South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

For this book the scholar Imani Perry travelled to more than a dozen cities and towns in the American South, interviewing residents and documenting each place’s distant and recent history. Along the way she discusses historical figures such as Shields Green, one of the men who took part in John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and events ranging from the Wilmington massacre of 1898 to the Charleston church shooting. Parts of the book turn to memoir, as Perry writes about her grandmother and other relatives who grew up in the South.