Creek walking

by Jacqueline Jones

"Jacqueline Jones's Creek Walking is the story of a little girl growing up in Christiana, Delaware, in the 1950s, and the story of an American crossroads transformed over time. Wedged between two dramatically different extended families, she tries to make sense of the social signifiers that crosscut even this tiny village in New Castle County - differences between blacks and whites, men and women, Presbyterians and Methodists, migrants from Appalachia and migrants from New England, and members of the business class and working class.". "Jones's account tells a larger story about the folkways of the Protestant middle class in postwar America. To her, ordinary everyday life was infused with high drama. Sunday afternoon family gatherings, school days, and church services all manifested the social dynamics of a compact little community that seemed resistant to "progress," variously defined. Yet the determination of Christiana's black residents to integrate the local school is revealing of