Dr. Jackson has put together a great all-around volume on four of the major rivers in Alabama. The Alabma River system played a major role in the settlement and development of the territory and the state. This is a highly readable volume that should be in the library of those interested in Alabama history and culture. Perhaps the best volume on Alabama that I have read.

In time, this book will serve as a major secondary source for Alabama historians, students of history and researchers. Much like "The Federal Road...", which this writer has previously reviewed, "Rivers Of History" is a scholarly and comprehensive work pertaining to the impact of one of the fundamental elements evident in the progression of Alabama history. From the earliest days of the Mississippi Territory, to the present day, Alabama's rivers have served as both the bloodlines and guide posts of the state - representing demarcation of counties, providing the venue by which Alabama's 19th Century cotton economy could thrive, enriching vast areas of agricultural lands with literally hundreds of tributaries of varying sizes, and allowing for Alabama's intricate network of hydro-electric power generating plants. Dr. Jackson focuses on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba and Alabama rivers, as these four bodies have been central to the aforementioned attributes of Alabama's waterways. In political, geographic and economic consequences, these four rivers constitute the very heart of the evolution of Alabama. Dr. Jackson's narrative is greatly enhanced by his natural ability to present an academic subject in an inviting, readable form. Citing the fact that "too often historians write with other historians in mind", he establishes an instant rapport with the pedestrian reader, without compromising the scholarship of the book, a fact evidenced by the book's numerous annotations. Yet, while the annotations attest to the depth of his research, Dr. Jackson's natural ability as a writer separates this book from that vast yearly output by other, less talented academicians who rely upon footnotes as a crutch upon which recitation rests as a surrogate for originality. As this reviewer consistently states, Alabama history is best studied by subject. A concentrated study of Alabama's major rivers has been sorely missing, and Dr. Jackson's "Rivers Of History" solidly fills that void. This reviewer highly recommends the book and hopes to see more offerings from Dr. Harvey Jackson.

Jack Prather is a story-teller whose style reminds me of an early morning back porch conversation. His story continues until after the sun goes down, an account that was handed down to him by his grandfather.

Not only is it a story of the plight of the Native Americans east of the Mississippi, the Depression, World War II, and post-war rural America, it's a story of attitudes and lessons learned.

These lessons begin in 1775 when Black Cloud, a Cherokee Indian who becomes Chief of his tribe, finds a way to adjust to the changing lifestyles when Native Americans are being forced west of the Mississippi. Black Cloud becomes friends with the white settlers, starts his own plantation, runs for Congress and wins, and frees his black slaves.

During his boyhood, the author learns from his grandfather that he is a descendant of Black Cloud. He also learns that his family is one of honesty and integrity, and he is determined to carry on that tradition.

COOSA will bring back memories to those born between 1920 and the early 1940's. These are the people who remember schools with oiled board floors, cars with running boards and fenders, going 'possum hunting, and learning to swim in the creek. Teenagers in those days went on hayrides, pulled taffy, and traveled on a bus to basketball games.

Hunting and fishing was such an important part of Jack Prather's life that he is probably the only person who ever received a special award at his high school graduation for being late for school every morning during turkey hunting season.

I believe the purpose of writing COOSA was to preserve the history of his family and other residents in Coosa County, Alabama, and Jack Prather has done an excellent job.

Review by Joan Moore Lewis, author of southern fiction

The Coosa Marketplace
Serving Coosa County, Alabama

A Product of The Daily Home
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Vol. 6 No. 26
Article by Jim Smothers - Marketplace Editor

'Coosa' tell tale of local Cherokee

Author's grandfather in Rockford told him story during Depression years

He moved away from Coosa County long ago, but Jack Prather can't forget the beauty of the land or the love of the people he knew here in a different day and age. Some of them may still be around, and his high school girlfriend from Richville may be a little embarrassed to see her beer drinking exploits mentioned in print.
But what started out as a work of fiction ended up as two books in one. The first story set in Coosa County beginning in 1775, and the other a memoir of Prather's life told with such vividness and detail that it makes for an interesting read. As a member of what has been called "Americas Greatest Generation," Prather has some stories to tell about life in the Depression, World War II, and post-war America as the nation became a superpower.
As a boy, Prather visited grandparents in the Rockford area. He played in the woods and creeks, and let his imagination run free as he wondered about the people who had lived on this land in ages past.
This was fueled by stories his grandfather told him about an Indian ancestor of theirs.
While the stories were told to young Jack as being true, he hasn't been able to verify them.
But not being one to let facts get in the way of a good story, he turned his imagination loose to bring life to the young Cherokee Black Cloud with his special gift of seeing visions in the waters of Coosa's creeks.
Part One tells of the lives and hardships of Native Americans living in the Coosa County area and the friendship Black Cloud formed with the family of Henry Pounds the first whites to settle in the area. Cloud with the help of the Pounds family develops a very large cotton plantation paying the black workers that they had freed.
With out giving too much of the story away, if the story is true, historians have missed a great man.
"I can't find a census before 1850 and it didn't include Indians the best I could tell." Prather said. "The story lay dormant from before the Civil War until I was 8 years old which was over 72 years. Now if I could have proved it, I would have called it a true story but I couldn't prove it nor could I disprove it. But I believe what my grandfather told me was true and I added to the story only where necessary to add interest to the story.
Part Two tells the story of Prather's life and how he heard the story that makes up Part One. Black Cloud and Henry Pounds - actually Ebenezer Pond - are Prather's great-great grandfathers.
Prather was born in 1924 and lived his earliest years in Sylacauga. His family moved to Rockford during the Depression where he attended school. He was in the Navy in World War II, participated in fraternity pranks at the University of Alabama and worked at the paper mill in Childersburg before moving to Mobile where he worked as an industrial engineer for a couple of different companies.
The story is at time funny, sad and poignant and always interesting.
It has been a life well lived, and worth reading about.
"I had the story inside of me ever since my grandfather told it to me, but I've been so busy making a living that I didn't have time to write it until I retired." Prather said...

How many of us have ever wondered exactly where we came from, whom our ancestors are and what story lying in our past has never been told that might in some way have contributed to shaping our future? "COOSA" is such a story and brilliantly narrated by the author who recounts his own version of his origins handed down from past generations as told by his grandfather. "Coosa" embraces the life of Black Cloud, a Cherokee Indian who upon building a large and successful cotton plantation in Coosa County, Alabama becomes an unprecedented civil rights visionary in the early 1800's by freeing his own slaves. In order to ensure the survival of his slaves Black Cloud takes it a step further and runs for U.S. Congress even risking his own life and enduring many hardships. In Part I, the author through unique story plots and dialogue romanticizes this historical fiction with bolts of reality about the culture and life style of the American Indian and Black slaves living in this time period. So vividly does he capture their lives that the reader can only imagine himself actually taking part in the unfolding events. The author has the reader begging for more! This recounting of his Indian lineage helps shape the coming events of the author growing up in the rural South during the Great depression and World War II which is depicted in Part II as painstakingly real, witty, and truly personal. "Coosa", vividly tells the lives of two separate generations and how even though several generations apart intertwined their lives really were. As a reader one of the variables that stood out most in my mind was the survival mechanism of hunting and fishing that the Indians relied on. Of course the movement of the white settlers taking over the Indian land thus threatening their survival challenged this. Living off the land was a way of life as so it continued during the trying times of the Great Depression and World War II, not only for food but also for refuge and communing with nature. The author masterfully weaves his love of hunting and fishing as symbolism handed down through the generations that also became his survival technique growing up during these hard times. As a Journalism major who has worked in the field for over 20 years, I must implore the readers to start with Part I and read all the way through Part II. I feel that it is imperative for the reader to start at the beginning of the story telling about the history and the trials and tribulations of the author's Indian heritage in order to grasp the true connection between these two generations, and to thoroughly understand the author's own life in the 20th century. Part I is the foundation for the whole book. "Coosa" not only is warm, realistic and down right funny, but it is genuine with the unusual stories of a boy growing up in an era that is long forgotten. He has brought back memories to those of us that can remember, and help enlighten those of us who never knew or could comprehend. The author has preserved a part of his past that begs to be told to future generations in order to help them preserve theirs.