Synopses & Reviews
"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."
-Edward L. Ayers, President, University of Richmond, and author of The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction
"An uncommonly sophisticated piece of local history that demonstrates why local / micro history is so valuable."
-W. Fitzhugh Brundage, William B. Umstead Professor, University of North Carolina, and author of Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia, 1880-1930
"A valuable contribution to the study of American race relations and the Ozarks."
-Brooks Blevins, Noel Boyd Associate Professor of Ozarks Studies, Missouri State University, and author of Arkansas / Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State
Review
White Man's Heaven is a "well-written and creatively researched work. . . . The author movingly documents 'a dark mark upon the land yet to be removed.'" --The Journal of American History, Dec. 2011
Review
"This is required reading for researchers interested in how lynching and expulsion are indispensable for understanding an important but oftentimes unacknowledged phenomenon in US History." --Choice, July 1, 2011
Review
"White Man's Heaven is comprehensively researched and compellingly written and should be read by all interested in the social and legal history of the southern Ozarks and the history of racial violence in Missouri. Harper's book does crucial work in bringing attention to a long-neglected but important aspect of southern Ozarks and Missouri history."
--Missouri Historical Review, October 2011
Review
"Harper contributes significantly to the history of race relations, demography, and mob violence in the Ozarks." --H-Net, January 2011
Review
"Provides a cogent and illuminating contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on lynching."
--American Historical Review, June 2011
Review
"What Harper has done in this book is to throw open an ugly history that many people in the region would be content to leave forgotten, even though it is still there in local memory and hushed folklore. Harper's book is an important contribution for specialists in the field, but is also essential reading for anyone who lives in the southern Ozarks. The story she tells of 'a dark mark upon the land yet to be removed' demands a reckoning." --Jarod Roll, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Summer 2011
Review
"An invaluable work ... supports and importantly expands on recent studies of sundown towns and racial cleansing by James W. Loewen and Elliot Jaspin." --John William Graves in the Journal of Southern History, Feb. 2012
Synopsis
Drawing on court records, newspaper accounts, penitentiary records, letters, and diaries, White Mans Heaven is a thorough investigation into the lynching and expulsion of African Americans in the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Kimberly Harper explores events in the towns of Monett, Pierce City, Joplin, and Springfield, Missouri, and Harrison, Arkansas, to show how postCivil 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. Even though some whites, especially in Joplin and Springfield, tried to stop the violence and bring the lynchers to justice, many African Americans fled the Ozarks, leaving only a resilient few behind and forever changing the racial composition of the region.
About the Author
Kimberly Harper lives in the Missouri Ozarks.