Mercer University Press Search Results

Rebel Yell: An Oral History of Southern Rock presents the story of a musical genre born in the backwoods, highways, and swamps of Macon, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969 and peaking in popularity during the 1970s. This history of Southern rock is told by the musicians, roadies, fans, and recording industry folk who lived it. Drawn from literally hundreds of hours of interviews with the author, the book focuses on the "big four"--The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Marshall Tucker Band, and The Charlie Daniels Band--while delving into the careers of other great bands like The Outlaws, Bonnie Bramlett, Cowboy, Wet Willie, and Molly Hatchet. The story is enhanced by the photography of Kirk West, Bill Thames, and others, and includes many never-before-published images. Also included are a series of "Top 20" lists--including the best Southern rock vocalists, guitarists, songs, and more.

This study of church discipline cases describes a system of subjection with obligations for all--men, women, parents, children, masters, and servants. Although many historians have mistaken this for "oppression," most Southerners accepted the idea of "subjection," regarding it as a divinely ordained system for their mutual governance and benefit. Complete with a map and statistical tables, this book argues that church discipline bound everyone together in mutual subjection to a shared code of conduct rather than empowering white men exclusively with a position of authority over others.

Tucked behind a magnolia tree on a busy Georgia road is a magical place--a simple country farm, unchanged by time. On this little strip of land, chickens scratch greetings and goats bleat hello. Sweet yellow corn grows tall, and curly bean vines reach for the sky. A burly tractor and a fifty-year-old Chevy wait inside the shed, ready for action. For 82-year-old Billy Albertson, his farm reflects a time before folks were hurried, or technology ruled our lives. Families grew gardens and feasted on fresh vegetables, adults spent time on front porches comparing stories, and children scampered barefoot through the grass waiting their turn at the hand-cranked ice cream freezer. Spending time with friends on the farm is Billy's life. Here you don't have to be a gardener or blood kin to be family.

Sam Williams is one of the nation's leading experts in urban competitiveness. Over seventeen years at the helm of a top chamber of commerce and twenty-two years as a partner in a global architect-development company, Williams earned a national reputation for harnessing the power of CEOs to make cities thrive. With their long-term view and the ability to garner support from many sectors, CEOs can often successfully address urban challenges too big for political and bureaucratic leaders to solve alone. In The CEO as Urban Statesman, Williams uses case studies to argue that business leaders can and should contribute to their communities by using their business skills to solve public policy problems--and he tells them how to do it. These projects are all different, but they share common themes. Williams explores each case in detail, distilling best practices as well as cautionary tales for business leaders who want to help their cities thrive.

From the first conflict under General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Murfreesboro in 1862 to the desperate and often brutal battles with Union cavalry in the Carolinas during 1865, the 2nd Georgia was almost constantly in action. While the 2nd Georgia fought in such famous campaigns as Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Knoxville, Resaca, Atlanta, and Bentonville, they also participated in deadly encounters at Farmington, Mossy Creek, Noonday Creek, Sunshine Church, and Waynesboro. Many of these conflicts are obscure to all but the most ardent Civil War historians. Returning in paperback, this is the first regimental history of a Georgia Cavalry regiment ever published. The 2nd Georgia served under both Nathan Beford Forrest and Joe Wheeler, and campaigned not only on home turf, but literally on the farm acreages of many of the unit's members.

Death, and the Day’s Light, the volume of poetry James Dickey was working on when he died, offers the writer’s final views on love and death, fathers and sons, and war and resurrection. This volume constitutes an invaluable addition to the canon of a major American poet and allows for a complete understanding of his oeuvre.

William Wright’s eighth collection of poems is an expansive personal journey that includes poems about subjects as varied as a farm woman forsaken by her husband, yellow jackets, insomnia, a mountain witch, salt marshes, a ditch filled with rainwater, and even a post-apocalyptic portrait of the last person on Earth. Beginning with “Prologue,” a piece that embeds a kaleidoscopic, novel-like vision of a small agricultural town and a few of its inhabitants, these poems capture the exterior world and recontextualize its many forms through a dreamlike logic, harnessing radiant imagery and strong aural texture through lines and words that stir both mind and heart. Here, Wright reveals how the most luminous forms often dwell in even the darkest subjects and images.

Published jointly with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission. Triumph of the Eccunna Nuxulgee is the first book to chronicle the tragic saga of Indian Removal with a specific focus on the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia and Alabama. With candor and objectivity, William W. Winn chronicles the duplicity, political maneuvering, and military force through which the native Creeks ultimately lost their lands, illuminating latent issues of morality, sovereignty, cultural identity, and national destiny the affair brought to the surface. 

This unique book, originally published in a limited edition in 1982 and out of print for many years, is the most comprehensive collection of Civil War letters written by residents of Southeastern Alabama and Southwestern Georgia to be published. Poignant in emotion, informative in detail, and broad in scope, the correspondence contained here provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the Civil War and its effect on individuals and families from an intensely personal perspective. The writers, the great majority of them unlettered and expressing themselves in a disarmingly honest manner in their heartfelt missives, collectively paint a compelling portrait of a watershed moment in national history from a regional viewpoint. They make well-known events tangible and lesser-known sidebars illuminating.

To the Gates of Atlanta covers the period from the Confederate victory at Kennesaw Mountain, 27 June 1864, leading up to the Battle of Peach Tree Creek, 20 July 1864, and the first of four major battles for Atlanta that culminated in the Battle of Jonesboro, 31 August and 1 September 1864.

In the Beginning highlights the history of the world’s largest religious memorial to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Inspired essays on education, social justice, nonviolence, peace, ecumenism, and civil and human rights are offered in honor of Lawrence Edward Carter, Sr., founding dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel.

This book is a lasting tribute and valuable contribution to the history and educational mission of Morehouse College.

Contributors include Lewis V. Baldwin, Thomas O. Buford, Delman L. Coates, Jason R. Curry, Norm Faramelli, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Barbara Lewis King, Douglas E. Krantz, Bill J. Leonard, Otis A. Maxfield, Echol Nix, Jr., Harold Oliver, Peter Paris, Samuel K. Roberts, Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Harold Dean Trulear, Edward P. Wimberly, Vincent L. Wimbush, and Virgil Wood.

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas was an intelligent, spirited woman born in 1834 to one of the wealthiest families in Georgia. At the age of fourteen she began and kept a diary for forty-one years, documenting her life before, during, and after the Civil War. In 1851 she graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. Her life is an amazing story of survival and transformation that speaks to women in our own time.