To Raise Up the South is the first book to examine the role of southern Sunday schools in black and white churches in the half century following the Civil War. It shows the important role that the Sunday schools played in uplifting a destitute region and, by the end of the century, helping that region adjust to a modernizing world. McMillen analyzes seven black and white denominations that, after realizing that the majority of new converts came from the Sunday school, shifted their focus to community children. She asserts that the tremendous growth in church membership in the New South resulted directly from the expansion of Sunday schools.