Race Against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930

by Jack Emerson Davis

While many studies of race relations have focused on the black experience, Race against Time strives to unravel the emotional and cultural foundations of race in the white mind. Jack E. Davis combed primary documents in Natchez, Mississippi, and absorbed the town s oral history to understand white racial attitudes thre over the past seven decades, a period rich in social change, strife, and reconciliation. What he found in this community that cultivates for profit a romantic view of the Old South challenges conventional assumptions about racial prejudice.

Genres: History

351 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2001

About the author

Jack Emerson Davis is Professor of History and the Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities at the University of Florida. He is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.

Reviews

[Adamdaigle · Rating 5 out of 5]

You might not be interested in this book merely because it's geared toward a specific audience. You have to have spent time in Natchez to want to read 250-plus pages on its history.

That being said, this book does an outstanding job of poking holes in the fallacy that was white supremacy.

[Emma B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had special meaning for me because it's about race relations in my hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. A lot of information here, I knew, but I also learned some things. There are things here I knew first hand because I lived through them, or worked in the midst of them - school integration, January 1970. Some gaps were filled about things that happened after I left, and lots of people included who I know personally, or know about. Few errors, but Very well written. I will be sending the author an email.