Black and White Cultural Interaction in the Antebellum South (Chancellor's Symposium)

"Questions about cultural interaction between whites and enslaved blacks in the antebellum South have long aroused controversy. Was there one dominant culture? Two separate cultures? One shared culture? Were interaction and interchange between the races possible?" "The essays collected here attempt to give answers and conclusions. However, putting these two connected cultures simultaneously into perspective offers scholars a great challenge, for historians of the past generation have so vividly portrayed the slave community as one of strength and creativity that it is difficult to perceive the real effect of the slaveholders' grip on black cultural life. Moreover, analysts of white southern culture long have tended to neglect the impact of slaves." "By studying religion, language, moral development, housing, labor, and music, these essays bring the picture of the cultural life of the antebellum South into clearer focus.".

"Charles Joyner begins the volume with the assertion that "the central theme of southern history has been racial integration." Sylvia R. Frey traces the dialectical process by which African and English Methodist religious traditions mixed to produce distinctively southern forms of worship. Mechal Sobel analyzes slavery's effect on the moral and psychological development of whites who claimed to believe in human equality. John Michael Vlach describes the variety of slave housing and building techniques. Lawrence T. McDonnell sees the convergence of slave and white laboring-class work experiences. Bill C. Malone suggests the ways by which black and white musical traditions affected each other. Commentaries assess each essayist's conclusions and offer suggestions for future analyses of southern culture." "At the University of Mississippi in 1991 these papers were presented at the Porter L. Fortune, Jr., Symposium in Southern History."--BOOK JACKET.