Tag: Imaginary South

Charismatic Megafauna

Charismatic Megafauna

Tiana Nobile
Two Rivers

Two Rivers

Essay and art by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
The “Good Old Rebel” at the Heart of the Radical Right

The “Good Old Rebel” at the Heart of the Radical Right

Joseph M. Thompson, illustrations by Nate Beaty
Looking for Bigfoot

Looking for Bigfoot

Cassandra Klos
The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

Justin Randolph

In October 1967, Mississippi joined the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), a Great Society program that distributed federal money to local governments across mountainous states like West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. There’s just one problem: Mississippi lacks mountains. This article explores how segregationist Southern Democrats came together with northern liberals to reimagine and remap Mississippi as a place not reeling from the legacies of plantation slavery but merely suffering from a lack of economic development. I argue that this movement to invent “Appalachian Mississippi” countered the liberal War on Poverty’s economic empowerment of rural Black communities and tapped into larger currents of color-blind popular music. In considering the first hit song from a native of Appalachian Mississippi, Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe,” this article suggests that popular culture resonated with political intrigue to redistribute American wealth through the South’s white powerbrokers.

“To Live and Thrive on New Earths”

“To Live and Thrive on New Earths”

Danielle M. Purifoy, photos by Jade Wilson
Taking Our First Steps

Taking Our First Steps

Patricia Crosby
Refuge

Refuge

Houston Cofield
The Most Caribbean of Stories

The Most Caribbean of Stories

Maya Doig-Acuña
Digging, Flapping, Churning, Soaring

Digging, Flapping, Churning, Soaring

Zandria F. Robinson
Front Porch: The Imaginary South

Front Porch: The Imaginary South

Tom Rankin