Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of the Nation

Most of us probably think we know the South. However, the region that Imani Perry describes in her National Book Award-winning study, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of America (Ecco, 2022) will be unfamiliar to most OLLI members. This work of literary non-fiction tells the story of identity formation and explores race in the South. It explores how race, history, Southern cultures, and identity formation in the South impact our entire nation. Perry reflects on her own experiences as a biracial woman and describes how Black communities have historically adapted to America’s politics and culture while retaining their own identity. The author’s methods and conclusions will be discussed in detail and evidence supporting her thesis will be critically examined. In this book, Perry used interviews and elicited stories from leaders and ordinary people, but the non-fiction focus is on race, history, and culture. A second focus of our study group discussion and analysis will be the manner in which principles of literary fiction were brought to bear in telling the author’s story. The National Book Award was awarded in part because of the overall subject of the book, but also because of Perry’s writing techniques.