White writers, black rights

Abstract

In writing about the South, authors created a variety of works that examined or portrayed the social, historic, and cultural aspects of the region. Although many dealt pointedly with race relations, it is rarely a point of study to see how those writers responded in their texts to the rising tension and inevitable confrontations between blacks and whites that took place during the Civil Rights Movement. With so much change happening in their own "backyards", Southern writers would have had interesting insight into the reasons and ramifications of the movement’s success. Considering the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor, in particular, this thesis looks at how two of the South’s most celebrated and culturally astute writers framed the quest for black rights in the mid-twentieth century.