We Ask Only a Fair Trial: A History of the Black Community of Evansville, Indiana (Blacks in the Diaspora/Midwestern History and Culture) - Hardcover

Despite its growth as an industrial center, Evansville remained heavily influenced by the virulent racism of its antebellum past. Bigham traces the devlopment of a black community, focusing on the origin and nature of the obstacles to equal opportunity. He reveals, however, that black Evansvillians built a richly variegated subculture, relying heavily on their own resources, and occasional assistance from sympathetic whites.

With few exception, studies of urban black communities published in the past twenty years have treated large American metropolises and ignored the experiences of blacks in towns and small to middle-sized cities. That prompted the author to commence research on the Evansville black community in the early 1970s.