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Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington rose in prominence to become black America's foremost spokesman. This is the dramatic autobiographical account of Washington's struggle to succeed and prosper in a country that refused to acknowledge his existence. From his fight for an education to his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Up From Slavery is one of the most significant and defining works in American literature.

For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For forty-five years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smiths youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddys dimestore. It was in that dimestore -- listening to customers and inventing adventures...

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, revisit Tom Piazza's award-winning appraisal of a city in crisis-with a new afterword placing the story of New Orleans in the context of the ongoing threat to America's coastal populations. In the decade since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, Americans have learned much from the resilience of this proud, battered city. And yet, even as the city has regained some of its lost footing, other...

South Carolina's "Swamp Fox," Francis Marion, is one of the most celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Marion's cunning exploits in the Southern theater of the Revolution earned him national renown and a place in history as an American hero and master of modern guerilla warfare. Although dozens of works have been written about Marion's life over the years, this biography -- written by William Gilmore Simms, South Carolina's greatest author...

In addition to being the state capital, Richmond, Virginia, was also the capital of the South during the Civil War. After Reconstruction, businesses developed, and the warehouse district--Shockoe Bottom--was rebuilt, boosting Richmond's economic growth. Today Richmond is a vibrant city that embraces its historical past while looking toward future developments. Then & Now: Richmond uses late-19th-century photographs of Richmond neighborhoods, churches,...

Georgia was once part of a much larger region of the Southeast claimed by Spain and known as La Florida. After the failure of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon's settlement in 1526 on the coast of Georgia, French Huguenots established a small fort at Port Royal Sound and another along the St. Johns River. Thus began Georgia's tradition of building stalwart military fortifications--a practice that has spanned centuries. Discover who emerged victorious after...

Before Las Vegas, there was Phenix City, Alabama--the original sin city. Once the sprawling capital of the Muscogee Indian Empire, the region took a sinister turn when a holy war engulfed the southern territories in 1812, leading to the murder of the infamous Chief William McIntosh. Later, atrocities continued at Fort Mitchell, the killing grounds for early Georgia politicians who fought to the death over rival politics and bitter feuds. By the 1950s,...

Around Richmond, it's simply known as "The Classic." From 1938 to 1979, Armstrong High and Maggie Walker High, the only two all-black high schools within the city limits, converged on the gridiron each Thanksgiving weekend as spirited rivals. Each year more and more people packed the old City Stadium, sometimes as many as thirty thousand, sometimes too many to count. They cheered as the players fought for field position, pride, and bragging rights,...

Queen of Virginia's tobacco-producing counties, one of the top five fossil sites in the world, home to heroes, adventurers, counterfeiters and innovators...Pittsylvania County's lush, rolling farmland has seen a host of significant events and personalities throughout its nearly three centuries. Join local historian and longtime resident Larry G. Aaron as he guides you through Pittsylvania's rich and remarkable history, from the achievements and sufferings...

High Point, nestled in the heart of the Piedmont Triad, has long been at the forefront of progress, attracting those entrepreneurs who were "up to something out of the ordinary"?, a place where spanking leads to tragedy, ransom notes are left in mailboxes and people are railroaded through court. When Prohibition swept the nation, High Point's first saloonist stayed in business for only eighteen hours. High Point's speed-demon racecar drivers opted...