{"id":63074,"date":"2022-02-14T01:25:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T01:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63074"},"modified":"2022-02-14T01:29:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T01:29:02","slug":"martha-wheeler-eye-witness-to-the-free-state-of-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63074","title":{"rendered":"Martha Wheeler, Eye-Witness to the \u201cFree State of Jones\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martha Wheeler, Eye-Witness to the \u201cFree State of Jones\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Renegade South: Histories of Unconventional Southerners<\/a>
\n2017-07-02<\/p>\n

Vikki Bynum<\/strong><\/a>, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History
\nTexas State University, San Marcos<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Matthew McConaughey<\/a> and Gugu Mbatha-Raw<\/a> as Newt<\/a> and Rachel, \u201cThe Free State of Jones<\/a>,\u201d STX Entertainment (2016)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the excitement I felt when, in the midst of researching The Free State of Jones<\/em><\/a>, I came upon the WPA\u2019s<\/a> 1936 interview with Martha Wheeler, a former slave of Laurel, Mississippi<\/a>. Today, I realize more than ever that Martha just may be the best source for verifiable remarks about Newt<\/a>, Rachel, and Serena Knight, and the interracial community they built in Soso, Mississippi<\/a>, in the aftermath of the Civil War<\/a>.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, no Hollywood<\/a> movie could have provided an in-depth treatment of both a Civil War insurrection and the remarkable mixed-race community that followed. Only a fraction of Rachel\u2019s factual personal life was told amid the larger story of slavery, Civil War, and class resistance to Confederate authority.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, judging from the traffic on this blog since release of The Free State of Jones<\/em><\/a>, the movie\u2019s abbreviated portrait of the interracial Knight community piqued tremendous interest among movie audiences. Tantalizing glimpses of the 1948 miscegenation trial of Newt and Rachel\u2019s great-grandson, Davis Knight<\/a>, as well as images of Newt\u2019s two \u201cwives,\u201d\u2014one white (Serena), the other a woman of color (Rachel)\u2014in scenes of domestic contentment in post-Civil War Mississippi sparked that interest even more…<\/p>\n

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

Martha Wheeler, Eye-Witness to the \u201cFree State of Jones\u201d Renegade South: Histories of Unconventional Southerners 2017-07-02 Vikki Bynum, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History Texas State University, San Marcos Matthew McConaughey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Newt and Rachel, \u201cThe Free State of Jones,\u201d STX Entertainment (2016) I\u2019ll never forget the excitement I felt when, in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,1459,6940,20],"tags":[33020,1457,1456,4374,2317,33021,1453,1454,14118],"class_list":["post-63074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-mississippi","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-martha-wheeler","tag-newt-knight","tag-newton-knight","tag-rachel-knight","tag-renegade-south-histories-of-unconventional-southerners","tag-serena-knight","tag-victoria-bynum","tag-victoria-e-bynum","tag-vikki-bynum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074","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=63074"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63077,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074\/revisions\/63077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}