Race and Reconciliation on the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad

“Race and Reconciliation on the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad” tells the story of the construction of Mississippi’s Gulf & Ship Island Railroad in a captivating narrative set against the backdrop of the rise of the “New South.” Featuring a fascinating slew of characters—ranging from the great-grandfather of William Cuthbert Faulkner to the bluesman Robert Johnson—Sturkey’s tale of a railroad built from the forest to the sea considers the legacy and complex meanings of railroads and new economic opportunities, balanced against the intersections of race, labor, reconciliation, and cultural nostalgia, at the dawn of post-Reconstruction Southern modernization.