Southerners, Too?

Book excerpt: Southerners, Too? challenges the view that "southern heritage" refers to white southerners only by revealing that, historically and culturally, African-Americans have been integral to southern life and history. In much of the public and scholarly debates on the display of the Confederate flag, "southern heritage" has been seen in the context of the white south. Although there are some published works on the black southerner, in the debate and in some of the literature, African-Americans are either invisible or appear in an ambivalent manner. The intent of this work is to encourage a new focus on the Black South.