When the Whippoorwill Sang: A Memoir of Rural Life during the Twilight of the Segregated South

A Memoir of Rural Life during the Twilight of the Segregated South by Arthur Lee Ford, Jr. Arthur Lee Ford, Jr. makes the common, everyday—perhaps even mundane—aspects of southern rural life interesting and exciting in When the Whippoorwill Sang. Unlike many of the memoirs set during the era of segregation, which usually cover unique events and exceptional stories of racial conflict, Ford's story focuses on the subtle constraints imposed on all rural African Americans in the segregated South and the central dilemma that defined their lives—a bounded existence imposed on an otherwise happy individual with boundless aspirations and abilities. While burning crosses and nooses hanging from trees might more graphically convey the racism of the segregated South, it is the much more commonplace internal turmoil and emotional damage inflicted upon both white and black southerners during that era that is hardest to grasp and the most difficult to erase. When the Whippoorwill Sang makes it clear