SOURCE: Davey, Elizabeth. “The Souths of Sterling A. Brown.” Southern Cultures 5, no. 2 (summer 1999): 20-45.

In the following essay, Davey applauds Brown's attempts to present a fuller portrait of the African American experience in the South.

It is evident that Negro folk culture is breaking up. Where Negro met only with Negro in the black belt the old beliefs strengthened. But when mud traps give way to gravel roads, and black tops and even concrete highways with buses and jalopies and trucks lumbering over them, the world comes closer. The churches and the schools, such as they are, struggle against some of the results of isolation, and the radio plays a part. Even in the backwoods, aerials are mounted on shanties that seem ready to collapse from the extra weight on the roof, or from a good burst of static against the walls. The phonograph is common, the television...