Victoria E. Bynum received her BA at Chico State University in 1979, and her MA and Ph.D from the University of California, San Diego in 1987. Her Ph.D. thesis was "Unruly women: the relationship between status and behavior among free women of the North Carolina Piedmont, 1840-1865". In 1986, she joined the Department of History at Southwest Texas State University.
Free State of Jones
Her book Free State of Jones on the civil war history of Jones County, Mississippi was an inspiration for the 2016 film of the same name. Bynum sold the rights to the book to Universal Studios in 2007. However, Bynum objected to a later book on the subject by John Stauffer and Sally Jenkins, based on the movie's screenplay, which gave the character of Newton Knight a motivating romance.
Bynum, Victoria E. Unruly Women: The Relationship between Status and Behavior Among Free Women of the North Carolina Piedmont, 1840-1865, 1987. (Ph. D. University of California, San Diego, Department of History 1987)
Bynum VE. " White Negroes" in Segregated Mississippi: Miscegenation, Racial Identity, and the Law. The Journal of Southern History. 1998 May 1;64(2):247-76. <https://doi.org/10.2307/2587946>
Bynum, V.E., 2015. The Seduction and Suicide of Mariah Murray: A Civil War Era Tragedy. Ohio Valley History, 15(1), pp.21–40. <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/582618>
Tate, A. and Bynum, V.E., 2011. The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies. The Review of Politics, 73(1), p.180.
Bynum, V.E., 2004. Mulattas and Mestizas: Representing Mixed Identities in the American, 1850-2000. The Journal of Southern History, 70(2), p.434. <https://doi.org/10.2307/27648427>