Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt

"Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt is the memoir of the founder and principal of Snow Hill Institute, a 'little Tuskegee,' located in rural Wilcox County, Alabama. . . . Edwards reveals the conditions of blacks and race relations in Alabama between 1890 and 1917 and tells of his determination to uplift his race through education in the years following Reconstruction."
—Florida Historical Quarterly

"This addition to the Library of Alabama Classics has much to recommend it to historians, scholars, and anyone interested in the early history of the African-Americans' struggle to become educated, to be able to take an equal place in the land they now had to call home. Though the story is told by one man and revolves around his stubborn dedication to building a school where young people could receive an education, it also reveals much about the social and cultural life of those times."
—American Library Book Review

"One of the only testaments of a black person of that time and in that area. This book sheds considerable light on the conditions of blacks generally (especially tenant farmers), race relations, and the economic, social, educational, and political circumstances of black Alabamians. Edwards clearly illustrates the degree of oppression in the Alabama."
—Joe M. Richardson, Florida State University