A rich portrait of Black life in South Carolina's Upstate
Encyclopedic in scope, yet intimate in detail, African American Life in South Carolina's Upper Piedmont, 1780–1900, delves into the richness of community life in a setting where Black residents were relatively few, notably disadvantaged, but remarkably cohesive. W. J. Megginson shifts the conventional study of African Americans in South Carolina from the much-examined Lowcountry to a part of the state that offered a quite different existence for people of color. In Anderson, Oconee, and Pickens counties―occupying the state's northwest corner―he finds an independent, brave, and stable subculture that persevered for more than a century in the face of political and economic inequities. Drawing on little-used state and county denominational records, privately held research materials, and sources available only in local repositories, Megginson brings to life African American society before, during, and after the Civil War. Orville Vernon Burton, Judge Matthew J. Perry Jr. Distinguished Professor of History at Clemson University and University Distinguished Teacher/Scholar Emeritus at the University of Illinois, provides a new foreword.
Author(s): W. J. Megginson
Edition: 2
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 573
City: Columbia
Cover
African American Life in South Carolina’s Upper Piedmont 1780–1900
Title
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Editorial Note
Prologue: Milly Dupree
Introduction: A Piedmont Setting
PART 1 The Setting, the Peoples, and Their Work
Introduction to Part 1
1 The Early Years, 1784–1810
2 Piedmont Peoples, Their Environment, and Their Work
3 The Puzzling Free Persons of Color
4 Those Who Were Free Persons of Color
PART 2 Interactions between Black and White
Introduction to Part 2
5 Laws, Courts, and Resistance
6 Churches, a Shared Setting
7 Ambivalent Interactions
PART 3 African American Subculture and Life on the Plantation
Introduction to Part 3
8 Carving out a Niche
9 Families, Mortality, and Names
10 Material and Emotional Conditions
PART 4 Transitions
Introduction to Part 4
11 War Years, the Home Front, and African Americans
12 Reconstruction’s First Months, 1865
13 Reconstruction Evolves, 1866–68
14 Panorama of Black Families in Freedom
PART 5 Community Building: Organizations, Concepts, and Opportunities
Introduction to Part 5
15 Black Political Activity, 1867–75
16 Black Politics Curtailed, 1876–90
17 Community Building: Churches and Schools
18 Black Communities, Town and Rural
19 Anderson’s Urban Community
20 Divergent Views of Blacks
PART 6 Changing Conditions, for Better, for Worse
Introduction to Part 6
21 Societal Attitudes and Oppression
22 Political and Economic Subjugation
23 1900: One Year in the Life of a Community
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography: An Essay
Index of People
Index of Subjects
