A look at a fascinating Deep South region and its distinctive way of life

Set in 1835 in the northern Florida Territory, this historical novel will transport you to a time when Florida settlers were few and laws were scarce. Dealing with cattle rustlers and a brewing Seminole war, Ace and Amaly Dover, their four sons, and their spirited daughter, Marvelous, have their hands full protecting their Three Springs Ranch. With authentic historical details and engaging characters, this family saga will capture your heart.

Wiregrass (Aristida stricta) refers to a genus of flora that depends on fire ecology for germination. Although its growth is widespread from the Chesapeake Bay to the western brim of Texas, only one region has acquired the word for vernacular recognition. Ranging over parts of three states, Wiregrass Country extends from north of Savannah, sweeps across rolling meadows into the southwest Georgia coastal plain, fans over into the southeastern corner of Alabama, and dips into the northwestern panhandle of Florida. This book is the first comprehensive study of the folklife of this unique region and its people. Historically underpopulated, economically poor, and predominantly white until the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, Wiregrass Country is a rare stretch of the American South whose economic and cultural development has been shaped more by yeomen farming and frontier attitudes than by King Cotton, plantations, slave-holders, and slaves. Eventually, Wiregrass Country experienced a more diverse influx or residents—tenant farmers, African Americans, and northern industrialists. In many ways, however, it has remained characteristically rural. Few malls have invaded it, and water towers are more prevalent than stately courthouses and city halls. This study typifies the population within the tristate region as communal-minded, frugal, and hardworking. Its values gain full expression in characteristic musical and verbal arts, such as Sacred Harp singing and personal narratives about the supernatural. Although virtually neglected by historians and folklorists, the region is a trove of cultural history preserved in folktales, music, festivals, yardscapes, hunting, and fishing.

This examination of cultural change challenges the conventional view of the Georgia Pine Belt as an unchanging economic backwater. Its postbellum economy evolves from self-sufficiency to being largely dependent upon cotton. Before the Civil War, the Piney Woods easily supported a population of mostly yeomen farmers and livestock herders. After the war, a variety of external forces, spearheaded by Reconstruction-era New South boosters, invaded the region, permanently altering the social, political, and economic landscape in an attempt to create a South with a diversified economy. The first stage in the transformation -- railroad construction and a revival of steamboating -- led to the second stage: sawmilling and turpentining. The harvest of forest products during the 1870s and 1880s created new economic opportunities but left the area dependent upon a single industry that brought deforestation and the decline of the open-range system within a generation.

Jerrilyn McGregory explores sacred music and spiritual activism in a little-known region of the South, the Wiregrass Country of Georgia, Alabama, and North Florida. She examines African American sacred music outside of Sunday church-related activities, showing that singing conventions and anniversary programs fortify spiritual as well as social needs. In this region African Americans maintain a social world of their own creation. Their cultural performances embrace some of the most pervasive forms of African American sacred music—spirituals, common meter, Sacred Harp, shape-note, traditional, and contemporary gospel. Moreover, the contexts in which they sing include present-day observations such as the Twentieth of May (Emancipation Day), Burial League Turnouts, and Fifth Sunday. Rather than tracing the evolution of African American sacred music, this ethnographic study focuses on contemporary cultural performances, almost all by women, which embrace all forms. These women promote a female-centered theology to ensure the survival of their communities and personal networks. They function in leadership roles that withstand the test of time. Their spiritual activism presents itself as a way of life. In Wiregrass Country, “You don't have to sing like an angel” is a frequently expressed sentiment. To these women, “good” music is God's music regardless of the manner delivered. Therefore, Downhome Gospel presents gospel music as being more than a transcendent sound. It is local spiritual activism that is writ large. Gospel means joy, hope, expectation, and the good news that makes the soul glad.