August 2008--Volume VI, Issue 8

Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South
by Michelle R. Scott
A history professor uses Bessie Smith's life as a lens to investigate broad issues in history, including industrialization, Southern rural to urban migration, black community development in the post-emancipation era, and black working-class gender conventions.

Daufuskie Island: 25th Anniversary Edition
photographs by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
A clarion call for cultural preservation in the rural South. Through photographs plus the words of Alex Haley, Daufuskie Island vividly captures life on a South Carolina Sea Island before the arrival of resort culture.

Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid
by Frank B. Wilderson III
A literary tour de force sure to spark fierce debate in America and South Africa, Incognegro retells a story most Americans assume they already know, with a sometimes awful, but ultimately essential, clarity about racial politics and our own lives.