Cheril Thomas

If you plan to read South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry, do so when you have time to slow down and savor this rich chronicle of our country. Perry, born in Alabama, tours the South from DC to Miami and Savannah to Houston. Her book pays homage to Albert Murray who wrote a similar book in 1971 entitled South to An Old Place. The book is filled with stories and myths--some we know and many others we don't--of communities, rituals and traditions with a focus on lives lived well under often crushing poverty and oppression with the threat of state-supported violence never far away.

Perry's prose is as rich and complex as the region she explores. And she is always clear that she is part of the telling, her reactions to what she experiences sometimes as complicated as those of the region she is describing. I appreciated her honesty and wisdom. In the end, however, she concludes that just reading her book isn't enough. Action is required if we are going to finally allow all people to dream great dreams.

This review does not do justice to the book. I highlighted passage after passage where Perry pulled disparate ideas together then clinched them with one short sentence.

In a section on New Orleans, Perry describes the practice of plaçage, in which white men would contract with black women to keep them as mistresses. As she points out, it wasn't a mutual consenting contract but one in which young black women were forced as part of the society in which they lived. This practice forms part of the plot of The Thread Collectors and would make an interesting companion read to Perry.… (más)