Leavin' a Testimony: Portraits from Rural Texas (Focus on American History) [Hardcover]

Patsy Cravens (Author), Bob Patten (Afterword), John Boles (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006 | Series: Focus on American History

First settled by Stephen F. Austin's colonists in the early nineteenth century, Colorado County has deep roots in Texas history. Mainly rural and agrarian until late in the twentieth century, Colorado County was a cotton-growing region whose population was about evenly divided between blacks and whites. These life-long neighbors led separate and unequal lives, memories of which still linger today. To preserve those memories, Patsy Cravens began interviewing and photographing the older residents of Colorado County in the 1980s. In this book, she presents photographs and recollections of the last generation, black and white, who grew up in the era of Jim Crow segregation. The folks in Colorado County have engrossing stories to tell. They recall grinding poverty and rollicking fun in the Great Depression, losing crops and livestock to floods, working for the WPA, romances gone wrong and love gone right, dirty dancing, church and faith, sharecropping, quilting, raising children, racism and bigotry, and even the horrific lynching of two African American teenagers in 1935. The Colorado County residents' stories reveal an amazing resiliency and generosity of spirit, despite the hardships that have filled most of their lives. They also capture a rural way of life that was once common across the South, but is now gone forever.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patsy Cravens is a photographer, artist, writer, and video producer in Houston. Some of her photographs been displayed in the traveling exhibition, "Colorado County Memories: Everyone Has a Story to Tell." She also wrote and produced an award-winning oral history documentary called Coming Through Hard Times, which was based in Colorado County and has appeared on PBS.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292713053
• ISBN-13: 978-0292713055
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,988,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Collection of Personal Experiences Central/South Texas, August 25, 2008

By 

Robin (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leavin' a Testimony: Portraits from Rural Texas (Focus on American History) (Hardcover)

From the photo on the cover I originally thought this was going to be a collection of interviews from only one segment of Colorado County's population- but I was mistaken. The book contains interviews from all segments of the population of Colorado County- and the experiences are as widely varied as one can imagine. In reading this book we get to learn about everything from "The Orphan Train" to a lynching, to farming and ranching experiences in Colorado County. It's a great book for people without a lot of time to read, you can read a few interviews, and later when you find another quiet moment, you can read a few more. I love all the photos too! Patsy Craven put together a jewel of Texas History, one any collector of Texas History books should have.

5.0 out of 5 stars Colo.County, TX, Photojournalism, February 19, 2012

By 

Virginia Ann Powell (Dallas, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leavin' a Testimony: Portraits from Rural Texas (Focus on American History) (Hardcover)

Colorado County (just west of Houston) & its small towns of Weimar, Columbus, etc. are the subject of this work displaying the author's excellent B&W portrait photography alongside transcriptions of life-story interviews with each subject, some quite brief and others fairly extensive, including many "testimonies" of personal religious experiences--hence the title, which is actually a direct quote from one of the interviewees. About 2/3 of the subjects are African-American with the remaining 1/3 largely reflecting the 19th-century Czech influx to the area; the majority are living somewhere near the poverty line. Many of the interviewees speak quite frankly and in much detail of their own personal histories, offering insight into small-town Texas race relationships and interactions, including an account of a 1950s lynching. Family-group housing and living patterns are discernable across the spectrum of interviewees, as well as education, courtship, employment, and various other patterns of interest to sociologists and/or anthropologists. To both the professional and the general reader, these interviewees spring from the pages as highly individual, vibrant, interesting persons.

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT READING, May 18, 2011

By 

Don Butterfras (Downtown Ammannsville,Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Leavin' a Testimony: Portraits from Rural Texas (Focus on American History) (Hardcover)

LEARNED A LOT ABOUT LIFE AS IT WAS IN OUR AREA AS SEEN FROM A PERSONAL VIEW. SHE REALLY KNEW HOW TO TELL ABOUT IT.