“‘I’m going to get a blanket party tonight,’ he thought, fearing an infamous hazing ritual in which one group of cadets holds down a victim in bed, while another group pummels him. ‘Some guys are going to come in here and kick my ass.’” Joe Johnson was born in Palatka, Florida, and grew up fourteen »
“I tell the students: ‘Act like you’ve moved to a foreign country. Things, at times, will seem that odd to you. But in time you will learn to think of them as normal.’” What happens when people from different regions wind up living near one another? How does this play out in the South where, »
“Whatever he grows up to be, there is a part of every preadolescent boy that loves to play soldier.” The South is changing, we all know that. Legalized Jim Crow, which once seemed monolithic and immovable, crashed and burned a generation ago and as many on all sides predicted at the time, change has seemed »
“So I took each in turn, and they told me why they hated white folks. This took quite a while, because they were extremely articulate about why they hated white folks.” “You think you are the first generation who’s ever done this; you ought to go out and learn some things.” Louisville activist Anne Braden, »
“Do they keep an eye out for the possible wayward soul (like, say, a middle-aged guy with scraggly graying hair who stays at the margins of the group and keeps scribbling in a little black book) and hope—no, pray—that the cheerful performance of their duties and the powerful unfolding of Billy Graham’s life and message »
“So, you get up and pilfer a cigarette from your lover’s pack, smoke it in blue moonlight pushing through the bare kitchen window. Someone is listening.” So, you lie awake beside a lover of many years,and the tabby cat kneads the blanket.You have only three days’ leave.
“‘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.’” It’s a short walk from the 125th Street subway station to the Harlem home of Albert Murray, Stanley Crouch’s literary father and the man »
“Stereotypes from Dixie crowd American fiction, film, music, and consciousness, and we all know people who seem to fit one of the molds.” If there are truly many Souths, there must be many kinds of southerners. To be various they must be individuals, but as recognizable southerners, they must also fit some generalizations. Stereotypes from »
“The regulars at the station had great fun with the press. The station was home to some of the greatest liars and bullshit artists in the history of the world, and tabloid reporters were nothing more than a light snack before lunch for them.” The building standing at 105 E. Church Street in Plains, Georgia, »
Interview
This article first appeared in vol. 16, no. 2 (Summer 2010) and is excerpted here. To access the full article, visit Project MUSE. Septima Poinsette Clark is a name that should be as familiar to us as Rosa Parks. Both women contributed significantly to the African American freedom struggle, and striking similarities exist in their »
“I learned how to sing from the radio. I didn’t care what kind of songs. I like music, period. Any kind, you know. Country-western or blues, I would jump on it.” Linton Avenue in downtown Natchez, Mississippi, is dotted with large Victorian homes, surrounded by luxuriant vegetation. In the early twentieth century it was home »
“Admiral Davison recommended that Captain Gehres abandon ship. The captain refused, fearing that there were sailors still alive below decks. Dowell was one of those soldiers.” “Boob boop dittum dattum wattum, choo/And they swam and they swam all over the dam.” Today, many recognize these lines from “Three Little Fishies” in the “itty bitty pool,” »