berea College. Drawing on the work of other regional archivists and folklorists, Sivinski grapples with issues of gender balance in Appalachian storytelling. The problem, Sivinski posits, does not rest with the fairy tale genre itself but in the canonization process, in which
women's contributions have been diminished as oral traditions become transcribed.

Appalachian women have historically demonstrated resilience, wit, and adaptability, and it is time that more collections of regional folklore reorient themselves to make this fact more apparent. Stories are living, breathing narratives, meant not just to be read but to be read aloud. This timely selection of unique stories, along with beautiful, evocative illustrations, makes Fairy Tales of Appalachia an intriguing addition to the much-contested fairy tale canon.

With 909 recognized species of lichens, Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) is home to more of these lichenized fungi than any other national park in the United States, as well as nearly half of all species known to occur in eastern North America. There is a great deal of room for scientific exploration, inquiry, and systematic description in the realm of lichenology. In Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Erin Tripp and James Lendemer take on the formidable task of creating an all-in-one resource for Park exploration, including lichen distribution maps, tools for identification, vivid photographs and illustrations, and even field notes from their own research campaigns. In the process, the authors create a touchstone for lichen taxonomy and ecology, and they inspire others--researchers as well as casual observers--to take interest in the incredible biodiversity of the Great Smoky Mountains. Biologists, botanists, visitors to the park, naturalists, and others interested in the flora and fauna of both the southern Appalachians and GSMNP will thoroughly enjoy this lovingly prepared field guide.

By the time of the Red River Campaign, which occurred between March 10 and May 22, 1864, Federal victory in the American Civil War was nearly assured. This final Union offensive in the trans-Mississippi theater was launched to capture Shreveport, a strategic river port and Confederate military complex. The fall of Shreveport would split Confederate forces, allowing the Federals to encircle and destroy the Confederate Army in western Louisiana and southern Arkansas as well as open a gateway to an invasion of Texas. But the dense piney woods and swamps of Louisiana made for difficult maneuvering, and both sides made severe tactical mistakes, leading General William Tecumseh Sherman to declare the Red River Campaign one damn blunder from beginning to end.

Decisions of the Red River Campaign explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the campaign and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the operation, Michael S. Lang hones in on a sequence of decisions made by commanders on both sides of the contest to provide a blueprint of the campaign at its tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of Civil War battles and campaigns to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened.

Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions of the Red River Campaign is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the campaign can tour this sacred ground--or read about it at their leisure--with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.

Decisions of the Red River Campaign is the twenty-second in a series of books that explores the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.

In Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture, Jessica Ellen Sewell considers the gender of those who create and shape spaces, how gender ideology contributes to and manifests itself in built form, and what research methods make the observation of gendered experience possible. She discusses single-gender, mixed-gender, and queer spaces, providing a comprehensive look at how gender influences the design and construction of those spaces, how those spaces are used, and the relationship between gender and the broader architectural landscape. In her study, Sewell also provides an expansive view of how gender intersects with other categories of power and difference, such as race, class, and age, and how this intersectionality contributes to the design and use of built spaces.

In addition to examining the spaces themselves, Sewell explores research methods for studying gendered experiences in architecture. She argues that traditional research methods in vernacular architecture studies, which often focus on building-based fieldwork, should be complemented by other methods--such as letters, oral histories, and diaries--that expand the understanding of buildings beyond their construction date and reveal how those buildings have been used and represented over time. Digging into primary records, Sewell posits, can help challenge our assumptions about who influences architecture and urban development, illuminating the roles of women and others in the building and shaping of space.

Thoroughly researched yet accessible for scholars new to the study of vernacular architecture, Exploring Gender in Vernacular Architecture bridges the gap between specialized scholarship and broader public understanding. Students of architectural history, gender studies, and cultural history will find it a valuable resource not only for examining the relationship between gender and architecture, but for engaging new methodological tools that may further their own research.

V. O. Key's classic work on Southern politics. The author, one of the nation's most astute observers, drew on more than five hundred interviews with Southerners to illuminate the political process in the South and in the nation.
Southern Politics in State and Nation explains party alignments within states, internal factional competition, and the influence of the South upon Washington. It also probes the nature of the electorate, voting restrictions, and political operating procedures. This reprint of the original edition includes a new introduction by Alexander Heard and a profile of the author by William C. Havard. It remains one of the most influential books on the subject.

Scholars who teach, write, or speak on the history and culture of the Appalachian region are frequently asked by students, administrators, or colleagues to recommend a relatively short, comprehensive book about Appalachia. Until now, there has been no interdisciplinary introductory text in Appalachian studies. A Handbook to Appalachia comprises a collection of concise, accessible overviews of the region written by top academics in a variety of fields, all directed at a general audience. Accompanied by dozens of inviting photographs, the essays offer information to those becoming acquainted with Appalachia for the first time as well as to more experienced observers of the region. The essays are arranged to show how various features of Appalachia are related. Each essay is followed by a list of suggested readings for further study. A Handbook to Appalachia provides a clear, concise first step toward understanding the expanding field of Appalachian studies, from the history of the area to its sometimes conflicted image, from its music and folklore to its outstanding literature.Chapters: History, The Peoples of Appalachia, Natural Resources and Environment, Economics, Politics of Change, Health Care, Education, Folklife, Literature, Religion, Visual Arts, and Appalachians Outside the Region.

It was a pleasure to immerse myself in this fine addition to Agee Studies. - Andrew Hudgins

While best known for his work as a novelist, journalist, and film critic--perhaps most so for the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Death in the Family and for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men--Knoxville-born writer James Agee was also an award-winning poet. Having published his first volume of poetry at just twenty-five years of age, he did not publish any subsequent books of poetry, and no definitive collection of his poems was ever compiled--until now.

After years of diligently exploring Agee's writings, including many manuscripts that were never published, Michael A. Lofaro and Jesse Graves have compiled and edited the Complete Poetry of James Agee, consisting of nearly four times the number of Agee's poems than was previously accessible.

In addition to the meticulous textual preservation of the poems, the volume enhances readers' understanding of Agee's work with detailed annotations for each poem and a separate section for textual commentary, shedding light on Agee's wide range of knowledge and his sometimes-idiosyncratic use of syntax and punctuation. Likewise, an extensive introduction sets the stage for the collection, contextualizing Agee's poetry within his other works. While literary scholars will appreciate this comprehensive collection of Agee's extant poetry, general readers will be astonished at the breadth of yet another genre in the work of this protean writer.

This extensive study, nearly twenty years in the making, is a major contribution to the understanding of American textile material culture. - Candace J. Adelson, Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles Emeritus, Tennessee State Museum

Containing dozens of beautiful, full-color photographs, Jennifer C. Core and Janet S. Hasson's study of samplers--embroideries that are first attempts at a new technique, color combination, or unusual material--provides vivid descriptions of this nineteenth-century Tennessee art form in its many varieties. The authors not only catalogue and describe samplers from each of Tennessee's major regions--West, Middle, and East--but also incorporate research on the sampler makers and their families. This research provides fascinating insight into the stitchers, their teachers, and their academies.

Including a chapter on female education on the Tennessee frontier and another on embroideries and needlework focused on mourning, the volume draws on oral histories of the embroiderers' descendants, family Bibles, diaries, scrapbooks, cemetery records, and other primary sources. Photos of the samplers are accompanied by detailed descriptions of styles, thread count, materials used, frames, and motifs. Ultimately, the study provides a glimpse of the lives of girls and young women in nineteenth-century Tennessee, including the role of this ornamental art in their education.

Providing important historical context on Tennessee education, economy, and domestic life, Core and Hasson describe how embroidery came to be a crucial primary source in revealing the lives of girls and young women during a time when little was recorded about them. This book is an authoritative record of the material culture produced in the daily routine of school rooms. It is for all who see beauty in sometimes-overlooked handiwork and understand the importance of curating, preserving, and analyzing it.

Beginning in the 1960s in California, erstwhile music producer Tony Alamo became interested in authoritarian religion and, along with his charismatic wife, Susan, began gathering followers. By the 1970s, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries had established particularly strong footholds in Arkansas, as well as maintaining outposts in California. The ministry gained a legion of followers, with branches not only in the USA but in places as diverse as Africa and Sri Lanka. Even through their leader's eventual imprisonment under federal charges (related to transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes), Alamo's vision survived--and his community survives him today.

Whispering in the Daylight: The Children of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries and Their Journey to Freedom is based on numerous interviews from group members and, more importantly, on interviews with the children--second and third-generation followers. Author Debby Schriver chronicles how this group was formed, documenting its many abuses and its gradual adoption of cult-like behaviors and practices. Like many cult leaders, Tony Alamo had different faces. The public saw him as a somewhat self-important but harmless music promoter and designer of bedazzling denim jackets. Schriver chronicles firsthand the condemnation, rejection, and torment that the second-generation survivors of Tony Alamo's abuses experienced. Schriver's interviews, particularly those with children, illuminate the real horrors of the Alamos' behavior, ranging from economic exploitation, extreme forced fasts, and beatings, that resulted in permanent injury.

Schriver's extensive research--including interviews with Tony Alamo himself, harrowing visits to Alamo compounds, and witnessing gut-wrenching confrontations between freed children and their unreformed parents--tells the story of a closed group whose origins and history are unlikely ever to be definitively unraveled.

The Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson took place in February of 1862 and were early indicators of the success the US would have in the Civil War's Western Theater. Due to Kentucky's neutrality at the time, Brig. Gen. Daniel S. Donelson was instructed to find suitable sites for fortification along the Tennessee River but just inside the state boundaries of Tennessee. Forts Henry and Donelson were constructed in the summer of 1861 and were quickly identified by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant as strategic fortifications that, if conquered, would open the Federal Army's path to Alabama and Mississippi. Fort Henry fell to Federal control on February 6, 1862, and Fort Donelson fell six days later. With the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers now open to Federal gunboats, Grant and his army would head southwest to Memphis and on to Vicksburg.
Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson explores the critical decisions made by Confederate and Federal commanders during the battle and how these decisions shaped its outcome. Rather than offering a history of the battle, Hank Koopman hones in on a sequence of critical decisions made by commanders on both sides of the conflict to provide a blueprint of the Battles of Forts Henry and Donelson at their tactical core. Identifying and exploring the critical decisions in this way allows students of the battles to progress from a knowledge of what happened to a mature grasp of why events happened.
Complete with maps and a driving tour, Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to these battles can tour this sacred ground--or read about it at their leisure--with key insights into the campaigns and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.

Decisions at Forts Henry and Donelson is the eighteenth in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.