Loved the book, understand why the author has such a big ego- He lived in an awsome time and was at the top. Historic details filled in alot of gaps to my understanding of the mid 1800's. learned many things about the lives of people living in the Steamboat Era and was grandly entertained. laughed outloud.

Highly entertaining stories about gambling
in the mid 1800's on the Mississippi River.
The life of George Devol as gambler,fighter
& con artist & his insights into the men &
their character is also an insight into the
man himself. He was a master at
manipulating mens greed & vanity.The
accounts of his bare knuckle fights were
truly amazing

I have always wondered exactly what happened in Jones County, Mississippi, during the recent unpleasantness, and after reading The Free State of Jones, now I know. Often billed as the county that seceded from the Confederacy, the author provides an excellent local history of Southwest Mississippi from the early 1800s to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. The author begins with the immigrants to Mississippi territory, mainly from the Carolinas. Excellent maps of migration routes and the early counties in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi are included. During the Civil War, a band of 100 or so deserters from Confederate military service hid in Jones County, where the soil did not promote large commercial planting, and few individuals owned slaves. While there was never a formal act of secession from the Confederacy by the county government of Jones, the band of deserters did fight fourteen skirmishes with Confederate troops between 1863 and 1865, and many locals were sympathethic, either because they were relatives, they didn't like the relatively strong central Confederate government, or Confederate troops misbehaved by stealing from their small farms. Many of the band deserted because the felt the war was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight"--especially after the "20 Negro Law" was passed exempting slaveowners with 20 or more slaves from Confederate military service. The author also goes into the mixed racial family of the leader of the band of deserters, Newt Knight, who survived until 1922. There are few places to read the details of this interesting micro-history within the Confederacy. Ms. Bynum's thoroughly researched book encompasses the whole story, and is worth the effort of delving into such a detailed local history.

Ms. Bynum provides a well researched and written account of the lifestyles and circumstandes of the people of Jones County, MS, leading up to the Civil War. Her research takes us back into North and South Carolina, prior to 1800, and follows the families of early Jones County settlers. She goes into details, explaining the different economic, cultural, and religious factors that served to mold the life of the everyday Jones County citizen.
The Free State of Mississippi... is a must read for anyone whith roots in Jones Co., MS, as well as for anyone who is simply interested in deep South History.

This book helped me realise how it was to be a black in the deep south in the 50's and 60's but it also gave a lot of hope and with faith in God things were changed

Weary's book is the inspiring story of one man's struggle to escape from racism and poverty in rural Mississippi--only to respond to God's call to return. In the tradition of Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi, Weary's books gives an inside look at rural black life in Mississippi before the Civil Rights Movement. But unlike Moody, Weary chose to return to Mississippi and to work for positive change. I Ain't Comin' Back challenges us to consider the power of one life lived in surrender to God's calling. Read it!

This book has marvelous images of just some of the fine works that George Ohr created. The summaries of his life are correct to some extent but it failed to provide any deatails of his offspring or how they may have carried on the innate artist abilities, this is why I only give it four stars.

this man was a a head of his time. i have never seen anythig that has come out of the 1800's that looked any thing like this.The photography is great and the biography is good , but the pottery is the best i have ever seen he had great form and great glaze you could not ask any more from a potter

What a fun book!An A-Z snapshot of Mississippi for kids and adults alike.The book,illustrated by the author,introduces the reader to Mississippi treasures like B.B.King and kudzu in a simple rhyme format.

This book encompasses all that I love about Mississippi and then some! The illustrations are so much fun to discover as you turn from page to page that the text seems to be a wonderful bonus!

Winsom Hudson's story about her struggle for racial justice in the cradle of segregated Mississippi is inspiring and riveting. Constance Curry, the highly respected civil rights era author allows Hudson to speak in her own voice and to take center stage. With her sister Dovie as her partner in the struggle, these two African American women defied the racial rules and charted their own half century fight against the Ku Klux Klan, the voting registrar who refused to certify Hudson as literate to vote, and all other obstacles that stood in their paths. Curry edited the book in such a way that Hudson's life becomes a template for the broad scale social change in the deep South. There were countless Winsom and Dovie Hudson's who never sought nor shared the national spotlight. However, it was through women like these that the day to day, incremental change was achieved. If you want to learn more about the lonely battle for equal rights that blacks waged before the 1960's, then Mississippi Harmony is a "must read." Fearless, compassionate, funny, and unrelenting are only a few of the traits that one sees in this extraordinary woman who can teach us a lot about endurance and running the marathon to the finish.

Apparently, Senator Trent Lott had never read "Mississippi Harmony," otherwise he would have known what the fuss over his "poorly chosen words" was all about. This book tells us real stories about how the segregationist policies of Strom Thurmond and Jim Crow were more than a set of annoying rules--like "Deliveries and Colored People at the Back Entrance"-that even the senator can easily disparage. The book shows us that segregation is a pernicious smog that chokes the most mundane of human efforts: feeding your family, educating your children and worshipping your God.

For the black community of Harmony, Mississippi, to simply survive these noxious injustices would be an admirable story in itself. However, two courageous residents of that community, Winson and Dovie Hudson are able to rise above and end many of the wrongs. These women are some of the unheralded heroes who literally risked lives, jobs, and homesto fight the national civil-rights effort at a local level. They are the common soldiers in a frightening war. They are survivors with an amazing story.

Though co-written by the famed civil-rights-era author, Constance Curry, "Mississippi Harmony" is told in first person as Winson Hudson talks directly to us. Reading the book was like listening to the best of storytellers.

Unforgettable farce set in the old south. You won't meet a stranger bunch of characters this side of Swing Blade. A book that makes you laugh becuase it is so outragrous.

Mean, mean, mean comic vision of Southern life ala Crews and Faulkner. Perhaps the darkest funny book I have ever read. It's a shame it is out of print. For an excerpt from the novel that is easily available, see "Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor."

"The Slaves of Liberty" is a well written, and well researched book. The author goes to great lengths to document sources and this will be of great help to others researching their family. I do take issue with the author's simplistic statements concerning the start of the Civil War. However, I still found this to be a must read.

This book is well written, well documented. Even if you are not researching your slave ancestry, you will find references to slaveholders and other residents in the Amite County, Mississippi area. It's a small book for the price, but I found it well worth it for adding rich detail to my family history research out of Amite County.

Lewis "Buddy" Nordan is an excellent author. The stories contained herein are at once thought provoking, stimulating, sometimes funny and sometimes serious. I have re-read them many times. Nordan deals in a reality which is sometime his, sometimes yours... (When in fact you can grasp it.) Though it is sometimes a macbre world, it always makes sense. From the hidden Elvis suit to the midgets, Nordan makes you feel comfortable, only to surprise you. This collection is fabulous in my opinion, but it is hard to be specific as to why, because that is the style. Read it...You'll be better for it. Nordan's southern roots run deep and there is a story to tell there wheter it be part fiction and part non-fiction, or a delicious mix of the two. A good book!

Being from Arkansas, I have seen my share of freaks. Take a look around the South; they are everywhere. Being a Mississippi native, Lewis Nordan, too, has seen his share, but rather than ignore them, as most authors do, Nordan embraces them. The result is "Sugar Among the Freaks," a collection of stories about southern living, most of which contain a freak of some sort. The stories will make you laugh out loud at times and cry inside at others. The end result is that horrible realization that you--the reader--are the truest freak of them all.

This is of particular interest to people living in Mississippi in the 1960's. I was a child during this time and knew the children of the players in the book. I never knew the terrible things they were going through. It gave me a deep appreciation of the people involved. It also made me think in ways that I had never really considered. For example, the fact that the Klan is a terrorist organization rather than a bunch of rednecks in sheets.

I had to read this for school. I thought it would be horribly boring, but it was excellent.