{"id":48252,"date":"2016-07-13T00:23:46","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T00:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48252"},"modified":"2016-07-16T01:15:12","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T01:15:12","slug":"an-interview-with-victoria-bynum-historian-and-author-of-the-free-state-of-jones-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48252","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Victoria Bynum, historian and author of The Free State of Jones\u2014Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interview with Victoria Bynum, historian and author of The Free State of Jones\u2014Part 1<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

World Socialist Web Site<\/a>
\n2016-07-12<\/p>\n

David Walsh<\/strong> and Joanne Laurier<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nVictoria Bynum<\/small><\/a><\/p>\n

Free State of Jones<\/em><\/a>, the film directed by Gary Ross<\/a>, powerfully and movingly recounts a significant episode of the American Civil War<\/a>, the insurrection against the Confederacy<\/a> led by Newton Knight<\/a>, a white, antislavery farmer in Jones County<\/a> in southern Mississippi<\/a> from 1863 to 1865.<\/p>\n

Audiences have been generally warm and receptive. However, Ross\u2019s film has met with a hostile response from commentators who see society and history in exclusively racial terms, like Charles Blow of the New York Times<\/em><\/a> (whose own lead film reviewer, A. O. Scott<\/a>, to his credit, gave the film positive marks<\/a>), Vann Newkirk II in the Atlantic<\/em><\/a> and countless others. Free State of Jones<\/em> is a blow to the practitioners of identity politics because it presents this revealing episode in American history in terms of class conflict.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the fraternity of well-paid, thoroughly self-satisfied film critics, white and black alike, quite rightly perceive in Free State of Jones<\/em> a social and political threat: that the interracial revolt against inequality and aristocratic privilege in the 1860s will find an echo in our day.<\/p>\n

Free State of Jones<\/em> has absurdly been characterized as advancing some sort of \u201cwhite savior<\/a>\u201d mythology because it honestly presents the response of common people in Mississippi, inspired by the traditions of the American Revolution<\/a>, to the reactionary project of Southern secession. This cuts across the effort in particular to paint the white population in America, past and present, as hopelessly backward and racist.<\/p>\n

Whatever the immediate commercial fate of Ross\u2019s film, it will have a long shelf life. Those who are serious about American history and contemporary social life will find in it both education and inspiration…<\/p>\n

…David Walsh<\/strong>: First, can you tell us something about your background and how you made your way to the study in particular of Southern Unionism<\/a> and opposition to the Confederacy?<\/p>\n

Victoria Bynum<\/strong><\/a>: I don\u2019t come from an academic background. Neither of my parents had a high school education. My dad was born in Jones County, Mississippi, but he left the state at age 17 to join the military. That\u2019s how he made his living; he was a master sergeant<\/a> by the time he retired. In my family, work was valued over education.<\/p>\n

I grew up in the fifties and sixties, during the era of the Civil Rights movement<\/a>. Influenced by my mother, who supported racial equality, I was very affected by this period. Over time, I developed a strong desire to go to college, and at age 26 began taking classes at a community college. To cut to the chase, my early interest in the history of race and social class emerged from my own experiences. When I began college I was a divorced mother on welfare. Pursuing a doctorate in history required a long economic struggle, one that ended after I finally obtained my degree and began teaching at Texas State University.<\/p>\n

I began my college research with an interest in \u201cfree people of color,\u201d the designation applied to free people before the Civil War. I was initially intrigued by a black friend\u2019s insistence that his Virginia<\/a> ancestors had never been slaves. That seemed to me unusual, and it piqued my interest in Old South<\/a> history. Along the way, I became interested in both free black women and white women who lived outside the planter class. Those interests resulted in my dissertation (and first book), Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South<\/em><\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interview with Victoria Bynum, historian and author of The Free State of Jones\u2014Part 1 World Socialist Web Site 2016-07-12 David Walsh and Joanne Laurier Victoria Bynum Free State of Jones, the film directed by Gary Ross, powerfully and movingly recounts a significant episode of the American Civil War, the insurrection against the Confederacy led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,13743,8,1459,6940,20],"tags":[24482,5505,24483,1453,1454,24484],"class_list":["post-48252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-mississippi","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-david-walsh","tag-gary-ross","tag-joanne-laurier","tag-victoria-bynum","tag-victoria-e-bynum","tag-world-socialist-web-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48253,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252\/revisions\/48253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}