Newman, Mark

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Mark Newman

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Spirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the new cotton south. By Jarold Roll. (The Working Class in American History.) Pp. xiii+272 incl. 4 maps and 6 figs. Urbana–Chicago–Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2010. $80 (cloth), $30 (paper). 978 0 252 03519 7, 978 0 252 07703 6

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     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Book review: Spirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the newcotton southCitation for published version:Newman, M 2012, 'Book review: Spirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the new cotton south' The Journalof Ecclesiastical History, vol 63, no. 1, pp. 198-199., 10.1017/S0022046911000649Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1017/S0022046911000649Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Publisher final version (usually the publisher pdf)Published In:The Journal of Ecclesiastical HistoryPublisher Rights Statement:© Newman, M. (2012). Book review: Spirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the new cotton south. The Journalof Ecclesiastical History, 63(1), 198-199doi: 10.1017/S0022046911000649General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 20. Feb. 2015nothing more than innumerable, fractured sects? Do archival sources conﬁrmthe presence of broad, unifying networks built on common practices or sharedbeliefs? Finally, will the emerging critical spirit among Pentecostal academics,the openness to new and imaginative theological paradigms, and the gradualassessment of Pentecostal spirituality from outsiders indicate an ever-widening gapbetween Pentecostal laity and professionals? One thing is certain: Pentecostalismsseem destined to multiply.JEFFREY W. BARBEAUWHEATON COLLEGE,ILLINOISSpirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the new cotton south. By Jarold Roll. (TheWorking Class in American History.) Pp. xiii + incl.  maps and  ﬁgs.Urbana–Chicago–Springﬁeld: University of Illinois Press, . $ (cloth),$ (paper).     ,     JEH () ; doi:./SJudged by its misleading title, the reader might expect this book to address thecotton-growing regions of the South from Reconstruction through much of thetwentieth century. Instead, Jarod Roll’s well-researched study focuses on cottondevelopment in the Boothill, a seven-county area of southeast Missouri, between and the mid-s. Aspiring to become self-sufﬁcient, independentproducers, African American and white tenant farmers and sharecroppers, Rollargues, migrated to the region’s newly drained swamps and cleared forests wherefor thirty years they struggled to resist forms of capitalist development thatthreatened to conﬁne them permanently to wage labour. While racism oftendivided and segregated black and white producers, they found ideologicalsupport for their ‘agrarian producerism’ (p. ) in Pentecostalism, and for somewhites also in socialism, both of which addressed feelings of powerlessness andshared a producerist emphasis on hard work, thrift and economic autonomy.The Universal Negro Improvement Association’s appeal to ‘mainly prosperous’(p. ) African Americans in the Boothill during the s similarly lay inproducerism. Despite President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal sympathy foruprooted tenants and sharecroppers, the Agricultural AdjustmentAdministration’s subsidy payments to landowners encouraged them to evicttheir resident workforce in favour of mechanisation and day labour. Conﬂictsbetween the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU) and a Congress ofIndustrial Organizations’ (CIO) afﬁliate prevented a uniﬁed response bydisplaced agrarians who turned to these organisations for assistance.Nevertheless, STFU and CIO lobbying and a widely publicised roadside protestby black and white evictees in January  led the federal Farm SecurityAdministration (FSA) to create several segregated communities for landlessfarmers in the Boothill, and their inhabitants were able to buy their homes afterconservatives forced the FSA to sell the sites. FSA programmes did not stop‘eviction, demotion, and the shift to a wage labor system’ (p. ) but triedinstead to help landless farmers to adjust to its coming. Roll argues that byconsidering twentieth-century rural southerners primarily in terms of their urban JOURNAL OF ECCLE S I A ST I CAL H I STORYmigration historians have missed the vibrancy of determined, if ultimatelyunsuccessful, rural efforts to sustain producerism. Furthermore, he claims thathis ‘story reveals a forgotten lineage of agrarian rebellion that linked Populism tothe rise of civil rights unionism in the s’ (p. ) because many migrantsbrought to the urban labour unions that they joined ‘a spirit of radical religiosity,experience in community organizing, and belief in the responsibilities and powerof the state’ (p. ). However, his claim about linkages to civil rights unionism issupposition in need of evidence. Despite Roll’s claim to have unearthed a losttradition of southern rural resistance, his evidence does not extend beyond sevenborder state counties, and the STFU’s efforts more widely are, in any case, wellknown to historians. Within the Boothill, Roll’s evidence suggests that socialistsand the UNIA achieved only minority support among those whom they sought toenlist, and the importance of religion in rural resistance during the s isasserted rather than convincingly supported.MARK NEWMANUNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHIl giornale del’anima. Soliloqui, note e diari spirituali. Edited by Alberto Melloni.(Edizione nazionale dei diari di Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli –Giovanni XXIII, .)Pp. xlviii +. Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose, . E.   Nelle mani di Dio a servizio dell’uomo. I diari di don Roncalli, –. Editedby Lucia Butturini. (Edizione nazionale dei diari di Angelo GiuseppeRoncalli –Giovanni XXIII, .) Pp. xlvii +. Bologna: Istituto per le scienzereligiose, . E.     Tener da conto. Agendine di Bulgaria, –. Edited by Massimo Faggioli.(Edizione nazionale dei diari di Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli –Giovanni XXIII, .)Pp. l +. Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose, . E.    La mia vita in oriente. Agende del delegato apostolico, I: –; II: –.Edited by Valeria Martano. (Edizione nazionale dei diari di Angelo GiuseppeRoncalli –Giovanni XXIII, ., ..) Pp. xxxiii +, xxi+. Bologna:Istituto per le scienze religiose, , . E each.    ;    Anni di Francia, I: Agende del nunzio, –; II: Agende del nunzio, –.Edited by Étienne Fouilloux. (Edizione nazionale dei diari di AngeloGiuseppe Roncalli – Giovanni XXIII, .; ..) Pp. xxviii +, xxii +.Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose, . E each.    ;   Pace e vangelo. Agende del patriarca, I: –; II: –. Edited byEnrico Galavotti. (Edizione nazionale dei diari di Angelo GiuseppeRoncalli –Giovanni XXIII, .; .). Pp. xxxiii +, xxxvi+. Bologna:Istituto per le scienze religiose, . E each.     ;    Pater amabilis. Agende del ponteﬁce, –. Edited by Mauro Velati. (Edizionenazionale dei diari di Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli –Giovanni XXIII, .)REV I EWS 

Book review: Spirit of rebellion. Labor and religion in the new cotton south

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