'The Blue Hole' Tells Story of Southern Plantation

Gordon Morgan, a University Professor of sociology, has recently published The Blue Hole: A Southern Plantation: 1900-1946, the story of how a Southern plantation began, survived, changed and finally ended.

"The various characters involved in the raising of cotton, families, and involvement with local, state and federal governments are stressed," said Morgan. "There’s a balance of characters as had to be the case on the plantation. People became interdependent, the dominants eventually having to call upon those subservient for help. Tenants never lost hope and confidence in humanity. Although there were generational changes, one generation of tenants never abandoned the other, though the younger ones found it difficult to live as their parents did."

Morgan was born in Mayflower, Ark., during the Depression. His grandfather and father were workers on a large plantation on the Arkansas River. He describes his latest book as a work of vernacular sociology.