Inherit the Land: Jim Crow Meets Miss Maggie s Will - Hardcover

Stowe, Gene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578068649 ISBN 13: 9781578068647

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2006

Synopsis

In the early twentieth century, two wealthy white sisters, cousins to a North Carolina governor, wrote identical wills that left their substantial homeplace to a black man and his daughter.

Maggie Ross, whose sister Sallie died in 1909, was the richest woman in Union County, North Carolina. Upon Maggie's death in 1920, her will bequeathed her estate to Bob Ross--who had grown up in the sisters' household--and his daughter Mittie Bell Houston. Mittie had also grown up with the well-to-do women, who had shown their affection for her by building a house for her and her husband. This house, along with eight hundred acres, hundreds of dollars in cash, and two of the white family's three gold watches went to Bob Ross and Houston. As soon as the contents of the will became known, more than one hundred of Maggie Ross's scandalized cousins sued to break the will, claiming that its bequest to black people proved that Maggie Ross was mentally incompetent.

Revealing the details of this case and of the lives of the people involved in it, Gene Stowe presents a story that sheds light on and complicates our understanding of the Jim Crow South. Stowe's account of this famous court battle shows how specific individuals, both white and black, labored against the status quo of white superiority and ultimately won. An evocative portrait of an entire generation's sins, Inherit the Land: Jim Crow Meets Miss Maggie's Will hints at the possibility for color-blind justice in small-town North Carolina.

About this title

Book Description:

The history of a legal fight in which an all-white jury awarded African Americans a North Carolina estate

Gene Stowe has given us a vivid portrait of a time that is poorly understood in America. This is a fascinating and well-told story, specific and focused, that makes a larger point. It has a fresh and original feel, and it adds another dimension of understanding to the troubled racial history of the south. (-Frye Gaillard, author of Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America)

From the Publisher:

This history of a legal fight in which an all-white jury awarded African Americans a North Carolina estate:

* Provides a compelling and readable story that focuses on the ties of love and affection that crossed racial lines even when white supremacy dominated social interaction

* Reveals unexpected (and some sadly expected) larger trends in the Jim Crow South by focusing on a particular case and specific individuals

* Underscores the duality of those who lived under the Jim Crow system by showing that not everyone in the South during that era accepted the general rules of society

* Offers a fascinating story that resonates: many of the descendants of the people involved still live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and still grapple with some of the same issues of disenfranchisement, financial inequality, judicial prejudices, and troubled race relations

*Tells the story of a hopeful first step in a state otherwise hardened in the 1920s to the status quo

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1578068649
• ISBN 13: 9781578068647
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 309
• Illustrator: Sergio Carl A.