Two recent novels by African American women retell the story of the Kingdom of the Happy Land for today’s readers.

Both books place Luella at the center of the story and honor the African cultural heritage, faith, and vision of those who worked together to establish the Kingdom.   Although the books are fictional, they reflect extensive research into the challenges that Black Americans faced during the years immediately following the Civil War.   
 

In Happy Land, Dr. Dolen Perkins-Valdez retells the story of the Kingdom based on new primary source research.  Written through the eyes of a present-day descendant of the Kingdom, it explores connections between the past and the present as well as injustices related to land rights. Perkins-Valdez diverges from the mythical narrative that begins the story of the Kingdom founders in Mississippi, and uses the primary source documentation and research from the Black History Research Group of Henderson County to inform her story.

Vanessa Miller emphasizes the experiences of enslavement and emancipation in American Queen. Her novel, which is based on folk history accounts of the Kingdom’s origins in Mississippi, explores the grief and trauma of surviving enslavement, as it chronicles the group’s journey from Mississippi to a new life of freedom in the mountains of North Carolina.