Famous Southerners (H-M)
This section covers Famous Southerners from H to M. Famous Southerners from A to G are here. Famous Southerners from N to S are here. Famous Southerners T to Z are here.
Alex Haley
Alex Haley: Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1989: Angels, Legends, and Grace
with William R. Ferris
"I think in a lot of areas an almost mystic thing happened, given the backdrop. When I was a boy there was pretty strict segregation, and it was so much the historic custom that really relatively few people even questioned it. Then came the 1960s and their challenges to the system."
Full Issue for Kindle ($7.69), for Nook ($8.25), or for Sony Reader ($9.45)
Southern Cultures, Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2010: Music IV
W.C. Handy
Racial Violence, “Primitive” Music, and the Blues Entrepreneur:
W. C. Handy’s Mississippi Problem
by Adam Gussow
“‘My idea of what constitutes music was changed by the sight of that silver money cascading around the splay feet of a Mississippi string band.’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 8, Number 3, Fall 2002: Biography
Joel Chandler Harris
Walter M. Brasch
Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and the 'Cornfield Journalist': The Tale of Joel Chandler Harris (review)
reviewed by Jennifer Lynn Ritterhouse
“Harris is not only odorless but invisible--forgotten, ignored.”
Southern Cultures, Volume 8, Number 4, Winter 2002: Ghosts
Jesse Helms
A Political Paradox: North Carolina's Twenty-Five Years under Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms
by Ferrel Guillory
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1998: Politics
Sally Hemings
Race, Sex, and Reputation: Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Hemings Story
by Robert M. S. McDonald
Did the "truth" about the president's affair with a slave woman matter to his contemporaries? The answer may surprise you.
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 2, Summer 1998
John Henry
John Henry: "Take this hammer, it won't kill you."
by John Douglas
“John Henry and his shaker apparently kept hammering and drilling, hour after hour, while the steam-powered drill got tangled up in the hard rock. Years later, a hammer with the initials ‘J. H.’ was found in the tunnel.”
Southern Cultures, Volume 10, Number 2, Summer 2004
Carl Hiaasen
Carl Hiaasen's
Kick Ass
Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen
reviewed by David Zucchino
"‘When the cop car's rockin', don't come knockin'.'"
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 3, Fall 2000
Tony Horwitz
The Black and the Gray
An Interview with Tony Horwitz
Were there really black Confederates? A Wall Street Journal reporter weighs the evidence.
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1998: Politics
We've Got to Get Out of This Place: Tony Horwitz Tours the Civil War South
by Grace Elizabeth Hale
Is it heritage, not hate? A review of Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic probes the many meanings of Civil War nostalgia.
Southern Cultures, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1999: Scarlett O'Hara
Jim Hunt
A Political Paradox: North Carolina's Twenty-Five Years under Jim Hunt and Jesse Helms
by Ferrel Guillory
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1998: Politics
Jimmy "Catfish" Hunter
Catfish and Home
by Josh Eure
"Jimmy ‘Catfish' Hunter pitched for the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees and in 1987 was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame-all the while maintaining his small-town farming roots."
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Full Issue for Kindle ($3.96), for Nook ($4.15), or for Sony Reader ($4.70)
Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011: Memory
Zora Neale Hurston
David A. Taylor
Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America
reviewed by Robert Hunt Ferguson
"Although they approached their writing very differently, Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright found the space through the WPA to write compassionately and realistically about black life in America."
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Southern Cultures, Volume 16, Number 4, Winter 2010
Trudier Harris's
The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller's Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan
reviewed by Margaret D. Bauer
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number
Alan Jackson
When Somebody Loves You (review)
reviewed by Gavin James Campbell
“In a world where Faith Hill is considered country, it’s nice to have Alan Jackson around to remind us of just why we began listening to country in the first place.”
Southern Cultures Volume 7, Number 3, Fall 2001: Environment
Thomas Jefferson
Christopher Hitchens
Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (review)
reviewed by Brian Steele
"A crusade to destroy a de facto regime in hope of creating a lasting republic formed no part of Jefferson's conception of political reality."
Southern Cultures, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 2008
Andrew Burstein
Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello (review)
reviewed by Kristofer Ray
"Jefferson certainly cared for Hemings, argues Burstein, much as an English nobleman cared for an employee mistress—but they did not (and could not) share a long-term, loving partnership."
Southern Cultures, Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2006: Tobacco
Race, Sex, and Reputation: Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Hemings Story
by Robert M. S. McDonald
Did the "truth" about the president's affair with a slave woman matter to his contemporaries? The answer may surprise you.
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 2, Summer 1998
Vernon Johns
Quoting, Merging, and Sampling the Dream:
Martin Luther King and Vernon Johns
by Ralph E. Luker
“‘I must be measured by my soul—the mind is the standard of the man.'’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 9, Number 2, Summer 2003
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Nick Kotz
Judgement Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (review)
reviewed by Jack Bass
Southern Cultures, Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2007
Robert A. Caro
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 3 (review)
reviewed by John Quinterno
"Lyndon Johnson combined talent, ambition, and genius into a form of power capable of taming the Senate, that most unruly and aristocratic of America's political institutions."
Southern Cultures, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2005
George Jones
The Cold Hard Truth
by Gavin James Campbell
"Shania and Garth, move over, 'cause The Possum's back."
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 2, Summer 2000
Janis Joplin
"The Outer Limits of Probability": A Janis Joplin Retrospective
by Gavin James Campbell
"Although Janis Joplin adopted Southern Comfort as her drink of choice, neither whiskey nor the South brought her much comfort."
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 3, Fall 2000
Randall Kenan
Randall Kenan on Ode to Billie Joe
from "Personal in My Memory": The South in Popular Film
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Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011: Memory
Trudier Harris's
The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller's Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan
reviewed by Margaret D. Bauer
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 2, Summer 1998
B.B. King
"Fixin' To Die Blues": The Last Months of Bukka White
with an afterword by B.B. King on Bukka White's Legacy
interviewed by David W. Johnson
"There's a gang that would travel if you get on a freight train and couldn't get off. If I'd stayed on there I'd been getting killed."
Full Issue for Kindle ($7.69), for Nook ($8.25), or for Sony Reader ($9.45)
Southern Cultures, Volume 16, Number 3, Fall 2010: Music IV
"Everything leads me back to the feeling of the blues.": B. B. King, 1974
interviewed by William R. Ferris
"I almost lost my life trying to save my guitar."
Southern Cultures, Volume 12, Number 4, Winter 2006: Music I
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Streets in the South: A New Landscape of Memory
a photo essay by Derek H. Alderman
"Martin Luther King Drives, Boulevards, and Avenues are important centers of African American identity, activity, and community—constituting what journalist Jonathan Tilove has called 'Black America's Main Street.'"
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Southern Cultures, Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2010: Music IV
Nick Kotz
Judgement Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (review)
reviewed by Jack Bass
Southern Cultures, Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 2007
Martin Luther King and the Southern Dream of Freedom
by Timothy B. Tyson
"Southern culture, properly considered, actually more or less rules the world."
Southern Cultures, Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2005
Quoting, Merging, and Sampling the Dream:
Martin Luther King and Vernon Johns
by Ralph E. Luker
“‘I must be measured by my soul—the mind is the standard of the man.'’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 9, Number 2, Summer 2003
Jonathan S. Bass
Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (review)
reviewed by Katherine Mellen Charron
“Most can remember that 1963 began in Alabama with Governor George Wallace’s famous inaugural declaration ‘segregation now…segregation tomorrow…segregation forever.’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 2002
Harper Lee
The Strange Career of Atticus Finch
by Joseph Crespino
"Certain school districts across the country have censored To Kill a Mockingbird for its sexual content, and some have banned the book because of its depiction of racism."
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 2, Summer 2000
The Law and the Code in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
by Robert O. Stephens
Southern Cultures, Volume 1, Number 2, Winter 1995
Robert E. Lee
"Truth is mighty & will eventually prevail": Political Correctness, Neo-Confederates, and Robert E. Lee
by Peter S. Carmichael
"While northerners might appear comparatively apathetic about the memory of the Union cause, white southerners have been tenacious in searching for moral clarity in the past."
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Southern Culture, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011: Memory
Joseph T. Glatthaar
General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse (review)
reviewed by Gerald J. Prokopowicz
"In the final tabulation, the vast majority of the volunteers of 1861 had a direct connection to slavery. For slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike, slavery lay at the heart of the Confederate nation."
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Southern Cultures, Volume 16, Number 4, Winter 2010
Constructing the Cause, Bridging the Divide: Lee's Tomb at Washington's College
by Christopher R. Lawton
"When Lee surrendered at Appomattox, there were already 1,800 Union dead from First Manassas buried in his wife's rose garden."
Southern Cultures, Volume 15, Number 2, Summer 2009
Roy Blount, Jr
Robert E. Lee: A Shattered Nation (review)
reviewed by J. Tracy Power
"'What on earth,' you may be asking yourself, 'is the point of another book on Robert E. Lee?'"
Southern Cultures, Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 2006
Struggling with Robert E. Lee
by Michael Fellman
“To be sure, Lee was an enormous flirt his entire life, and he may have acted on his erotic impulses outside the bonds of matrimony.”
Southern Cultures, Volume 8, Number 3, Fall 2002: Biography
After Buying a Portrait of Robert E. Lee at Arlington House
poetry by V. J. Kopp
“I realize now it was a trap, one he would have sensed in advance . . .”
Southern Cultures, Volume 7, Number 4, Winter 2001
Jerry Lee Lewis
From Memphis to Nashville: The Odyssey of Jerry Lee Lewis
by Mark Winchell
“‘This old boy wanted to kill me a while back because I married his daughter, but we’re friends again now.’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 4, Winter 2000
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax: The Long Journey
by William R. Ferris
"Stories about Alan Lomax and his exploits are legendary. While doing research in the Library of Congress Music Division, Lomax was sitting at a table across from a student who was reading his classic Folksongs of North America. At one point the student looked across the table asked, 'Is Alan Lomax still alive?' Lomax replied, 'Just barely.'"
Southern Cultures, Volume 13, Number 3, Fall 2007: Music II
"Music With the Bark On": The Southern Journeys of John and Alan Lomax (Review)
by Gavin James Campbell
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 1998
John Lomax
"Music With the Bark On": The Southern Journeys of John and Alan Lomax (Review)
by Gavin James Campbell
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 1998
Nolan Porterfield's
Last Cavalier: The Life and Times of John A. Lomax
reviewed by Beverly B. Patterson
Southern Cultures, Volume 4, Number 4, Winter 1998: The South in the World
Huey Long
Keith Perry
The Kingfish in Fiction (review)
reviewed by Bryan Giemza
"In the Senate Chamber there is a bizarre reminder of a failed assassination attempt—a bomb in a desk—that sent a pencil rocketing into the ceiling. There it remains, stuck in a tile, a spotlight vigilantly trained upon it."
Southern Cultures, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2005
James Longstreet
General Longstreet and Me: Refighting the Civil War
by Louis D. Rubin Jr.
"If only someone hadn't wrapped Lee's marching orders around a couple of cigars and then dropped them on the way to Maryland for General McClellan to find in 1862. . . . If only history hadn't happened as it did."
Southern Cultures, Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2002
Willie French Lowery
Hello, America: The Life and Work of Willie French Lowery
interviewed by Michael C. Taylor
"The Oak Ridge Boys—you've heard of them—came into town, and they said, 'Willie, we'd like for you to play.'"
Full Issue for Kindle ($7.69), for Nook ($8.25), or for Sony Reader ($9.45)
Southern Cultures, Volume 16, Number 3, Fall 2010: Music IV
Uncle Dave Macon
Dixie Dewdrop: Uncle Dave Macon
by Bland Simpson
"He left the shop stunned and went back and wrote in his diary: ‘Robbed in a New York barbershop—$7.50!’”
Southern Cultures, Volume 12, Number 4, Winter 2006: Music I
Ross McElwee
Allan Gurganus on Sherman's March Bright Leaves by Ross McElwee Tim McLaurin The Rise of Southern Redneck and White Trash Writers Margaret Mitchell Tara, the O'Haras, and the Irish Gone With the Wind Clutching the Chains that Bind: Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind "The Prong of Love" Bill Monroe The Million-Dollar Mandolin: Bluegrass Music’s Finest Relic Finally Finds a Home "Big Bone Lick," "Big Talk," and "Flush" Vietnam War Memorial Thomas Hart Benton and the Thresholds of Expression Albert Murray Albert Murray’s Magical Youth
from "Personal in My Memory": The South in Popular Film
Full Issue for Kindle ($3.96), for Nook ($4.15), or for Sony Reader ($4.70)
Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011: Memory
reviewed by Barbara Hahn
"It's not necessarily that we want tobacco; tobacco wants us."
Southern Cultures, Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2006: Tobacco
Featuring the Fiction of Larry Brown, Dorothy Allison, and Tim McLaurin
by Erik Bledsoe
"White trash is no longer something to sweep out the back door."
Southern Cultures, Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2000: Fifth Anniversary
by Geraldine Higgins
"Into the debate about place, race, and the second-best-selling book of all time, we can also bring Irishness."
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Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 1, Spring 2011: The Irish
by Drew Gilpin Faust
Drew Faust has some things to say about Scarlett O'Hara, the South's favorite bad belle. Three other scholars of southern women's literature and history talk back.
Southern Cultures, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1999: Scarlett O'Hara
Race and the Cloud of Unknowing in Gone with the Wind
by Patricia Yaeger
Southern Cultures, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1999: Scarlett O'Hara
"I Was Tellin It": Race, Gender, and the Puzzle of the Storyteller
by Anne Goodwyn Jones
Southern Cultures, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1999: Scarlett O'Hara
by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall
Southern Cultures, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 1999: Scarlett O'Hara
by Randy Rudder
"Bill Monroe had seen a lot of troubles in his days, but nothing could have prepared him for this. When he entered his home, he found his 1923 Gibson F-5 mandolin, built by craftsman Lloyd Loar, smashed into several pieces, a fireplace poker lying nearby."
Southern Cultures, Volume 13, Number 3, Fall 2007: Music II
three poems by Robert Morgan"
". . . for ten millennia, the bones
seemed wreckage from a mighty dream . . . "
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Southern Cultures, Volume 17, Number 3, Fall 2011: Memory
by Robert Morgan
“...From that pit you can’t see much
official Washington, just sky
and trees and names and people...”
Southern Cultures, Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 2003
by Robert Morgan
Southern Cultures, Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 1997: Writers on Art
by David A. Taylor
“‘In America they get away from race by saying ‘minority.’ But who the hell’s the best minority in the world? The hero! You know what I’m saying? That’s always a minority.’”
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Southern Cultures, Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2010: Southern Lives
FAMOUS SOUTHERNERS A-G
FAMOUS SOUTHERNERS N-S
FAMOUS SOUTHERNERS T-Z