Southern Crossroads

The South has always been one of the most distinctive regions of the United States, with its own set of traditions and a turbulent history. Although often associated with cotton, hearty food, and rich dialects, the South is also noted for its strong sense of religion, which has significantly shaped its history. Dramatic political, social, and economic events have often shaped the development of southern religion, making the nuanced dissection of the religious history of the region a difficult undertaking. For instance, segregation and the subsequent civil rights movement profoundly affected churches in the South as they sought to mesh the tenets of their faith with the prevailing culture. Editors Walter H. Conser and Rodger M. Payne and the book’s contributors place their work firmly in the trend of modern studies of southern religion that analyze cultural changes to gain a better understanding of religion’s place in southern culture now and in the future. Southern Crossroads: Perspectives on Religion and Culture takes a broad, interdisciplinary approach that explores the intersection of religion and various aspects of southern life. The volume is organized into three sections, such as “Religious Aspects of Southern Culture,” that deal with a variety of topics, including food, art, literature, violence, ritual, shrines, music, and interactions among religious groups. The authors survey many combinations of religion and culture, with discussions ranging from the effect of Elvis Presley’s music on southern spirituality to yard shrines in Miami to the archaeological record of African American slave religion. The book explores the experiences of immigrant religious groups in the South, also dealing with the reactions of native southerners to the groups arriving in the region. The authors discuss the emergence of religious and cultural acceptance, as well as some of the apparent resistance to this development, as they explore the experiences of Buddhist Americans in the South and Jewish foodways. Southern Crossroads also looks at distinct markers of religious identity and the role they play in gender, politics, ritual, and violence. The authors address issues such as the role of women in Southern Baptist churches and the religious overtones of lynching, with its themes of blood sacrifice and atonement. Southern Crossroads offers valuable insights into how southern religion is studied and how people and congregations evolve and adapt in an age of constant cultural change.

An overview of public religion in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Becoming Jimi Hendrix traces “Jimmy’s” early musical roots, from a harrowing, hand-to-mouth upbringing in a poverty-stricken, broken Seattle home to his early discovery of the blues to his stint as a reluctant recruit of the 101st Airborne who was magnetically drawn to the rhythm and blues scene in Nashville. As a sideman, Hendrix played with the likes of Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, the Isley Brothers, and Sam & Dave—but none knew what to make of his spotlight-stealing rock guitar experimentation, the likes of which had never been heard before. From 1962 to 1966, on the rough and tumble club circuit, Hendrix learned to please a crowd, deal with racism, and navigate shady music industry characters, all while evolving his own astonishing style. Finally, in New York’s Greenwich Village, two key women helped him survive, and his discovery in a tiny basement club in 1966 led to Hendrix instantly being heralded as a major act in Europe before he returned to America, appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, and entered the pantheon of rock’s greatest musicians. Becoming Jimi Hendrix is based on over one hundred interviews with those who knew Hendrix best during his lean years, more than half of whom have never spoken about him on the record. Utilizing court transcripts, FBI files, private letters, unpublished photos, and U.S. Army documents, this is the story of a young musician who overcame enormous odds, a past that drove him to outbursts of violence, and terrible professional and personal decisions that complicated his life before his untimely demise.

The devil is the most charismatic and important figure in the blues tradition. He's not just the music's namesake ("the devil's music"), but a shadowy presence who haunts an imagined Mississippi crossroads where, it is claimed, Delta bluesman Robert Johnson traded away his soul in exchange for extraordinary prowess on the guitar. Yet, as scholar and musician Adam Gussow argues, there is much more to the story of the devil and the blues than these cliched understandings. In this groundbreaking study, Gussow takes the full measure of the devil's presence. Working from original transcriptions of more than 125 recordings released during the past ninety years, Gussow explores the varied uses to which black southern blues people have put this trouble-sowing, love-wrecking, but also empowering figure. The book culminates with a bold reinterpretation of Johnson's music and a provocative investigation of the way in which the citizens of Clarksdale, Mississippi, managed to rebrand a commercial hub as "the crossroads" in 1999, claiming Johnson and the devil as their own.

This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel takes the reader through a variety of topics that relate directly to the Southern experience: rural life, violence, music, literature, civil rights, unionism, urbanization, xenophobia, migration, religion, cockfighting, and stock car racing. This engagingly-written survey examines the changes and constants of Southern culture. Always with a keen eye and sharp wit, Daniel stresses the diversity of Southern life, which includes not only regional variations but also divisions between black and white, male and female, rural and urban. From "separate but equal" to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and its legacy, Standing at the Crossroads explores the extraordinary changes that transformed the South. Daniel takes the reader through a variety of topics that relate directly to the Southern experience: rural life, violence, music, literature, civil rights, unionism, urbanization, xenophobia, migration, religion, cockfighting, and stock car racing.

"... Ahmad has created a novel that looks at race and culture and the changing face of America. It's a story that's easy to devour but hard to forget... " - Richmond Times-DispatchRanjit Singh, a former Indian Army Captain trying to escape a shameful past, lives with his family among the migrant workers of Martha's Vineyard, working as a caretaker of the vacation homes of the rich and powerful. Needing a place to stay, Ranjit moves his family into an empty Senator's home. Happily, but illegally ensconced in the house, he tries to forget his brief affair with Anna, the wife of an African-American senator, and focus on providing for his family. But one night, their idyll is shattered when mysterious armed men break into the house, looking for an antique porcelain doll. Forced to flee, Ranjit is pursued and hunted by unknown forces, and becomes drawn into the Senator's shadowy world. To save his family and solve the mystery of the doll, he must join forces with Anna, who has her own dark secrets. As the past and present collide, Ranjit must finally confront the hidden event that destroyed his Army career and forced him to leave India.Tightly plotted, action-packed, smart and surprisingly moving, The Caretaker takes us from the desperate world of migrant workers to the elite African-American community of Martha's Vineyard, and a secret high-altitude war between India and Pakistan.

Learn the ways of magic and healing from the living, oral tradition of Appalachian Conjure in The Candle and the Crossroads. Orion Foxwood offers a primer on the real magic and techniques of Southern root magic, knowledge he learned first-hand growing up in rural Appalachia. Foxwood explains magical techniques including: Spirit SightWorking by the Signs (the ability to synchronize work such as farming, fertility of humans and animals, orcharding)ConjuringFaith HealingSettling the Light (candle magic)Doctoring the Root (the ability to use herbs, roots, stones, or animal parts—bones, claws, fur, etc. for magic or the clearing, cleansing, and blessing of the spirit of a person, also known as his or her root)Praying or Dreaming True (Blessings of spirit/God to a person, place, or thing as well as prophetic or predictive dreaming)Blessing or Cursing The Candle and the Crossroads shows how to create magic in today’s world with the old ways and traditions of Appalachia.

Presents stories, recipes, and photographs of barbecue cooking in the South, recording the pitmasters and legendary joints that make this food culture famous.

In July 2002 chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court had a two-ton monument of the Ten Commandments placed into the rotunda of the Montgomery state judicial building. But this action is only a recent case in the long history of religiously inspired public movements in the American South. From the Civil War to the Scopes Trial to the Moral Majority, white Southern evangelicals have taken ideas they see as drawn from the Christian Scriptures and tried to make them into public law. But blacks, women, subregions, and other religious groups too vie for power within and outside this Southern Religious Establishment. Religion and Public Life in the South gives voice to both the establishment and its dissenters and shows why more than any other region of the country, religion drives public debate in the South.

This authoritative and cutting edge companion brings togethera team of leading scholars to document the rich diversity andunique viewpoints that have formed the religious history of theUnited States. A groundbreaking new volume which represents the firstsustained effort to fully explain the development of Americanreligious history and its creation within evolving political andsocial frameworks Spans a wide range of traditions and movements, from theBaptists and Methodists, to Buddhists and Mormons Explores topics ranging from religion and the media,immigration, and piety, though to politics and social reform Considers how American religion has influenced and beeninterpreted in literature and popular culture Provides insights into the historiography of religion, butpresents the subject as a story in motion rather than a snapshot ofwhere the field is at a given moment