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The Resource Washing our hands in the clouds : Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina, Bo Petersen

Washing our hands in the clouds : Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina, Bo Petersen

Creator
Summary
"In Washing Our Hands in the Clouds, Bo Petersen masterfully crafts a reflection on the Civil War, emancipation, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement in the personal story of how it affected one man's life in a specific South Carolina locale. Petersen's accomplishment is that, in studying the Pee Dee region of Dillon and Marion Counties, he illuminates those issues throughout the Deep South. Through conversations with Joe Williams, his family, and acquaintances, white and black, Petersen merges the Williams family history back to Joe's great-great-grandfather, Scipio Williams, with the lives and fortunes of four generations of South Carolinians--black and white. Scipio, the family progenitor, was a man free in spirit and action before the Civil War destroyed chattel slavery. Scipio was a free black farmer who worked land that he owned in the Pee Dee before and after the war and during the worst days of Jim Crow white supremacy. Petersen uses the Williams family genealogy, neighborhood, and, most important, their farmlands to understand Pee Dee and South Carolina history from the 1860s to the present. In his research he discovers historical currents that run deeper than events--currents of agriculture, land ownership, and allegiance to native soil--and transcend the march of time and carry the Williams family through slavery, war, Jim Crow, and economic dislocation to today's stories of Joe Williams. In gathering what Petersen describes as a collection of front porch stories, he also writes a history of what matters most to this family and this locale. The resulting narrative is surprising, unconventional, and true for all families in all places. In Dillon County, tobacco production followed cotton farming. Old-time logging coexisted with textile factories. Jim Crow gave way to uncertain prospects of racial harmony. Those were monumental changes of circumstance, but they did not change human character. Washing Our Hands in the Clouds is a history of human character, of life that endures outside of the restraints of time. To understand this phenomenon is to realize that both Scipio and Joe and the generations between them wash their hands in the timeless clouds of South Carolina's sky"--
Language
eng
Work
Instance
Label
Washing our hands in the clouds : Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina
Title
Washing our hands in the clouds
Title remainder
Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina
Statement of responsibility
Bo Petersen
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"In Washing Our Hands in the Clouds, Bo Petersen masterfully crafts a reflection on the Civil War, emancipation, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement in the personal story of how it affected one man's life in a specific South Carolina locale. Petersen's accomplishment is that, in studying the Pee Dee region of Dillon and Marion Counties, he illuminates those issues throughout the Deep South. Through conversations with Joe Williams, his family, and acquaintances, white and black, Petersen merges the Williams family history back to Joe's great-great-grandfather, Scipio Williams, with the lives and fortunes of four generations of South Carolinians--black and white. Scipio, the family progenitor, was a man free in spirit and action before the Civil War destroyed chattel slavery. Scipio was a free black farmer who worked land that he owned in the Pee Dee before and after the war and during the worst days of Jim Crow white supremacy. Petersen uses the Williams family genealogy, neighborhood, and, most important, their farmlands to understand Pee Dee and South Carolina history from the 1860s to the present. In his research he discovers historical currents that run deeper than events--currents of agriculture, land ownership, and allegiance to native soil--and transcend the march of time and carry the Williams family through slavery, war, Jim Crow, and economic dislocation to today's stories of Joe Williams. In gathering what Petersen describes as a collection of front porch stories, he also writes a history of what matters most to this family and this locale. The resulting narrative is surprising, unconventional, and true for all families in all places. In Dillon County, tobacco production followed cotton farming. Old-time logging coexisted with textile factories. Jim Crow gave way to uncertain prospects of racial harmony. Those were monumental changes of circumstance, but they did not change human character. Washing Our Hands in the Clouds is a history of human character, of life that endures outside of the restraints of time. To understand this phenomenon is to realize that both Scipio and Joe and the generations between them wash their hands in the timeless clouds of South Carolina's sky"--
Assigning source
Provided by publisher
Biography type
individual biography
Cataloging source
N$T
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1955-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Petersen, Bo
Dewey number
975.7/03092
Government publication
government publication of a state province territory dependency etc
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
  • dictionaries
  • bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Williams, Joe
  • Williams, Joe
  • African Americans
  • African American farmers
  • Free African Americans
  • Pee Dee River Region (N.C. and S.C.)
  • South Carolina
  • United States
  • South Carolina
  • Civil rights movements
  • BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical
  • HISTORY / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV)
Label
Washing our hands in the clouds : Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina, Bo Petersen
Link
Instantiates
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocn915563407
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Isbn
9781611175523
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
illustrations
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
unknown sound
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)915563407
Label
Washing our hands in the clouds : Joe Williams, his forebears, and Black farms in South Carolina, Bo Petersen
Link
Publication
Antecedent source
unknown
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Carrier category
online resource
Carrier category code
  • cr
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Color
multicolored
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Control code
ocn915563407
Dimensions
unknown
Extent
1 online resource
File format
unknown
Form of item
online
Isbn
9781611175523
Level of compression
unknown
Media category
computer
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • c
Other physical details
illustrations
Quality assurance targets
not applicable
Reformatting quality
unknown
Sound
unknown sound
Specific material designation
remote
System control number
(OCoLC)915563407

Subject

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    • Charleston County Public Library - MainBorrow it
      68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, US
      32.7883294 -79.9309573

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