The story of a utopia created by Mississippi freedmen on a white man's plantation This fascinating history set in the Reconstruction South is a testament to African-American resilience, fortitude, and independence. It recounts the story of the experiment at Davis Bend, formerly Joseph Davis's plantation along the Mississippi near Vicksburg. It occupied some of the most fertile cotton acreage in the South. After the war the slaves who formerly had toiled in these fields belonging to the Confederate president's brother became the landowners. From their utopian communitarian haven rose the third most successful cotton operation in the entire South from Reconstruction to World War I. Janet Sharp Hermann writes here of two men—Joseph Davis, the slaveholder, and Benjamin Montgomery, an educated freedman. In 1866 Montgomery began the experiment at Davis Bend. Hermann says, "He did not imitate whites. He excelled them." Montgomery and the black utopians disproved the specious premise that blacks were too ill-equiped to create a thriving society without the charity of whites. Herman's study recounts the remarkable story of how the experiment transformed slave lands into a hallmark of freedom. This miracle at Davis Bend occurred when blacks were accorded the opportunity to pursue the American dream relatively free of the discrimination that controlled most of society. The Pursuit of a Dream was first published in 1981. It received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award the following year. This is a story worthy of celebration. "Historical writing at its best . . . her research is impressive and is presented in balanced, ironic prose." —David Bradley, The New York Times BookReview "A marvelous story for all readers with a taste for the ironies, the ambiguities, and the surprises of history." —C. Vann Woodward 6 x 9 in., 303 pages (approx.), 6 b&w photographs, bibliography, index
