African American Life And Culture In Orange Mound: Case Study Of A Black Community In Memphis, Tennessee, 1890-1980

Founded in 1890, Orange Mound, a predominantly African American community located in Shelby County Tennessee and five-miles east of downtown Memphis, is one of the oldest residential communities in the United States built exclusively for African Amer... Read more

Founded in 1890, Orange Mound, a predominantly African American community located in Shelby County Tennessee and five-miles east of downtown Memphis, is one of the oldest residential communities in the United States built exclusively for African Americans. Originally, African American Life and Culture in Orange Mound is an exploration of the conditions of living for residents of the unincorporated subdivision in the deep south from 1890 to 1919. It is also a study of contemporary approaches to community building during a time period of racial segregation and polarization. The town of Orange Mound, built by Elzey E. Meacham as an all black subdivision for "negroes," represents a unique chapter in American history. There is no other case, neither in the deep South nor in the far West, of such a tremendous effort on the part of African Americans to come together to occupy a carved out space-eventually making it into a black community on the outskirts of Memphis on a former slave plantation. Less