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Then and Now: The Long Shadow of Domestic Violence
Newton County, Mississippi. Over a century ago. The neighbors knew. The family sensed the fracture. The threats had been whispered, then shouted, then codified into…
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The Vanishing Class
In the quiet, dust-coated record rooms of Newton County, history isn’t found in the grand proclamations of generals or the speeches of politicians. It is…
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Are We Headed Back to Rationing? What Today’s Crises Can—and Cannot—Teach Us
In moments of global uncertainty, history has a way of rising to the surface. With shifting tensions in the Middle East, fluctuating prices at the…
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The Ration Book: A Passport to Survival in Wartime America
During World War II, survival on the home front required more than just hard work—it required a level of discipline that lived in the palm…
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The Gate and the Overgrowth: Why We Can’t Let Shubuta’s Hanging Bridge Vanish
A Road That Ends in Silence I recently drove toward the Chickasawhay River, searching for a place many would rather forget: Shubuta. This story has…
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The Paper Wall: The Precarious “Freedom” of Black Southerners Before 1865
The Myth of the Great Divide When we look back at the decades before the Civil War, it is easy to imagine a simple binary:…
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The Secret Society of Survival: How Black Women Built a Safety Net in the Shadows of Mississippi
“In life, they organized. In death, they made sure no one was forgotten.” In the overgrown corners of old Mississippi cemeteries, you’ll find them. Amid…
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Book Review: One Family, One State, One People: Renaissance in Mississippi
Author: Marjorie N. Cowan Genre: Family History / Memoir / African American Genealogy Published: 2025 ISBN: 979-8-9944952-0-9 (Print) | 979-8-9944952-1-6 (eBook) Overview In One Family,…
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A Thin Line of Bayonets: Major Hopkins and the Politics of “Protection” in 1945 Mississippi
Introduction In late 1945, a criminal case in Newton County, Mississippi, briefly drew national attention. A young Black man named Major Hopkins was accused of…
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A Newton County Soldier Captured in Korea
Corporal Albert Billingsley and the Experience of African American POWs In December 1950, newspapers across the United States carried a brief but remarkable story from…
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Serving Without Recognition: Black Sailors, the Steward Branch, and the Fight for Veterans’ Benefits
For many African American families across the rural South, military service during World War II represented both an opportunity and a contradiction. Young men left…
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From Newton, mississippi to Chicago: A Review of ‘The Tongue That Wouldn’t Keep Still
Author: Robert Evans, Jr.Publisher: AuthorHousePublication Date: April 19, 2011Genre: Memoir / African American History / Southern Life Overview The Tongue That Wouldn’t Keep Still by…
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