This book reflects the support of many people and institutions. I have been fortunate to have David Roediger as a doctoral adviser. He has taught me how to be a good scholar and a good human being. I have also been privileged to work with Augusto Espiritu, Clarence Lang, and Bruce Levine, members of my dissertation committee. My deepest thanks to them for support and guidance. I wish to also thank Erik McDuffie, Siobhan Somerville, Fred Hoxie, and Carol Symes for their insights.
Warm thanks to Linda Manning, this book’s editor, and the entire staff at Northern Illinois University Press for backing this project. Thanks also to Tim Roberts, managing editor of the Early American Places series, and Sheila Berg, my copy editor, for their hard work in seeing this book to completion. I am especially grateful to my peer reviewers and to Nikki Taylor in particular for her much-needed wisdom at crucial moments. Thanks to Jennifer Hamer and Tiya Miles for their encouragement and tenacity. Special thanks also to the late John Hope Franklin for once whispering, “Never let them see you flinch.”
My gratitude is also extended to the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago for seeing the possibilities in this project via an Honorable Mention for the 2007 Ruth Murray Prize Best Graduate Student Essay award. Thanks also to the following departments, institutions, conferences, and workshops for their financial and intellectual support or research assistance: the University of Illinois Summer Pre-Doctoral Institute; the Graduate College and Department of History at the University of Illinois; the Newberry Seminar on Women and Gender; the Americanist workshops in the Department of History and the Department of English at the University of Alabama; the National Black Graduate Student Association (NBGSA); the Association for the Worldwide Study of the African Diaspora (ASWAD); the Atlantic World Literacies Network (AWRN) Conference; the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association (SEWSA); Purdue American Studies Symposium; Remapping the Black Atlantic: Diaspora (Re)Writings of Race and Space conference at DePaul University; the 2013 Historians Against Slavery Conference in Cincinnati; the Cincinnati Historical Society; the Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives; the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas; the Filson Historical Society Library; the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Special Collections Department; the Albert and Shirley Small Library at the University of Virginia; Lexington, Kentucky, Public Library; the American Antiquarian Society; Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University; the Department of History, University of Alabama; W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library and the Faculty Resource Center at the University of Alabama.
I also wish to thank B. J. Gooch, Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist, Transylvania University Library and Kathryn J. Lillethun of the Bainbridge, Georgia, Historical Society, for assistance during the beginning stages of my research. My gratitude is also extended to the archivists and researchers at Historic Georgetown, Inc., among them, Christine Bradley, Anne Marie Cannon, and Nancy Hale. Thanks also to Christopher Winters, bibliographer for Geography, Anthropology, and Maps, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago; and Craig Remington, Cartographic Lab, Department of Geography, University of Alabama. The visual images in this book are greatly owed to their good work. I wish to also thank Tim Barnes, manager of Geographic Information Systems, City of Huntsville, and Marie Bostick, Planning Services, Urban Development, City of Huntsville; Lynne Williams of the Weeden House Museum; and Linda Riley for their help as I learned more about Huntsville, Alabama.
Special thanks to Ola Gerald and Alexandria Gilbert for research assistance. Thank you, Virginia Cain, for proofing assistance.
Many others have offered lots of encouragement along the way. I would like to publicly thank my students in various courses who push my thinking, as well as my colleagues in the History department at the University of Alabama, among them, Heather Kopelson, Sarah Steinbock-Pratt, Teresa Cribelli, Kari Frederickson, and Lisa Dorr. I also wish to thank others, including Kimberly Snyder Manganelli, Lewis Porter, Trica Keaton, Ana Vazquez, Mary Vander Kinter, Keith Braynon, Camille and Michael Mendle, Kaye McKendrick, Lashieka Purvis Hunter, Cherise Fisher, Diana DaCosta, Amii McKendrick, Jill Campbell Trent, Rhonda Campbell Culver, Wanda Lewis-Williams, Denene Millner, Nick Chiles, Ken Jones, Tricia McElroy, Jessica Lacher-Feldman, Ann Powers, Anne Carson, Connie Biewald, Mimi Jennings, Valeria Bland Thomas, Courtney Cain, Veronica Mendez-Johnson, Kyle Mays, Tony Laing, Jeanine M. Mitchell, Darnese Williams Harris, Aniko Varga, Christa Vogelius, Francine and Bill Luckett, Melvin Van Peebles, Traci Parker, Tresa M. Saxton, Jacquetta Colyer, Trudier Harris, and “Jim, Buster and Bob” and others in the Friday afternoon Alcove crew. Heartfelt thanks to Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Lillie Mae Earvin, Duane Andrews, Brice Andrews, Bianca Harris, Kandice Hill, Tisha Andrews Pierre, Jean Pierre, Nick Beeler, Sue Circone, Hazel Beeler, Michael Kuric, Theodocia Cunningham, Alton Andrews, Iona Andrews and Estella Andrews Myers for love and support. To Garcia Dwight Andrews, Richard Earvin, Anne Boise Beeler, C. Donald Beall, Gloria Gigi” Watson, Joan Cohl, the memory of you inspires. Thank you also to many more remembered but unnamed. Finally, my gratitude to John Beeler and the cutest little kitties in the world for love and sometimes humorous but always constant validation.