University of Arkansas Press Publishes History on Lynching in the Southern Ozarks

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Press has just published White Man’s Heaven: The Lynching and Expulsion of Blacks in the Southern Ozarks, 1894-1909 (cloth, $34.95), by Kimberly Harper. The book draws on court records, newspaper accounts, penitentiary records, and letters to show how post Civil War vigilantism, an established tradition of extralegal violence, and the rapid political, economic and social change of the New South era happened independently but were also part of a larger, interconnected regional experience. Five towns are covered: Pierce City, Joplin, Monett and Springfield, all in Missouri; and Harrison, Ark.

According to Edward L. Ayers, author of The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction, “Kimberly Harper has written a powerful, deeply researched, and persuasive account of the driving of entire communities of African Americans from their homes. These stories of the Ozarks speak of a larger tale of violence and subjugation we must understand if we are to understand the history of this country.” W. Fitzhugh Brundage, author of Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1939, called the book “an uncommonly sophisticated piece of local history that demonstrates why local / micro history is so valuable,” and Brooks Blevins, author of the University of Arkansas Press’s Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol’ Boys Defined a State, called White Man’s Heaven “a valuable contribution to the study of American race relations in the Ozarks.”

Harper, herself an Ozark native, received her Master of Arts in history from the University of Arkansas and currently lives in Missouri. Her thesis director, University of Arkansas history professor Patrick Williams, calls Harper the “genuine article” as an independent scholar, “independent in the sense of being an intrepid, and largely self-directed, researcher, firmly committed to telling stories that many would prefer were forgotten, and telling them as she sees them.”