Brenda E. Stevenson, a native of Virginia, is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the editor of The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke.

Centered in Loudoun County, Virginia, and the surrounding vicinity, LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in the American South--weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and poor-to-middling whites, into a powerful portrait of southern society from the mid-18th century to the Civil War. Photos.