New Yorker James Baldwin once declared that a black man can look at a map of the United States, contemplate the area south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and thus scare himself to death. In this book, the author a renowned literary scholar explores why black writers, whether born in Mississippi, New York, or elsewhere, have consistently both loved and hated the South. She explains that for these authors the South represents not so much a place or even...

"Most Americans would agree that devoted wives and mothers make families strong and that strong families are the bedrock of society. Yet, throughout this nation's history, black women have managed to become model mothers and wives, but their doing so has not kept them from being mistaken for "welfare queens" and "baby mamas," the stereotypes that most consistently shape U.S. public policy. In this book, Koritha Mitchell shows the evolving connections...