Jason R. Young, "The Mask of Memory: White Racial Fantasy After the Civil War" (UNC Press, 2026)

New Books in African American Studies · May 1, 2026 · 1h 11m

In the early twentieth century, a group of white writers, artists, and performers from the cultural hub of Charleston, South Carolina, created and curated a highly sanitized view of slavery. They imagined a once and future plantation society that would reestablish them as the proper heirs of the slave past. In the process, they crafted a set of dangerously durable and virulent stereotypes about slavery. Many of the sights and sounds that Americans associate with slavery are rooted in this grandiose historical myth. The image of the Big House, sitting atop carefully manicured rolling green…