Roses in December: Black Life in Hanover County from Civil War to Civil Rights
Jody Lynn Allen
University of Virginia Press
Beginning in the era of Reconstruction and ending with desegregation, Jody Lynn Allen chronicles the lives of newly freed people and their descendants in Hanover County, Virginia, providing an unprecedented look at rural Black Virginians’ resilience after disfranchisement. In the century between 1865 and 1965, Black residents of Hanover County embraced liberty as they organized for education, employment, and religious freedom, and built a community that flourished in the face of white retrenchment and day-to-day oppression.