The Kings of Mississippi

"The King family was a 20th century anomaly - a middle class black family living in rural Mississippi. Academic studies, mainstream writing, and anecdotes corroborate the same reality - that blacks living in the historic South experienced deleterious conditions due to racism, segregation, and de jure as well as de facto discrimination. Whether prior to or during Reconstruction or as a result of Jim Crow, they were subjected to profound and unrelenting economic, political, legal, and social oppression, often accompanied by the threat of violence, particularly lynching. How did black families navigate these systemic, oppressive conditions daily? What strategies did they use? And how could becoming middle class be possible? This book presents the lives and experiences of seven generations of a black family that originated in Mississippi. Limited mixed-methodological, multi- disciplinary research has been performed on this topic. This book is one response to this omission. We rely on sociology and ecology (or a socio-ecological lens) as well their own voices to examine how race, religion, education and their intersection as a familial ethos influenced economic and non-economic outcomes of the King family. Empirical reports document the context"--