the

THESouthern NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN CULTURE •SRegisterPRING 2004 g THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI Mildred D. Taylor Day Celebration

ildred D. Taylor Day in Mississippi, where she was born, and fol- an aunt upon whom she based her char- Mississippi, celebrated April low a single African American family as acters were actually present for the cere- 2 in conjunction with the they struggle through life in the years mony. Also, many of Taylor’s family 2004 Oxford Conference for before the civil rights movement. members took part in the ceremony; her Mthe Book, proved to be a great Although Taylor’s late father moved her cousins read letters written to her by her success for all involved—from school- family to Toledo, Ohio, soon after she grandmother, and Taylor’s daughter children to conference participants to was born, and although Taylor was edu- spoke about the writer’s name. the award-winning novelist herself. cated at the University of Toledo and Also taking part in the ceremony “This is overwhelming and something the University of Colorado, she held on were Oxford mayor and Square Books that I never thought would happen,” tightly to the stories of life in Mississippi, owner Richard Howorth, University said Taylor, who in a special ceremony at where she visited regularly as a child. the University’s Ford Center for the Many of Taylor’s paternal uncles and (continued on page 33)

Performing Arts accepted a proclama- Mississippi of Bain/University Kevin tion signed by Governor Haley Barbour declaring April 2 Mildred D. Taylor Day across the state. “When I received the letter from Ann Abadie saying I would be honored by the state of Mississippi if I would come here, I was totally stunned and everybody to whom I read that let- ter was totally stunned.” Taylor—who won the 1977 Newbery Award for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry as well as several other prestigious awards for her work–credited her family with her success as a storyteller and recognized them at the Ford Center ceremony. “This is just unbelievable and one of the greatest honors I’ve ever received as a writer,” Taylor said. “It’s a great honor to my family, too—I can’t accept any honors concerning my books with- Mildred D. Taylor (center), Jackson native and author of the Newbery Award-winning out also giving honor to my family, children’s novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, accepted a framed proclamation by because I wouldn’t have written the Governor Haley Barbour declaring April 2, 2004, Mildred D. Taylor Day in Mississippi. books if it were not for the family who With Taylor are (left to right) Sharman Bridges Smith, executive director of the Mississippi Library Commission; Ethel Young-Minor, University of Mississippi assistant professor of passed the stories on.” English and African American Studies; Jason Dean, policy advisor for Governor Barbour; Taylor’s nine novels are set in Richard Howorth, Oxford mayor; and Robert Khayat, University chancellor. Southern Register D IRECTOR’ S C OLUMN Graduation day puts an annual exclamation mark on the acade- Published Quarterly by The Center for the Study of Southern Culture mic work of the Center. Southern Studies hosted a brunch for our graduates and their The University of Mississippi families on May 8, and it was a joyous occasion. We host many high-profile confer- Telephone: 662-915-5993 ences and publish acclaimed books, but graduation reminded me of how central our Fax: 662-915-5814 curriculum is to defining the Center. E-mail: [email protected] The everyday work of lectures, class discussions, examinations, and research Internet: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south papers about Southern culture prepares our students to make a profound impact through jobs that enable them to study, preserve, interpret, and teach about the IN THIS ISSUE Spring 2004 American South—which is the overall mission of the Center itself. The Center’s core faculty are simply superb in working with students. Their research has led to 1 Mildred D. Taylor Day Celebration award-winning monographs and significant scholarly articles establishing them as 2 Director’s Column leaders in their disciplines and collectively making for interdisciplinary perspec- 3 Lamar Society Reunion and American tives for our students to absorb. South, Then and Now Symposium The undergraduate program began early in the Center’s history as the result of a 4 Where We Stand Coming in July National Endowment for the Humanities grant that enabled planning for a bache- 5 “Unsettling Memories” Symposium lor’s degree in Southern Studies, and we are still the place to come to for that pedi- 5 Matthew Holden Jr. Visits Campus gree. We added the master’s program in 1987, and it has now grown to around 20 5 Walter Anderson Symposium students. In the last few years students have come with undergraduate degrees from 6 2004 F&Y: “Material Culture” such universities as the University of Virginia, Duke University, the University of 7 2005 F&Y: “Faulkner’s Inheritance” North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of South Carolina and from 7 History Symposium to Study Manners such smaller liberal arts institutions as Bowdoin, Kenyon, Furman, the University 7 2004 Tennessee Williams Festival of the South, and Millsaps. 8 Molpus Reflects on Civil Rights Our students go on for further graduate work, earning doctorates at Emory, the 9 SST Assistantship in Brookhaven University of Texas, Brown, Ohio State, Auburn, and the universities of Florida, 9 Gammill Gallery Exhibition Schedule Georgia, and North Carolina. They are now professors at Vanderbilt, Illinois State, 10 Living Blues Symposium and Issue and Smith College. 11 B. B. King Is Honorary SST Professor Other graduates are shaping Southern cultural development, working at museums, 12 Mississippi Encyclopedia News arts alliances, research centers, and folklore programs. Several Southern Studies 12 CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual alumni have been leaders in state humanities councils and state archives. Others 13 Reading the South: Reviews & Notes work in media, including at CNN and for Southern Living magazine. Thanks to donors, the Center gives awards, with a cash stipend, to honor student 21 Southern Foodways Alliance News research papers. The Gray-Coterie Awards honor undergraduate papers, and this 24 2004 Oxford Conference for the Book year’s winners are Amanda Brown, for her paper on the old burying ground in 28 Thacker Mountain Radio Savannah, Georgia, and Summer Hill, for her paper on Taylor Grocery in Taylor, 29 New Ventress Order Member Mississippi. 30 The U.S. South in Global Contexts The Lucille and Motee Daniels Award goes to the best Southern Studies graduate 32 In Memoriam paper, and this year’s winner is Richie Caldwell for “‘An Ambassador from a New 32 Center Reception in Natchez Mississippi’: A Proposal for Scholarship at the Center for the Study of Southern 33 Regional Roundup Culture,” which makes the case for the significance of writer Willie Morris’s work. 34 Notes on Contributors The newest Center honor, the Peter Aschoff Award, goes to the best paper on music 35 Southern Culture Catalog Items in the South, and Rob Hawkins won for “Living the Gospel Blues: Religion and 36 Address Section/Mailing List Respectability in the Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey, Reverend Gary David, and Form/Friends Information and Form Blind Willie Johnson.” The judge of the competition notes that Hawkins’s paper “is REGISTER STAFF an original and powerfully argued piece of blues scholarship.” We congratulate these award winners and all the students in Southern Studies. Editor: Ann J. Abadie They represent the next generation of leaders in Southern cultural development, and Graphic Designer: Susan Bauer Lee they are one of the Center’s great contributions. Mailing List Manager: Mary Hartwell Howorth Lithographer: RR Donnelley Magazine Group CHARLES REAGAN WILSON The University complies with all applicable laws regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity in all its activities and programs and does not discriminate against anyone protected by law because of age, color,disability, national origin, race, religion, sex, or status as a veteran or disabled veteran.

Page 2 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Lamar Society Reunion Highlights Fall Symposium

The Center launches a new initia- Civil Rights Movement in the South, and tive with a fall symposium, The Constance Curry, author of Silver Rights American South, Then and Now: From and producer of the recent film the L. Q. C. Lamar Society to the Intolerable Burden, will be among the Endowment for the Future of the participants in that session. South, November 18-21, 2004, on the The symposium will promote biparti- University of Mississippi campus. san discussion of the political context The symposium will examine public for developing social capital in the policy issues in the South and explore South, and one panel, “Democrats and how understanding Southern culture Republicans,” will feature Republican can help illuminate discussions of such Senator Thad Cochran and Mississippi issues. The Southern context continues State Legislator Steve Holland, along to shape responses to such issues as with Ferrel Guillory, director of the racial reconciliation, rural poverty, per- Program on Southern Politics, Media, petuation of the South’s literary and and Public Life at the University of musical heritage, and advancement of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Other environmental stewardship—all of panel topics include “Economic which participants will discuss at the Development and Southern symposium. Communities,” “The Urban South,” The beginning point for the meeting “Southern Culture Today,” and is a reunion of members of the L. Q. C. Brandt Ayers “Religion and Public Policy.” Lamar Society, a 1970s-era organization Among the participants in the of Southern writers, journalists, politi- American South, Then and Now cians, business people, and other opin- Symposium will be Hodding Carter, ion makers who sought to lead the South director of the Knight Foundation; for- in positive directions as racial segrega- mer Mississippi Governor Ronnie tion ended and the region’s economic Musgrove; Charles Overby, chairman development escalated. Its members and CEO of the Freedom Forum; A. C. published You Can’t Eat Magnolias, a Wharton, mayor of Shelby County, realistic look at the South’s challenges Tennessee; and Steve Suitts, of the in that time, and their work led to the Southern Education Foundation. establishment of the Southern Growth The meeting will be the first project Policies Board to advance regional plan- of the Endowment for the Future of the ning on public policy. Mike Cody, of the South. The Phil Hardin Foundation has Burch, Porter, and Johnson law firm in provided a $250,000 grant to establish Memphis, worked with Center director the Endowment, which will sponsor vis- Charles Reagan Wilson in planning the iting scholars, on-campus workshops, Lamar Society reunion and will be a publications, an annual regionwide sym- panelist at the symposium as well. posium, all focused on a compelling Brandt Ayers, publisher of one of the topic related to the South’s develop- South’s most respected newspapers, the Mike Cody ment. The Endowment will serve as a Annistan, Alabama Star, will give a catalyst for on-campus discussion of keynote on the work of the Lamar public policy and build on the Center’s Society, as will former Governor quarter century of work on the impor- William F. Winter, another early mem- Mississippi with the recent establish- tance of culture in understanding the ber of the group. A panel will also dis- ment of the William Winter Institute region’s past and future. cuss the Lamar Society in light of for Racial Reconciliation, and that topic For more information about the sym- current policy issues, and a dinner will will be the focus for another symposium posium schedule, participants, and regis- honor Lamar Society members for their panel, to be chaired by Susan M. tration, check the Center’s Web site work. Glisson, director of the Winter Institute. (www.olemiss.edu/depts/south). Racial reconciliation has gained new John Egerton, author of Speak Now prominence at the University of against the Day: The Generation before the

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 3 Where We Stand: Southern Voices of Dissent Coming from NewSouth Books July 2004

Editor Anthony Dunbar has assem- lost. It is not the deterioration of human- bled essays from 12 leading Southern ist and religious values that is to be historians, activists, civil rights attor- feared in our attempts to dominate and neys, law professors, and theologians to industrialize nature; the fear today is the discuss militarism, religion, the environ- total elimination and destruction of the ment, voting rights, the Patriot Act, the natural world. Furthermore, the road economy, prisons and crime, and other leads not backwards to the plantation subjects. A common sentiment running but forward toward a day, soon, when through the essays that make up the vol- the power of guns and money is har- ume Where We Stand: Southern Voices of nessed and when the poor of many Dissent is dismay at the deepening chasm nations can believe that their advance- that now divides America—and specifi- ment and our democratic ideals are cally the South—into hostile armies compatible. whose leaders are fast losing whatever The topics chosen range from Dan motivation they ever had to pursue Carter’s confronting the war machine compromise and cooperation, and the that needlessly led us into Iraq to Daniel common good. The essayists are Leslie H. Pollitt’s review of the consequent loss Dunbar, Paul Gaston, John Egerton, of our civil liberties. Dean Gene Nichol Janisse Ray, Dan Pollitt, Connie Curry, speaks of the perils of ignoring growing Laughlin McDonald, Sheldon Hackney, inequality in our economic life, and Susan Wiltshire, Gene Nichol, Dan Susan Ford Wiltshire shows how the Carter, Charles Bussey. Jimmy Carter written by Southerners because the Bible itself is a subversive influence in wrote the foreword. South has contributed disproportionate- the South—both for good and for evil. The book celebrates some valued ly to the promise for good in our society The danger of forgetting the American principles: promoting the but also to its sad misdirection. Out of Constitutional promise of a more perfect common good, concern for future gener- the suffering of slavery, civil war, and union is presented by Leslie Dunbar, and ations, political compromise, fairness to segregation came redemption through Janisse Ray, lamenting our assaults on the minority, everybody pulling the the Southern civil rights movement the natural world and our unsustainable same wagon. In the belief that these with its message of resistance to injus- lifestyle, urges that we look beyond cap- treasured ideals still matter, the book tice, faith in the rule of law, and rever- italism. Paul M. Gaston writes of the also condemns international bullying, ence for human nature. tattered dream of the utopian Alabama unrestrained destruction of our natural While not inevitable, some compar- colony of his youth to illuminate the environment, extreme—and growing— isons might be drawn between Where increasingly endangered American inequality in the means of living, the We Stand and the 1930 classic I’ll Take dream, and Charles Bussey gives us the creation of a permanent underclass, and My Stand: The South and the Agrarian view from Europe on America’s war mean-spirited politics. Tradition. The 12 Southerners who com- policies and growing intolerance. Where We Stand is addressed to read- posed that book praised agrarian, reli- Threats to our democracy at home, ers who see, and wish to reverse, the gious, and aesthetic values over including the imprisonment and disen- drift that America has taken, and who industrial and material ones. The writers franchisement of African Americans in have begun to wonder whether this is of this collection, in contrast, praise the South, are explored by Connie the country they grew up in. Is this the democratic and human values over Curry and Laughlin McDonald. The country they wish to leave to their chil- imperial and military ones. As the Great tragedy of Southern politics, and its rise dren? Coincidentally, the writers come Depression loomed, the essayists of the to national dominion, is traced by from each of the old Confederate states, celebrated book believed that if America Sheldon Hackney and by John Egerton, from the Baptist flatlands of Texas to the were to be reconstructed, the South who declares that all America has now persevering Blue Ridge of Virginia. And would have to lead. In that, the modern been Southernized. The state of our as a consequence, this book is also writers might concur. But while the union portrayed in these essays is a dark addressed to the writers’ fellow Agrarians, as they were known, contest- one. The authors within Where We Southerners, who bear more than their ed the social goal of “Progress,” realistic Stand strive to keep hope alive. share of responsibility for the fix we are people today would have to concede in. It is right that Where We Stand is that the battle against progress is long

Page 4 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Walter Anderson Symposium Matthew Holden Jr. Millsaps College will host the Walter Anderson Symposium September 23-25, Visits Campus 2004, in Jackson, Mississippi, as the final event in a yearlong celebration of Matthew Holden Jr., one of Anderson’s work on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Center America’s leading political scientists, Director Charles Reagan Wilson has been a primary planner for the event, which is a visited the Center on February 24th, project of the Walter Anderson Centennial Committee that has coordinated exhibi- drawing about one hundred Ole Miss tions, festivals, and seminars during the year. students and faculty for a presentation One highlight of the Anderson symposium will be the keynote address by on his current research on the origins Christopher Maurer, author of Fortune’s Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter of legal disenfranchisement in the Anderson. Maurer teaches at the University of Illinois, Chicago and is also the author post-Reconstruction South. Holden of Dreaming in Clay on the Coast of Mississippi: Love and Art at Shearwater. visited the Center for an event The symposium will include readings by two authors whose fiction has been illus- cosponsored with the Political trated with Anderson’s work. Ellen Douglas used Anderson’s illustrations in The Science Department, College of Magic Carpet and Other Tales, and his paintings appeared as part of Elizabeth Spencer’s Liberal Arts, and the Provost’s Office. book On the Gulf. They will share their thoughts on the relationship of art and litera- A native Mississippian and African ture, looking specifically at how Anderson illuminated their work. American, Holden presented early One session at the symposium will put Anderson’s diverse paintings, drawings, sculp- research from an upcoming book on ture, and other artistic work in the perspective of the modernist movement in art, with Mississippi’s constitutional develop- panelists Rick Gruber, director of the Roger Ogden Museum of Southern Art; Susan ment. His talk focused on the pivotal Larson, from the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution; and Patricia role of Isaiah Montgomery, a promi- Pinson, from the Walter Anderson Museum. Pinson edited the recent The Art of Walter nent African American in Mississippi’s Anderson, published by the University Press of Mississippi. 1890 constitutional convention. Other sessions will focus on Anderson’s relationship to Southern culture and on his Holden epitomizes the modern day relationship to the environment. Among the participants in these sessions will be Renaissance man. He has had success- Patti Carr Black, author of Art in Mississippi; Linda Crocker Simmons, curator emeri- ful careers in public service, private tus at the Corcoran Gallery; Susan Donaldson, from the College of William and Mary industry, and academia. He is an expert and author of a forthcoming book on Southern literature and Southern art; and on energy and regulatory policy and has Vernon Chadwick, editor of In Search of Elvis. been appointed to numerous govern- Bill Dunlap will chair a session on Anderson and the art world. During Anderson’s ment positions, including the Federal lifetime, the art establishment offered little acclaim to him, but the yearlong celebra- Energy Regulatory Commission. In pri- tion of his work, which included a major exhibition at the Smithsonian, has pointed vate industry, he was the director of national attention at the breadth of his achievement. Atlantic Energy Inc. and chairman of Anderson’s daughter, Mary Anderson Picard, will share memories of her father and their audit committee. Holden is also mother, giving a family perspective on his genius. Marilyn Lyons, executive director professor emeritus in the Department of the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, will tell about the of Government and Foreign Affairs at museum, in preparation for a visit there when the symposium ends. the University of Virginia and a former For information about registration for the Walter Anderson Symposium, please call president of the American Political the Millsaps Office of Adult Learning at 601-874-1134. Science Association. Holden’s research generally has been on the exercise of bureaucratic An International Conference • June 15-21, 2004 power and how it may be effective Jackson State University • Jackson, Mississippi while also being accountable. Recognizing the critical role of the Unsettling Memories: Culture and Trauma in the Deep South bureaucracy in our modern society, Sponsored by the Deep South Regional Humanities Center at Holden has argued that the role of the Tulane University and the Margaret Walker Alexander National bureaucracy should not be diminished, but instead made more efficient, effec- Research Center at Jackson State University tive, and accountable. By advocating “Unsettling Memories” honors the lives of civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, publicly for the removal of unneces- Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner on the 40th anniversary of their deaths. sary constraints on those who wield The gathering will bring together activists, musicians, fiction writers, visual artists, bureaucratic power, Matthew Holden photographers, performers, activists, and scholars to explore how artists have woven Jr. has taken the position that it is pos- together the traumas of Southern history to create some of the most powerful and sible to use governmental power in unsettling art in America. both a fair and efficient manner. Conference organizers are Rebecca Mark, Tulane University, and Alferdteen Harrison, Jackson State University. For details, visit www.deepsouth.tulane.edu/programs/memories.html. RICHARD FORGETTE

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 5 Faulkner and Material Culture Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha • July 25-29, 2004

One of the major distinctions recent literary study has made Mississippi; and Patricia Yaeger, University of Michigan. In addi- has to do with the tricky concept of “culture.” As Anne tion to these speakers, there will also be nine panelists: Ted Goodwyn Jones summarized it at a Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Atkinson, Jeffrey Carroll, Brannon Costello, Barbara Ensrud, Conference several years ago, “culture” can refer to “a way of life, Brandon Kempner, Eileen O’Brien, Jennifer Middlesworth, with all its practices and meanings,” or it may have a much nar- Sharon Paradiso, and Caleb Smith. rower scope, referring to “a socially privileged relation to knowl- The conference will begin on Sunday, July 25, with a reception edge and especially to the arts.” To belong to a particular culture at the University Museums and a special presentation that will and to be a “cultured” person are very different things, the first outline the Museums’ plan for a new Faulkner wing. The opening constituting a description, the second lectures of the conference will take an evaluation. Increasingly, literary place immediately after in the Ford scholars are interested in exploring the Center for the Performing Arts, fol- first of these possibilities, analyzing the lowed by a buffet supper at historic significance of the system of expres- Memory House. A Sunday evening sion inherent to any particular habit program, also at the Ford Center, will or style of living, according to the feature a return engagement of the national and regional, class, race, and singer/songwriter group Reckon Crew, gender groups to which we belong. who will perform a musical adaptation The subject of the 31st annual of Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying. Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Also on Sunday evening will be the Conference—“Faulkner and Material announcement of the winner of the Culture”—will explore Faulkner’s life 15th Faux Faulkner Contest. Other and work in terms of that aspect of events will include discussions by culture that perhaps we take most for Faulkner friends and family, sessions granted: the materiality of the condi- on “Teaching Faulkner,” “Faulkner on tions of his characters: their homes, the Fringe”–an “open-mike” evening their dress, their transportation, their at the Southside Gallery, guided day- work, their sport, their food and drink. long tours of North Mississippi, a pic- In our great familiarity with all these nic served at Faulkner’s home, and a social factors, we often forget how closing party at the home of Dr. and each of them constitutes choices, atti- Mrs. Beckett Howorth. tudes, and values, that they are the For more information about the core of character and that they exert a conference, contact the Office of great influence on their seemingly conscious and deliberate acts Outreach and Continuing Education, Post Office Box 879, and creations. The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677-0879; Among some of the topics at the conference will be the sig- telephone 662-915-7283; e-mail: [email protected]. nificance of the lumber industry and furniture in Light in August; For information on the conference program, course credit, the Old Agrarian culture; barn burning as a form of rural rebel- and all other inquiries, contact the Department of English, Box lion in the Great Depression; the small town in Faulkner’s life 1848, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677- and fiction; the materiality of letters; smoking, eating, and wine 1848; telephone 662-915-7439; e- mail:[email protected]. drinking. Once we begin to focus on the materiality of For online registration, visit us on the Web at Faulkner’s complex Yoknapatawpha world of multiple classes, http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner/. races, and gender roles, we realize how much there is still to be For information about participating in the conference through learned in reading him. For this materiality is more than just the Elderhostel, call 877-426-8056 and refer to the program number trappings of realist fiction; it is one of the ways in which charac- 5760, or contact Carolyn Vance Smith by telephone (866-296- ters and social groups create and express themselves, adding fur- 6522) or e-mail: [email protected]. Also, check out the ther dimension to what they represent and mean. Web site www.elderhostel.org. Appearing at the conference for the first time are Charles S. For information about participating in the conference Aiken, University of Tennessee; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory through Interhostel at Ole Miss, contact the Office of University; Kathryn R. Henninger, Louisiana State University, Professional Development and Noncredit Education, E. F. Baton Rouge; T .J. Jackson Lears, Rutgers University; Miles Yerby Conference Center, Post Office Box 879, The University Orvell, Temple University; and D. Matthew Ramsey, Denison of Mississippi, University, MS 38677-0879; call 662-915-7036; University. Returning to the Faulkner Conference are Kevin or visit our Web site (www.outreach.olemiss.edu). Railey, Buffalo State College; Jay Watson, University of DONALD M. KARTIGANER

Page 6 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Mississippi Delta History Symposium to Study Manners Tennessee Williams Festival Manners, it is easy to agree, are The 12th annual Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival is scheduled to take important to understanding place in Clarksdale on October 15-16, 2004. Williams’s 1955 play Cat on a Hot Tin Southern history, whether one is Roof will be a focus of this year’s festival. As in the past, the program will include pre- studying family life, violence, defini- sentations by Williams authorities and friends, several performances, a session with tions of race, voting, speaking, eat- papers by scholars, and tours of the house and neighborhood where the playwright ing, or drinking. But it is less clear lived as a child. Also scheduled in conjunction with the festival are workshops for how we should study manners. Nine teachers and for student actors and a drama competition, with prizes totaling $4,000. scholars will have that opportunity Williams authorities confirmed to participate in the festival are W. Kenneth when the Porter Fortune Jr. History Holditch and Colby Kullman. New York actor Anthony Herrera and others will pre- Symposium, cosponsored by the sent a stage reading of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Actress and director Erma Duricko will History Department and the Center perform as well as conduct an acting workshop for high school students. Williams’s for the Study of Southern Culture, brother, Dakin, will also make his annual appearance. Other participants will be addresses Manners and Southern announced soon. History, October 6-8, 2004. Scholars are invited to submit papers for possible presentation at the festival. Speakers will include Catherine Papers on any topic related to Williams and his work are eligible for consideration. Clinton, author and editor of 16 Presentations should be 20 minutes maximum. Authors whose papers are selected for books, including Harriet Tubman, The presentation will receive free lodging during the festival and a waiver of the registra- Plantation Mistress, and Tara Revisited; tion fee. The deadline for submissions is August 30, 2004. To enter, send a completed Joseph Crespino, of Emory University, paper (7-8 pages) or an abstract (250 words) to Colby H. Kullman, Department of author of works on social and political English, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. life in civil rights-era Mississippi; Lisa The Tennessee Williams Festival Acting Competition, hosted by Coahoma L. Dorr, of the University of Alabama Community College, is open to high school students in Mississippi. The competition and author of White Women, Rape, includes two acting categories, monologues and scenes. All material must be drawn and the Power of Race in Virginia, from the plays of Tennessee Williams. Each monologue is to be two minutes or less, 1900-1960; Anya Jabour, of the and each scene is to be between five and ten minutes and involve any number of University of Montana, author of characters. Marriage in the Early Republic; Valinda Cash prizes are given for winning monologues and scenes, which will be performed Littlefield, of the University of South for the festival audience. Prize money will go to schools of the winners for use with Carolina, author of works on drama activities or library books related to theater and literature. Students, with their Southern education; Jennifer teacher-sponsors, will be given the opportunity to decide how the prize money will be Ritterhouse, of Utah State University, spent. author of works on raising children in For information on the 2004 festival and drama competition, write Tennessee Southern history; and Charles F. Williams Festival, P.O. Box 1565, Clarksdale, MS 38614-1565; telephone 662-627- Robinson II, of the University of 7337. Arkansas, author of Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. Commenting will be Jane Dailey, Johns Hopkins University, author of Before Jim Crow: The Politics Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha of Race in Postemancipation Virginia, and John Kasson, of the University of July 24-28, 2005 North Carolina, author of works such as Rudeness and Civility: Manners in 19th-Century Urban America and “Faulkner’s Inheritance” Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The 32nd annual conference will attempt to take the measure of The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America. Faulkner’s “inheritance”: the varied elements that went into his Events, to be held in the Yerby making and the making of his work. We are inviting both 50- Center, will be, as in the past 28 sym- minute plenary addresses and 15-minute papers for this conference. posia, free and open to the public. More details about the symposium are avail- For details, visit the Web (http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/) or able at olemiss.edu/depts/history/sym- e-mail Donald Kartiganer ([email protected]). posium/Events_Symposium.htm.

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 7 Reflections on Civil Rights Tragedy in Neshoba County

When I was in the fifth grade at Casey Elementary in Jackson, Mississippi, my Nash Molpus, while working on her MA in Southern Studies (awarded May 2004), best friend, Mary Elizabeth, had a birth- complied a photographic survey of Lafayette County’s African American cemeteries and day party in early March. My dad wanted worked as an assistant in the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation. me to watch a movie with him; it was Following is an excerpt from her ongoing journal about her racial reconciliation work. Mississippi Burning.I couldn’t stop crying

and had to go late to the party. I didn’t Molpus Nash understand why the white characters were taunting, beating, and killing the black characters. This was the first time I found out that three young men, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were killed on June 21,1964, near Philadelphia, Mississippi. I made my dad tell me the whole story over and over, about the Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff pulling the boys over after letting them out of jail. A group of Ku Klux Klan hooligans shot all three of them, burned their car, and buried them in a dam near the Neshoba County Fair.I couldn’t come to terms with the idea that the place where my father grew up could be so evil or that the dam I had passed all my life on the way to the Neshoba County Fair was the resting place for three young men. Mt. Nebo Church headstone in memory of the three young civil rights workers As I grew older,I kept reading about the murders and what really happened. I reaction to the murders in 1964. It is a tinue to overshadow their town. The wrote papers on how Mississippi Burning mesmerizing topic. Secrets, racism, and community members are working to distorted the facts, the COFO (Council confusion mark the murders that no one acknowledge the past so these wrongs of Federated Organizations) office in can forget. Forty years later, Philadelphia, will never be repeated. Philadelphia, and the black community’s Mississippi, still carries that burden. The Mississippi Development Now, for the first Authority is collaborating with the time since 1964, William Winter Institute for Racial black, white, and Reconciliation at the University of Choctaw commu- Mississippi and the Philadelphia-based nity members are Community Development Partnership working together to produce a civil rights tour brochure and are planning a and an oral history project of those who commemoration of participated in the events of 1964. that 40th anniver- Philadelphia, Mississippi, is coming sary. The residents to terms with its racially charged past of Philadelphia and is moving forward to help the want the world to entire community allow the lives of see a unified com- Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner to munity on June 20, set them free.

Nash Molpus 2004, instead of The site in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where Chaney, allowing this divi- NASH MOLPUS Goodman, and Schwerner were killed sive tragedy to con-

Page 8 Spring 2004 The Southern Register New Southern Studies Assistantship in Brookhaven

The acquisition by the Brookhaven funerals, reunions, and weddings— you the Trust, and tour the town, she viewed Trust of thousands of photographs docu- really see what was customary in south- the assistantship as an “opportunity menting life in Brookhaven, Mississippi, west and south-central Mississippi. There [she] couldn’t turn down.” from the late 1920s through the 1970s are also some neat, neat photos of the Henry Ledet, Brookhaven Trust board has led to a new yearlong assistantship logging community and also of the oil member and Lincoln-Lawrence-Franklin for Southern Studies graduate student boom here during the 1940s and ’50s.” County Library System head, applied to Mary Ellen Maples starting this fall. According to David Wharton, Center the Mississippi Library Commission for Emily Henderson, 2004-2005 presi- director of documentary projects and the $25,000 grant that is funding the dent of the Brookhaven Trust, which is Maples’s assistantship supervisor, the assistantship. Additionally, the dedicated to preserving the history and graduate student will be sorting, putting Brookhaven branch of the Lincoln- culture of the town in the southern part in archival sleeves, and possibly index- Lawrence- Franklin system will house the of the state, contacted the Center last ing the Williams photographs. “This is a Williams collection, which ultimately October to discuss the possibility of an tremendous opportunity in the sense will be available for public viewing, a pri- assistantship with her organization. that there’s a visual record over a five- mary goal of the Brookhaven Trust. Henderson said the Trust realized the decade span,” said Wharton, who trav- “The Center has sent wonderful folks need to hire someone knowledgeable eled to Brookhaven with Maples to view down and I applaud their work to help about preservation and archiving after some of the photos. “I’ve looked at us see the value of what we have in thousands of photos taken by maybe one-tenth of one percent of the these photos,” Henderson said. (In addi- Brookhaven commercial photographer photos Williams took and you can spin a tion to David Wharton, Jennifer John Williams were donated to the story out of each one. You get a sense of Aronson, Curator for Visual Collections Trust by the State Bank of Brookhaven. the texture and the fabric of life in the at the University’s J. D. Williams The photographs were being stored in town at that time and there are any Library, also met with the Brookhaven the bank’s attic, which is not climate number of opportunities for research, for Trust to assess preservation and organi- controlled. theses and dissertation topics, from the zation strategies.) “It’s really nice to be “It’s overwhelming how well John photos.” able to give something back to the Williams documented life here,” Maples, who is from Jackson, said that Center through this assistantship.” Henderson said. “There are both posed after traveling to Brookhaven to view and unposed photos of events such as the photographs, meet with members of JENNIFER SOUTHALL

Exhibition Schedule

June 7 - August 31, 2004 November 1 - January 14, 2005 Portraits from the Delta Game and Fish through the Lens Jane Rule Burdine Wiley Prewitt

September 1 - October 31, 2004 January 15 - March 15, 2005 Photographs from the Nashville Sit-ins Mississippi: Take Time to Appreciate Rachel Lawson, curator Bruce J. West

The Gammill Gallery, located in Barnard Observatory, is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., except for University holidays. Telephone: 662-915-5993.

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 9 Living Blues Symposium and Special Mississippi Issue e Coles Les Well into our 34th year of publication, Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition continues to set the standard for blues music journalism. This past February, in celebration of Black History Month, Living Blues and the Center hosted the Second Annual Blues Today Symposium. LB founder Jim O’Neal, along with industry insiders and schol- ars, joined blues performers to discuss topics including the cur- rent state of blues music, a critical appraisal of 2003 as the “Year of the Blues,” the blues in relation to Africa, and the ori- gins of Living Blues magazine itself. In addition to discussion panels, legendary blues musician e Coles Les B. B. King returned to his home state to perform at the From left to right: Paul Oliver, University of Mississippi’s Ford Center for the Performing Arts. David Evans, Abraham Yameogo, Corey Harris Earlier in the day, King received an Honorary Professorship award from Center director Charles Wilson. Following King’s (right) Charles "Wsir" Johnson concert, blues fans attended a “blues crawl” that showcased drumming his message home. artists at venues on Oxford’s town square. Country-blues style guitarist and singer Corey Harris, who served as honorary sym- posium co-chair, performed with legendary Delta drummer Sam Carr at Proud Larry’s while local favorite T-Model Ford rocked the Library. The following day, preemi- nent blues scholar Paul Oliver, author of the critically acclaimed Blues Fell This Morning, delivered the sympo- sium’s keynote address on this year’s theme, “From Africa to Mississippi.” Saturday night, guests were shuttled to a nearby juke joint and enjoyed a catfish fry, goat roast, and the searing Delta blues of Clarksdale, Mississippi’s own “Big” Jack Johnson. The success of the Blues Today Symposium helped Living Blues promote its “Mississippi Blues Today!” double-issue cur- rently on newsstands. Produced with a generous grant from the Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Division, this veritable “travel guide” provides a complete overview of the current Mississippi blues scene and features B. B. King on the cover. Highlights include: • A guest editorial by actor and native Mississippian Morgan Freeman • Detailed maps of Mississippi, including the Delta region, Clarksdale, and Jackson, the state capitol • Comprehensive listings of juke joints, soul food restau- rants, blues radio stations, and blues landmarks • 2004 Blues Festival Guide, highlighting blues festivals nationwide • 176 pages—our biggest issue ever! Convention and visitor bureaus throughout Mississippi are distributing the issue, allowing tourists to experience the unique culture that is Mississippi blues music.

MARK CAMARIGG

Page 10 Spring 2004 The Southern Register B. B. King Named Honorary Professor of Southern Studies

When B. B. King departed from the Mississippi of Bain/University Kevin University of Mississippi after his February 27 performance as part of the second annual Blues Today Symposium, he did so as an honorary professor of Southern Studies. The honor was conferred upon the blues legend by Center director Charles Wilson at a special ceremony during the February 26-28 symposium. “Clearly recognized as a world treasure, B. B. King has brought distinction to his home state as well as to the University of Mississippi,” Chancellor Robert Khayat said in a statement released before the ceremony. The University is especially indebted to King for his generosity regarding the Blues Archive. “His donation was one of the key collections that started the archive,” said Greg Johnson, curator of Center director Charles Reagan Wilson presents B. B. King a certificate declaring him an honorary professor of Southern Studies the facility. “It was really a cornerstone.” A primary resource for the Center, the Blues Archive is the largest public col- lection of blues recordings and memora- bilia in the world, thanks in large part to the 1983 donation by King. The gift included 8,000 LPs, 78s, and 45s from his personal collection. At the ceremony honoring King, which took place just hours before his sellout show at the University’s Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Johnson asked the blues legend about specific records in the collection. A full house of Blues Today participants, students, fac- ulty, staff, and local fans laughed as King answered Johnson’s questions, joking about his life and travels as a musician. Kevin Bain/University of Mississippi JENNIFER SOUTHALL B. B. King shows off his guitar Work Continues on the Mississippi Encyclopedia This summer will be an important already sent over 300 entries, and by the write entries or to suggest new topics time for the Mississippi Encyclopedia, one end of the summer the editors hope to that should be on the list. of the large reference works underway at have well over 1,000 entries. The Mississippi Encyclopedia is a joint the Center. Hundreds of authors have a The lists of topics compiled by 30 project of the Center, the Mississippi June 1 deadline for their entries, and associate editors are virtually complete Department of Archives and History, Managing Editor Andrea Odom and and available for view at the Mississippi Humanities Council, Consulting Editor Ted Ownby plan to www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/ms_ency- and the University Press of Mississippi. spend much of the summer editing and clopedia/index.htm. Potential authors organizing those entries. Authors have still have plenty of time to volunteer to

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 11 CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual CrossRoads: A Southern Culture The first volume of CrossRoads: A politics, race, ethnicity, gender, and Annual is a new publication dedicated to Southern Culture Annual, published in regional identity. That volume also the interdisciplinary study and artistic April 2004, features new work by such contains compelling creative work from appreciation of the South (broadly scholars and artists as G. Wayne Dowdy, a number of leading writers and visual defined) and Southern culture. To be Allean Hale, M. Thomas Inge, Dorothy artists from the South. published as an annual book by Mercer Hampton Marcus, Mendi Lewis To order copies of the first volume of University Press, CrossRoads: A Southern Obadike, Ron Rash, and Brenda CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual, Culture Annual will continue the editor- Witchger. The scholarly work in the please contact Mercer University Press ial approach of CrossRoads: A Journal of first volume of CrossRoads explores such via phone (toll free) at 800-637-2378, Southern Culture, a semi-legendary peri- topics as Southern language, literature, ext. 2880 or 800-342-0841, ext. 2880 odical originally published in the early visual art, music, and food, and eluci- (in Georgia), or by e-mail at mupressor- 1990s by a dedicated group of graduate dates Southern perspectives on religion, [email protected]. students affiliated with the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Southern Culture. The original periodi- CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual is currently seeking submissions for its sec- cal version of CrossRoads featured previ- ond volume. These submissions can include—but are not limited to—analytical acad- ously unpublished material by many of emic essays, oral histories, memoirs, profile essays, photo essays, creative writing, and the leading scholars and artists commit- artwork. The main criteria ensuring consideration are that all submitted materials ted to interpreting and celebrating the should (to borrow Faulkner’s famous phrase) “tell about the South” and that they South, including A. R. Ammons, James should do so memorably. Dickey, William Ferris, Ann Fisher- To be considered for the second volume of CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual, Wirth, Wayne Flynt, Ernest Gaines, send materials postmarked before July 31, 2004, to Ted Olson, Editor; CrossRoads: A David Galef, Eugene Genovese, Alex Southern Culture Annual; ETSU, Box 70400; Johnson City, TN 37614. Please include Haley, Fred Hobson, Jack Temple Kirby, disposable copies of manuscripts. Submissions will not be returned. Should you have Robert Morgan, Tom Rankin, John any questions, you may contact the editor by telephone (423-439-4379), fax (423-439- Shelton Reed, and Joel Williamson. 4126), or e-mail ([email protected] or [email protected]).

Yes, sign me up for Southern Cultures: J for 1 yr ($28), J for 2 yrs ($49), or J for 3 yrs ($69) AND SEND ME ALMOST $50 IN FREE GIFTS! My check or money order, made payable to Southern Cultures, is enclosed, OR please charge J VISA J MASTERCARD (check one). Signature Card Number Expiration Date Phone Name Address City, State Zip MAIL to: CB#9127, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 or CALL: (919) 966-3561, ext 256 or FAX: 1-800-272-6817 or EMAIL: [email protected] Might as well get your southern culture the easy way. Subscribe now to Southern Cultures and save over 35%. And we’ll even send you nearly $50 in special gifts—FREE!

Page 12 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Reading the South The Cajuns: enced by the French-speaking Americanization of a People. Cajuns, many Louisiana servicemen By Shane K. Bernard. came home and neglected to teach Jackson: University Press of their children French, even those Mississippi, 2003. 208 pages. $18.00 who had served as translators. Cajun paper, $48.00 unjacketed cloth. surnames, mispronounced by Anglo- American GIs, were transformed Between 1765 and 1785 the once Cajun GIs returned to south Acadians of English Nova Scotia Louisiana (Hebert became HE-BERT, were exiled from what was once Prejean became PRE-JEAN, LeBlanc French Acadia. Of the roughly 15,000 became LE- BLANK, etc.). Not only displaced Acadians, about 3,000 that, but the GI Bill presented the migrated to south Louisiana, settling opportunity for more young people to on the bayous and prairies of what get off the farm and into the universi- eventually became commonly known ty, resulting in Cajun youths with as Acadiana. Over time, a distinct newly marketable skills leaving the ethnic group was created, composed region for urban areas outside south- of various Native American tribes; ern Louisiana in search of better German, Spanish, French immi- employment. grants; and even a small number of Bernard goes on to explain how the Anglo-Americans. This new ethnic tion—“one nation, one language!”— booming oil industry in south group came to be called the Cajuns, a Cajun children were discouraged Louisiana served as an Americanizing people whose population now num- from speaking the language of their influence. The promise of wealth bers over half a million. parents at school; later, when manda- brought transplants from other The Cajuns were fundamentally tory English-language education was regions of the country, along with isolated from mainstream culture imposed throughout the state of marriages between ethnicities, conse- prior to World War II, continuing to Louisiana, severe punishment was quently diluting the Cajun culture. speak French as a first, and often only, meted out if they dared to do so. This Also, wealth brought the modern language and maintaining the culture was merely the beginning of the conveniences found across the of their Acadian roots for nearly 200 Americanization of an entire culture. United States to a region that until years. But change was on the horizon. The Americanization of the Cajun the 1950s had been rural to the In The Cajuns: Americanization of a began in earnest when America was extreme. Electricity, running water, People, Shane Bernard, as stated in drawn into World War II. Thousands telephones, indoor bathrooms— all his preface, “examine[s] the sweep of of Cajuns participated in the war, had been relatively uncommon in Cajun history during the last six introducing them to new peoples, rural Acadiana as late as the 1940s. decades of the twentieth century— places, and cultures. As Bernard By the mid-1950s it seemed modern for beginning in 1941 the Cajuns explains, the war exerted “a profound convenience was the norm. underwent a transformation so dra- influence on Cajun GIs, giving them The growing interest in Acadiana matic as to fundamentally alter their a new sense of national identity. . . . as a tourist destination brought an ethnic identity.” Proud of their wartime contributions, estimated three and a half million Bernard illustrates deftly and they came home staunch patriots, visitors to Louisiana in 1954. Drawn engagingly the change that took defenders of the American way of life. by the region’s distinct foodways and place in the Cajun culture and its They had at long last become a part music, along with a curiosity in visit- people as a direct result of Anglo- of the national melting pot.” As a ing what was sometimes mistakenly Saxonism. Beginning as early as the result of this assimilation, though, portrayed as the equivalent of a Theodore Roosevelt administra- and of the prejudice often experi- bizarre third-world country, tourists

Book Reviews and Notes by Faculty, Staff, For these and other books call 800-648-4001 or fax 601-234-9630. Students, and Friends of the Center for the 160 Courthouse Square • Oxford, Mississippi 38655 Study of Southern Culture

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 13 Reading the South continued

flocked to Cajun country, a phenome- non that eventually resulted in the mass-marketing of the region’s eth- nicity in the form of hot sauces, cook- Mississippi Women: Their books, restaurants, and pop culture. Histories, Their Lives. “Ironically, by packaging their culture Edited by Martha H. Swain, Elizabeth for mass consumption,” Bernard Anne Payne, and Marjorie Julian writes, “the Cajuns further demon- Spruill; associate editor, Susan Ditto. strated their adoption of mainstream Foreword by Anne Firor Scott. American values.” Before long, it Athens: University of Georgia Press, seemed authentic Cajun culture was 2003. 324 pages. $44.95 hardcover, on the brink of extinction. $22.95 paperback. Fortunately, this trend was recog- Every chair was filled at the nized before it was too late, and orga- University of Mississippi’s Sarah Isom nizations such as the Council for the Center last fall on the day the editors Development of French in Louisiana of Mississippi Women discussed the (CODOFIL) and the French Heritage remarkable lives recorded in this Committee (FHC) helped stem the book. The essay collection provides tide of Americanization by establish- new insights on Eudora Welty, Repositories, Hawks made repeated ing programs that returned French to Margaret Walker Alexander, and trips to the Mississippi Department of the classroom and promoted pride in Fannie Lou Hamer—three names Archives and History. Her contribu- Cajun heritage. The notion of Cajun likely to make anyone’s short list of tion to Mississippi Women, “Mississippi Power became popular, and Cajun the state’s outstanding citizens. But, Gentlewoman and Slaveholder’s culture demanded authenticity to the even more impressively, Mississippi Daughter,” draws on clippings, corre- extent that Cajuns even became Women presents 14 additional female spondence, and lecture brochures known as a federally recognized eth- trailblazers, from Felicité Girodeau, a from that department’s Belle Kearney nic group. To the level that the free woman of color in antebellum Papers. The Mississippi archives and Cajuns had become Americanized, Natchez, to Clarksdale’s Vera Mae other manuscript collections consult- they eventually equally refused to let Pigee, a mother of the civil rights ed by Hawks’s fellow scholars provide their culture be swallowed up by movement. Although each of these a major strength of this volume. From mainstream America. As Bernard women was important in her era, Bridget Smith Pieschel’s discoveries says, “Ultimately, the future of the many have been forgotten in ours; in the Mississippi University for Cajun people remains unclear.” But and some of them receive serious Women’s J. C. Fant Library to Emily with the publication of books like The scholarly attention for the first time Clark’s findings in the Archdiocese of Cajuns, which is written in a manner in these essays. New Orleans Archives, special col- that will fascinate the general, as well Mississippi Women is dedicated to lections throughout the South and as as the scholarly, reader, Cajun culture yet another pioneering woman, far north as Philadelphia enhance the still has hope to survive. Joanne Varner “Jan” Hawks, the Isom vivid factualness of the essays. Shane K. Bernard serves as histori- Center director who was instrumental Mississippi Women is organized into an and curator to McIlhenny in founding the Mississippi Women’s three roughly chronological sections Company, maker of Tabasco brand History Project. With Martha H. with somewhat arbitrary titles: products since 1868, and Avery Swain and Elizabeth Anne Payne, “Confronting Challenges,” Island, Inc. He is the author of Swamp Hawks laid the foundation for this “Becoming Professionals,” and Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and book and its thematic companion “Extending Rights.” The five women Blues (University Press of Mississippi). volume. Hawks’s death in 1998 was a in the first division, all of them born His work has been published in such serious setback to the project, but before 1865, were not the only women periodicals as Louisiana History, Mississippi Women was brought to to face challenges, of course. Likewise, Louisiana Folklife, Louisiana Cultural completion after Marjorie Julian at least two of these women—the Vistas, and the New Orleans Times- Spruill and Susan Ditto joined the reformist politician Nellie Nugent Picayune. editorial team. Somerville and the educator Pauline In compiling her Mississippi’s Van de Graaf Orr—were intent on JIMMY THOMAS Historical Heritage: A Guide to becoming professionals and extending Women’s Resources in Mississippi rights to their fellow citizens, especial-

Page 14 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Reading the South continued Cultural Riches ly to women. The longevity of some of the book’s sub- jects further complicates their placement in a tripartite framework. That quibble aside, even a quick overview of the book reveals the abiding and sometimes amazing strength of Mississippi’s women—a strength that tran- scends time-periods and descriptive headings. In her foreword to Mississippi Women, Anne Firor Scott observes that books about famous women were popular in 19th-century America. But, she adds, authors “did not always distinguish clearly between documented fact and legend” (xi). In contrast, the essayists in Mississippi Women are scrupulous in their research. Swain explains that “the editors faced the reality that sources available to scholars on individual Music and the Cherokee Heritage women are seriously lacking for the state’s early histo- Making of a Trails Guidebook ry” (xv). Although the companion volume will treat barbara r. duncan facets of this early past (including, for example, a chap- New South gavin james campbell and brett h. riggs ter on Choctaw and Chickasaw women), Felicité Popular music in Jim Crow Celebrating the rich heritage Girodeau (1791- 1860) is among the first Mississippi Atlanta. of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the mountains of women whose life is sufficiently documented to “[An] inspired and original North Carolina, eastern include in a collection on specific lives. work, bringing together . . . Tennessee, and north Georgia. opera, African American concert In the opening essay, “Racial and Religious Identity in singing, and old-time fiddling.” “Comprehensive and authorita- Antebellum Natchez,” Emily Clark explains how —Ted Ownby, author of tive. A number of native American Dreams in Mississippi American groups have added their distinctive voices to this Girodeau moved from New Orleans to Mississippi and 240 pp., 23 illus. passed as a well-to-do white woman. Clark describes volume.”—Christian Science $55.00 cloth / $19.95 paper Monitor Girodeau as a chronicler, supporter, and “virtuoso god- 384 pp., 131 color photos, 11 maps mother” of the Catholic church—“clearly the key force Blue Ridge $16.95 paper preserving and sustaining the fragile fabric of the Music Trails Natchez congregation” (10-11). In one of the volume’s Finding a Place in the Circle Creek Country intriguing juxtapositions, Cita Cook’s essay on Winnie fred c. fussell The Creek Indians and Davis follows. Ironically, the beloved “Daughter of the A traveler’s guide to 160 events Their World and venues for traditional robbie ethridge Confederacy” developed a German accent studying music and dance. A culture in crisis. abroad, loved a Yankee, and hoped to earn enough “If you’re not much for guitars, “A powerful illustration that the money as an author to buy a nice place in Bar Harbor, fiddles and banjos, forget about early South was far more diverse Maine. Until her death at 34, she remained “torn it. But if you are, y’all come.” and complex than we have thus —Los Angeles Times far recognized.”—Claudio Saunt, between her commitment to being a devoted daughter 288 pp., 152 color / 4 b&w illus., University of Georgia to her parents and to the men who had served under her 10 maps $15.95 paper 384 pp., 14 maps father and her desire to be an intellectual able to enjoy $59.95 cloth / $22.50 paper some of the pleasures of northeastern society” (35). Conjectures Essays on Somerville, Kearney, and Orr depict of Order Living Indian women who were more fortunate in realizing their Intellectual Life and the Histories American South, 1810–1860 large ambitions. Spruill presents Somerville as a Lumbee and Tuscarora michael o’brien People in North Carolina strategist in the movement to secure women’s voting “O’Brien writes with assurance, gerald sider rights. When male collegians mocked her suffragist subtlety, and imagination about “An important and ground- banners on a train, Somerville “bought the porter’s the intellectual life of the Old breaking book that should be South, showing that it was more entire cartload of candy and drinks, telling him to read by anyone interested in vibrant, diverse, and modern Indian-white relations, in racial deliver it to the students, who at once began yelling, than we have ever realized. . . . and ethnic group formation, or ‘Votes for Women! Hurrah! Hurrah!’” (50). Hawks A triumph.”—Daniel Walker in processes of domination.” Howe, Oxford University —American Anthropologist describes Belle Kearney’s dynamic oratory on nation- 2 vols., 1354 pp., 100 illus. 384 pp. $22.50 paper al and international lecture tours for the temperance $95.00 cloth and the suffrage movements, causes that she shared with Somerville. Just a few of the bills that Kearney The University of North Carolina Press introduced into the Mississippi legislature became at bookstores or 800-848-6224 | www.uncpress.unc.edu

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 15 Reading the South continued

law, but she was proud to call herself remembered. Pieschel reminds read- the Mississippi State Hospital at the South’s first female state senator. ers of Williams’s powerful impact as a Whitfield, possibly for syphilis- Like Somerville and Kearney, Orr “mentor of Southern women’s litera- induced dementia but possibly for was an influential suffragist; she was ture” in her roles as teacher, editor, manic-depression. also a literature scholar whose impact author, and longtime chair of the O. Suzanne Marrs’s essay on Eudora on the state’s college women was felt Henry memorial Awards Committee. Welty follows as a welcome relief to “for generations,” says Sarah Williams’s doctoral studies at Brewer’s sad story. This chapter from Wilkerson-Freeman. Orr is the first of Columbia were supported by an alum- Marrs’s One Writer’s Imagination: The several women in this book who illus- nae fellowship from II&C, where— Fiction of Eudora Welty (2002) views trate the crucial role of the Mississippi says Pieschel—her teacher Pauline the author’s life in 1930s Jackson, University for Women, founded in Orr “recognized her brilliance imme- Mississippi, after she returned home 1885 as the Industrial Institute and diately” (116). from her studies at the University of College for the Education of White Arriving at II&C several years after Wisconsin and the Columbia Girls (II&C)—the first state-support- Williams, Elizabeth Lee Hazen also University School of Business. ed women’s college in the country. As completed doctoral studies at Welty’s unconventional mother and Wilkerson-Freeman demonstrates Columbia and became a professor- her literary, humorous, travel-loving well, Orr taught her students the mentor in New York, where she friends fostered the author’s imagina- value of academics, activism, and enjoyed Broadway plays, shopping, tion and independent thinking. female friendship. The household Orr and gourmet cooking. Unique among According to Marrs, Welty and her established in New York with her the subjects of Mississippi Women for young circle identified themselves as II&C colleague Miriam Paslay was a her long scientific career, Hazen is Southerners but were critical of the “way station” for faculty friends and described by David D. Carson as one racism and class prejudices that former students who came to the city of the first women inducted into the marked Southern life. to pursue graduate studies, profes- National Inventors Hall of Fame— Marrs’s observation sets the scene sions, and writing careers. among the many honors she received for part 3 of Mississippi Women, “Becoming Professionals,” part 2 of for her research on bacterial and viral “Extending Rights.” The editors Mississippi Women, shows just how disease, particularly fungus infections. explain that “the six women chosen varied those professions were with In contrast to the reserved Hazen, for this last section helped bring essays on Kate Freeman Clark, artist; Burnita Shelton Matthews and about changes that most Blanche Colton Williams, author and Minnie Brewer were among Mississippians now welcome” (198). professor; Elizabeth Lee Hazen, micro- Mississippi’s more outspoken women Because African American women biologist; Burnita Shelton Matthews, in the first half of the 20th century. were so central to the civil rights lawyer; Minnie Brewer, journalist and Kate Greene remarks that Matthews movement, they are the subjects of newspaper editor; and Eudora Welty, “rejected the cult of domesticity that five of the final six essays. The excep- writer par excellence. Kathleen dominated her class in Mississippi tion is Mark Newman’s “Journalist McClain Jenkins describes Clark’s society and chose to become a under Siege,” about the Pulitzer Prize- relocation from Holly Springs to New lawyer, a feminist, and the first winning editor Hazel Brannon Smith, York, where she studied under the woman appointed to a U.S. district whose commitment to Christianity, Impressionist William Merritt Chase. court” (144). While Matthews’s law, public education, and economic Despite a “respectable exhibition father pressured his daughter to development caused her to speak out record” at “many of the nation’s most spend her life as a music teacher, against racism—even after white prestigious venues” (104), Clark Mississippi Governor Earl Brewer teenagers burned a cross in her yard. stopped painting at 39, in large part worried that his daughter would The writer Margaret Walker because of increasing family obliga- always be a flapper. Dorothy Alexander and the activist Fannie tions. Back home in Holly Springs, Shawhan explores both the flapper Lou Hamer are much more widely she joined the Audubon Society and and the feminist sides of the “New known than Smith. Citing “For My the garden club, seldom discussing Woman” Minnie Brewer. A delegate People” and other poems by her truncated career. to the National League of Women Alexander, Robert A. Harris empha- While Clark’s posthumous reputa- Voters convention in 1922, she sizes that her “commitment to tion as an artist is currently on the founded the Woman Voter newspaper humanistic concerns” (238) began at rise, Blanche Colton Williams— in Clarksdale and endorsed Belle a young age. And her popular histori- another Mississippi woman who Kearney in the Senate race. But she cal novel Jubilee and two volumes of found success in New York—is barely spent the second half of her life at essays continued to “address the

Page 16 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Reading the South continued University Press of Mississippi A member of the Association of American University Presses

important issues of the times in which they were writ- Changing Channels ten” (246). The African American oral tradition and The Civil Rights Case that the necessity to speak out against injustice are both Transformed Television implied in Harris’s essay title, “Voicing Form.” By Kay Mills Similarly, Linda Reed calls Fannie Lou Hamer “A New “Journalist and historian Kay Mills has written an important book, one that should command Voice in American Democracy.” Reed sees Hamer, the attention of media professionals as well as Alabaman Rosa Parks, and other black female activists students of the black freedom struggle.” “at the center of two of the nation’s most important –John Dittmer, author of Local People: The political movements: the quest for black equality and Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi the demand for women’s rights” (251), an insight that $30 hardcover is further supported by essays on Bertha Mae Carter, Sadye Wier, and Vera Mae Pigee. Now Is the Time In “School Desegregation in a Delta Town,” essayist By Lillian Smith Constance Curry recalls driving down a “narrow, dusty Afterword by Will Brantley road” in Sunflower County in January 1966 to a shot- Reprinted in a new edition on the fiftieth gun house, where she was “welcomed warmly by five- anniversary of the Brown v. Board of foot-two, intense, blue-eyed Mae Bertha Carter” Education decision, a leading southern (268). The humiliation that seven of Carter’s children activist’s impassioned plea for tolerance, desegregation, and civil rights advocacy suffered in integrating the Drew, Mississippi, public $20 hardcover schools is heartbreaking; but Curry also reports that seven Carter children later graduated from the University of Mississippi, where a tree now stands in their mother’s memory. Like Carter, Wier was a com- munity activist with a special interest in education. Faulkner and War John F. Marszalek says that her outstanding work in the Edited by Noel Polk and Ann J. Abadie public schools and the Mississippi State Cooperative A critical exploration of the effects and influence of America’s wars upon the Extension Service “positively influenced the percep- works of the Nobel Prize laureate tions of black and white Mississippians regarding $46 hardcover African American potential” (200). In an unforget- table scene, Marszalek describes Wier setting out at four in the morning on a 10-mile mule ride down muddy roads to demonstrate the usefulness of a pres- Blues Traveling sure cooker to a family who had just slaughtered a calf. The Holy Sites of Delta Blues, Pigee, the subject of Françoise N. Hamlin’s Second Edition “Mothering the Movement,” brings Mississippi Women By Steve Cheseborough to an inspirational close. Like Hamer, Carter, and Updated and expanded, the indispensable Wier, this daughter of Tutwiler sharecroppers labored guidebook to the blues birthplaces, juke joints, and crossroads of Mississippi, hard for the better education of the state’s people. Memphis, and Helena Pigee was a beautician, and Hamlin is fascinating on $20 softcover the place of beauty shop culture in the civil rights movement. Moreover, Pigee’s work for the male-domi- nated NAACP was “vital and had far-reaching results,” even though it was “inconspicuous and therefore Trumpet Records unsung” (284). In Mississippi Women, Pigee’s song sup- Diamonds on Farish Street plies the final grace-note, harmonizing with the famil- By Marc W. Ryan iar and unfamiliar tunes of 16 sisters. In a new edition, the history of a Mississippi record company and the blues, gospel, and R&B greats it JOAN WYLIE HALL launched nationally $46 unjacketed hardcover, $18 softcover

Find in bookstores, or order from the publisher online at www.upress.state.ms.us or by phone at 1-800-737-7788.

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 17 Reading the South continued

A creole, however, is not broken; revealed in the conversations will by If I Could Turn My Tongue rather, it is a new language, a hybrid, themselves be worth the price of the Like That: The Creole with its own regularities and grammar book. Explanatory notes, a glossary of Language of Pointe Coupee, and it can satisfy all the uses of anoth- Louisiana Creole words, an extensive er human language. A creole may historical and linguistic bibliography, Louisiana. serve its speakers as a central symbol and a detailed index round out the By Tom Klingler. of group identity and of culture. Once volume. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State formed, a creole changes over time University Press, 2003. 627 pages. just as other languages do. Likewise, it REBECCA LARCHE MORETON $75.00. prospers or declines with the fortunes Tom Klingler’s If I Could Turn My of the people who speak it, and it dies, Tongue Like That: The Creole Language should all its speakers shift to the use of Pointe Coupee, Louisiana is a of another language. The Reconstruction of White remarkable scholarly celebration of Louisiana Creole arose in the 18th Southern Womanhood, 1865- the language, history, and culture of century within the colonial agricul- 1895. the Louisiana Creole spoken in rural tural society of French Louisiana. The By Jane Turner Censer. Pointe Coupee Parish, northwest of language has been spoken for over Baton Rouge: Louisiana State present-day Baton Rouge. Klingler, a three hundred years, at first by the University Press, 2003. 336 pages. professor of French at Tulane slave community that created it, later $59.95 cloth, $24.95 paper. University, reviews the story of the also by the freed slaves and their African slaves who were forcibly descendants, and at least in Pointe Blood & Irony: Southern transported to the Louisiana colony, Coupee Parish, it has been taken up White Women’s Narratives of then examines the language which by whites as well. This persistent lan- they fashioned for themselves in the guage is poised, however, to disappear the Civil War, 1861-1937. process of becoming a people. within another two generations: By Sarah E. Gardner. A creole is a new language that may today, all Louisiana Creole speakers Chapel Hill: University of North form when one group of people seeks also speak English, and almost no Carolina Press, 2004. 341 pages. to learn the spoken language of anoth- families are passing the creole on to $39.95 cloth. er group. One well-known set of cre- their children. Thus, Klingler’s study These appealing volumes are part oles appeared throughout the captures Pointe Coupe Louisiana of an energetic scholarly movement Caribbean during the development by Creole at a point where it is still dear to analyze women’s participation in, various European powers of slave in the hearts of its remaining older and varied perspectives on, crucial dependent colonial economies. The speakers but has lost its allure and its developments in the post-Civil War slaves spoke various African languages, usefulness for younger generations, South. Blood & Irony, a title drawn while their masters spoke one or whose lives will be lived in English. from the words of Ellen Glasgow, another European language, depend- The astonishing amount of materi- offers a thorough and original analysis ing on the colony. As the subordinate al Klingler presents is organized in a of the ways Southern white women group, the Africans were expected to modular fashion which makes it easily wrote about the Civil War. The learn the language of their masters, not accessible to the specialist and the Reconstruction of White Southern the other way around. However, when general reader alike. Separate sections Womanhood uses personal papers, adults attempt to learn to speak a lan- are devoted to the history and sociol- organizational and school minutes, guage without specific instruction, the ogy of slavery in the New World, and legal records as well as published result is predictably imperfect: such competing theories of how creoliza- fiction and memoirs to study elite learners get the words of the target lan- tion happens, the structure of women in postbellum Virginia and guage, but arrange the words into Louisiana Creole, and transcriptions, North Carolina. novel sequences, change the mean- complete with English translations, of The theme of Jane Turner Censer’s ings, and fail to reproduce the pronun- recorded conversations in the lan- study involves “the possibilities of ciation accurately. Thus, a creole based guage. Each of the sections can be change that existed in the postwar on French words will sound to a French read as a stand-alone treatment of South” (9). Her use of letters and speaker like a “broken” form of French: one aspect of the study. For many diaries gives the book a very human he can identify many French-sounding readers, the late 20th-century feeling. What Censer calls the “new words but cannot make sense of the Louisiana Creole speakers’ experi- domesticity” (51) developed from speech. ences, humor, and philosophy as efforts by wealthy women not merely

Page 18 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Reading the South continued

to do more work, especially sewing challenge past conventions by reject- and cooking in the home following ing a romanticized view of the Old emancipation, but to start idealizing South, by portraying the war from a that work. The author details a num- wide range of perspectives and by dis- ber of other changes both in the struc- cussing internal conflict in the tures of the lives of elite women and wartime and postbellum South. in how they understood them. More In some intriguing ways, these books women remained unmarried, and revisit for the postbellum period schol- more started working for pay as teach- arly debates long prominent among ers and writers. Education changed, at historians of elite women in the ante- least a bit, to emphasize more profes- bellum South. Those debates for some sional concerns. Elite women gained time asked if scholars should view elite some new, if limited, access to proper- women primarily as potential critics of ty, as legislatures changed some laws society, looking for new freedoms from about inheritance and landowning. its many constraints, or primarily as The central element of Censer’s supporters and beneficiaries of existing argument about change and its possi- hierarchies. Censer’s work tends to bilities emphasized that younger bring the former argument into the women grew quite frustrated by life on Southern women wrote to celebrate postbellum period, while Gardner’s the plantation and showed growing the Confederacy, those writers did volume does the same with the latter interest in city life, club work, church not merely cheer on the menfolk. perspective, but both add plenty of groups, and temperance organizing. Many authors emphasized specific subtleties, ironies, and new questions The result is a picture of elite women details of antebellum and wartime to the old arguments. as frustrated and forward-looking, cer- life, especially by publishing their tainly not revolutionary but not espe- own and other women’s diaries. Thus TED OWNBY cially nostalgic for the past. their work showed little division Sarah Gardner’s intellectual history between a public sphere for men and analyzes works by familiar and obscure a private sphere for women; instead, Southern women who wrote fiction, all experiences deserved to be remem- Gendered Freedoms: Race, memoirs, and history about the Civil bered. Such 20th-century authors as Rights, and the Politics of War. She argues that at least until the Ellen Glasgow, Mary Johnston, and Household in the Delta, early 1900s, virtually all such writers Evelyn Scott were among the first to 1861-1875. celebrated the Confederacy, its causes and leaders, and wanted to document By Nancy D. Bercaw. as fully as possible the heroism and Gainesville: University Press of sacrifices of Confederate men and, Florida, 2003. significantly, women. The United Simply citing Ole Miss history pro- Daughters of the Confederacy had fessor Nancy Bercaw’s Gendered considerable influence over what Freedoms as a gender history of the women published and over what top- Mississippi Delta during and after the ics deserved histories and fiction. Few Civil War would do a disservice. women writing about the war Unlike some efforts, which practice a expressed discontent or even much kind of recipe methodology (take irritation about their place in familiar histories, add gender, and Southern society, at least in relation shake), Gendered Freedoms recasts our to the war. Hardly any Southern understanding of Southern history. By white women, Gardner argues, wrote placing competing notions of the ideal the reunion romances that were so household at the center of her account, popular among Northern writers and Bercaw succeeds in introducing a com- Southern male writers; white women, pelling interpretation of the rapid she suggests, believed romances with changes that swept through the Delta. Yankee men would never work out. Bercaw carefully distinguishes While arguing that most white households, sites where different fami-

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 19 Reading the South continued

lies carried on their individual lives, tions were determined by community ty rights. White women benefitted from the household, viewed more as a consensus, rather than by abstract cat- from these legal reforms, gaining a metaphor for proper social relations. egories. Flexibility was the rule, with less male-centered conception of Before the Civil War the dominant freedpeople recognizing a far more var- property and becoming more impor- metaphor derived from the plantation. ied range of relationships and house- tant factors in preserving their fami- White patriarchs exercised mastery holds than did white authorities. The lies’ holdings. Although black women over families of dependents. Although community, rather than individual in theory could share in these reforms, hierarchies defined these extended households, defined the parameters of poverty meant almost all were exclud- families, with slaves at the bottom and social experience for most blacks, an ed from the benefits of expanded spouses and grown blood relatives at understanding that extended to prop- property rights. As the political power the top, only the plantation master erty rights as well. Freedpeople proved that Delta blacks wielded during represented the family in the public ownership of something, not through Reconstruction began to recede, even affairs of the wider society. In this legal title, but through consistent use, the limited promise of individual fam- respect, white men acquired their pub- a practice that depended upon neigh- ily autonomy became something of a lic standing through mastery over oth- borhood consensus. cruel joke for black women and their ers, the more dependents the better. Federal occupation and white families. Freedmen might have Of course, Mississippi’s political system Southern interference disrupted black acquired legitimacy as heads of house- granted all white men equal standing, household understandings. Military holds in the eyes of the law, but with- regardless of their family situations. Yet officials promoted legal marriage as a out political power they lacked the while paying lip service to the level means of regulating contact between means of protecting their status from playing field that all white men pre- black soldiers and civilians, thereby the extralegal depredations of their sumably enjoyed, the Mississippi elite circumscribing more flexible group- white neighbors and landlords. Thus, grounded their political and social ings. Individual freedom (the right to black women became doubly victim- understandings in their experiences as marry) came to blacks at the expense ized, their conception of household lords of backwoods manors. of neighborhood autonomy. Most politics marginalized and their men Having established the antebellum Delta whites, not surprisingly, pre- too politically weak to afford them household’s ideological importance, ferred to reject both the communal the protection that a property rights Bercaw shows how emancipation and and individual manifestations of regime granted to white women. political turmoil spawned a range of black freedom. Economic forces and Some might find fault with Bercaw’s competing definitions. War, emanci- the politics of Reconstruction, how- notion of postemancipation progress. pation, and Reconstruction disrupted ever, made negotiation the general The radical restructuring of property traditional understandings of family rule. To prevent black communities rights, which she implies offered the organization and the social power from exercising too much collective only real hope for the success of Delta that might accrue from the house- economic autonomy, planters were blacks, might raise the bar too high, hold. How, Bercaw asks, did different forced to contract with individual ultimately pointing out the futility of individuals, white and black, male families. This process of negotiation all efforts to improve the lot of African and female, use conceptions of the legitimated black households and the Americans in postbellum Mississippi. household as platforms for defining men who headed them, but it also Yet in delineating the political vision their rights and responsibilities in the lessened the economic and social of freedpeople, particularly women, wider society? power that black women might have Bercaw has shed new light on the sig- The Delta formed a unique labora- otherwise exercised. Indeed, one of nificance of the daily negotiations tory for these developments because of the primary themes that Bercaw that have defined much of human the different emancipation pattern threads through her account is the experience. In the Mississippi Delta, that it encountered. The war destabi- failed efforts of freedwomen to secure as elsewhere, household concerns car- lized slavery to such a degree there that a more expansive definition of free- ried the weight of political dreams. blacks effectively emancipated them- dom, one based less on property rights selves before Yankee troops entered than on the flexible connections and WILLIAM WHITLEY the area. Thus, freedpeople organized mutual dependencies that character- their social relations free from the ized black communities. This, Bercaw domination of planters and from concludes, constituted the true Union officers. Bercaw finds that promise of freedom for Delta blacks. blacks preferred neighborhood under- Whites countered black aspirations standings of family. That is, social rela- by strengthening the power of proper-

Page 20 Spring 2004 The Southern Register SOUTHERN FOODWAYS REGISTER The Newsletter of the Southern Foodways Alliance

SFA Programming Focuses Upon Food and Race The 2004 edition of the Southern anniversary of the passage of the Civil chef Ann Cashion of Cashion’s Eat Place Foodways Symposium will focus upon Rights Act of 1964, the legislation which in Washington, D.C. food and race relations. Dates are set for declared that Jim Crow could not dictate Attendees will come to know racial October 6-10. A Delta Divertissement who sat down next to whom for lunch. chasms can be bridged when we are will precede the symposium and is Among the speakers and chefs scheduled compelled to recognize our common scheduled for October 5-6 in and around for the Oxford portion of the event are humanity across a table piled high with Greenwood, Mississippi. Diane McWhorter, winner of the Pulitzer bowls of collard greens, platters of corn- SFA leaders believe this programming Prize for her book Carry Me Home; poet bread. Look for more details in July. to be timely, as it coincides with the 40th Nikki Giovanni; and Mississippi-born

Oral History Initiative Gets SFA Film Finalist for Slow BIG boost from Jim ’N Nick’s Food Award Great News! The first Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Bar-B-Q Award film, Saving Seeds, was a finalist in the Slow Food on Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q of Birmingham, Alabama, is the Film Competition staged in Bra, Italy. The award was present- lead underwriter of the SFA oral history initiative. Nick ed during the Slow Food Conference April 21-25, 2004. We’re Pihakis has pledged a total of $75,000 over the course of five proud of filmmakers Joe York and Matt Bruder and of their years. SFA will raise matching funds so that we can hire an nomination for the coveted Golden Snail Award. What’s oral historian. Among the initial duties we see such a person more, we’re proud of the SFA members who ponied up the undertaking will be surveying existing oral histories relating dollars to get Joe and Matt to Italy. The filmmakers made great to food and establishing an outreach program that identifies use of their time and your donations. While on the continent, both interviewers and subjects. And, of course, we see that they jetted to Barcelona for an interview with Richard person in the field, doing interviews. Thanks Nick; thanks Schweid, which will appear in film two of the Fertel series. Jim ’N Nick’s. SFA Contributors DAMON LEE FOWLER, food columnist for the Savannah Morning Hunger Overcome? News, is president of the Southern Foodways Alliance. A teacher By Andrew Warnes. University of Georgia Press, $19.95 and culinary historian, he is the author of, among other works, Damon Lee Fowler’s New Southern Kitchen and Classical Southern African American writers have consistently drawn connec- Cooking: A Celebration of the Cuisine of the Old South. tions between hunger and illiteracy, argues Warnes, a lecturer THOMAS HEAD is the Washingtonian magazine’s executive wine and in American history at Leeds University. They have also made food editor and one of its restaurant reviewers. He writes regularly for connections between food and reading. Herein he explores the Washingtonian and other publications on food, drink, and travel. the conflict and complement of malnutrition and abundance HENRY MENCKEN, a native of Maryland, writes about food and manifest in African American writing. Zora Neale Hurston, drink for a number of publications. This is his first review for the Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison all figure in his work. Southern Register. Warnes believes hunger to be political. Interwoven with KRISTA REESE, a former editor with both Atlanta magazine and the analysis of the previously mentioned writers, he references the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a widely published freelance writer slave autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, who has contributed articles to People, Bon Appétite, Southern Ntozake Shange’s memoir If I Can Cook / You Know God Can, Living, and George. Horace Cayton and St. Clair Drake’s Black Metropolis, and JEFF SIEGEL, a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Stanley Kramer’s film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Northwestern University, has authored six books, and his writing HENRY MENCKEN has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Gourmet, and Travel & Leisure. Jambalaya: Eating the Real Thing in the Jambalaya Capital of the World Finally, the truth, so no one will ever ly roots in the Spanish paella—the pick up the flavor of the chicken fat, and have to suffer through school-lunch- short-grain rice, seafood, and saffron finally add rice and water. Then, room-quality jambalaya ever again. dish that is common throughout the depending on the heat of the fire, cook “If you put tomatoes in jambalaya, Iberian Peninsula. until the rice is tender. It’s the variations you’ll ruin it,” says Wally Tallion, and it’s In Gonzales, on the other hand, the in that process, he says, that separate the his job to know, for he is the president of championship cook-off mandates chick- also-rans from the champions. Last year, the Jambalaya Festival Association in en and long-grain rice only (though 101 men and women competed, and 20 Gonzales, Louisiana, which will hold its there are other, nonchampionship made the finals. 37th annual world championship cook- events that allow pork and seafood And Tallion offers one piece of advice off over Memorial Day weekend. “Our products). In addition, each contestant to anyone, professionals included, who good Louisiana rice won’t cook properly has to stick to an 11-ingredient supple- hope to make it to the finals: “I look at if there are tomatoes in it.” mental list that’s so basic it’s astound- the TV,” he says, “and these are well- Hence the brown jambalaya standard. ing—salt, pepper, white onions, cooking known cooks, and they’re throwing in The red kind (with tomatoes) might be oil, hot sauce, and the like. No secret- yellow bell peppers and red bell peppers okay 40 miles or so downriver in New formula mixes are allowed, and no red and green bell peppers. How are they Orleans, but not in Gonzales, where onions or parsley, either. going to taste the good chicken flavor they take their jambalaya much more Each contestant’s goal, says Tallion, is with all those bell peppers in there?” Or seriously. The emphasis is on rice and to let the chicken flavor permeate the with tomatoes, either. chicken—hen on the bone, insists entire dish. To that end, a typical pot Tallion—cooked outdoors in a cast iron will have 45 pounds of chicken, 15 JEFF SIEGAL pot over a wood fire. pounds of rice, and 15 pounds of onions. This is quite different from cookbook Usually, but not always, contestants will This year’s Jambalaya Festival will be jambalaya, which allows not only for brown the chicken, then add the onions held May 28 through 30. For the schedule tomatoes, but for sausage, seafood, and and other seasonings (green bell pepper, and further information, see www.jambal- any variety of vegetables and seasonings. celery, green onions, and garlic, in sub- ayafestival.org. In this, the recipes reflect the dish’s like- servient proportion to the onions) to Food for Thought Spoonbread and Strawberry New Soul Cooking Wine: Recipes and By Tanya Holland. Stewart, Tabori & Reminiscences of a Family Chang, $30. By Norma Jean and Carole Darden. For Tanya Holland, chef and co- Holland’s recipes, illustrated by splen- Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, owner of Le Theater, a French restau- did photographs by Ellen Silverman, $18.95. rant in Berkeley, California, and regular range from African recipes such as It is hard to believe that this ground- host of the Food Network Melting Pot groundnut stew to new treatments of breaking modern classic is already 25 Soul Kitchen, the term “soul food” refers traditional soul food dishes—okra tem- years old: it is still as fresh and lovely as it to “the foods common in African- pura and peppered gruyëre baked grits was when it first appeared—perhaps even American communities that connect and raspberry grit parfaits—that some lovelier, thanks to a new edition in cele- people to their shared roots.” In addition might argue stretch the term “soul food” bration of its quarter century of success. to the foods of the American South, into meaninglessness. But many of the Harlem Moon, a division of Broadway soul food incorporates influences from recipes are appealing and imaginative, Books, has printed a handsome and afford- Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Her and the book would have been even able softcover book with a broad page for- interpretation of this cooking is influ- better with more careful editing. It’s a mat that is practical in the kitchen (it lies enced by her French training—cooking collection that owes more to the sensi- flat when you cook from it) and yet good with seasonal and fresh ingredients— bilities of a gifted cook than to any strict looking enough for the coffee table. It is a and her preference for a more health- definitions imposed by ethnicity or great reason to get reacquainted with this conscious approach to traditional geography. timeless classic, and for acquainting a new Southern foods. THOMAS HEAD generation with it, too.

DAMON LEE FOWLER Harold’s BBQ: The White Man’s Blues, Stew & ’Cue

If country music is the white man’s erations that run the place, outlasting ribs are anemic little things, tasty but blues, then Harold’s Barbecue in Atlanta segregation, the Talmadge dynasty, and skinny as a supermodel. Harold’s is its culinary expression. Harold’s origi- pay phones? Also: I can never visit Brunswick stew, on the other hand, is a nal location, which opened in 1947 in Harold’s without wanting to order a thick, smoky symphony of pork, chick- south Atlanta, comprises every element glass of buttermilk from the menu. With en, tomato and corn, perfect with the of the perfect country music song. As cornbread crumbled in it, it’s always lace-edged cracklin’ cornbread. That’s David Allen Coe says in “You Never been my own mom’s favorite dessert. right—you can still find cornbread with Even Call Me By My Name,” those Today, Harold’s serves as touchstone these little fat bombs of flavor, reminis- include Mama, trucks, a train, prison, as much as restaurant, with as diverse a cent of porky raisins. rain, and getting drunk. With the excep- crowd as you’re likely to find in Atlanta. The waitresses are lightning-fast in tion of the last, Harold’s Barbecue is It’s a favorite of Atlanta University fac- their sockless Keds, and really do say about all these things. The strongest ulty and guvmint workers, cops and things like “It’s so good your tongue will drink you’re likely to find here is iced truck drivers, grandparents and kids. slap your brain.” Window unit air-con- tea, but it’s so sweet it can perm your Lots of folks come for the chopped pork, ditioners wheeze away, oblivious to out- hair. Harold’s has everything else —and and you’ll usually find Lee Hembree at a side temperatures. The whole place it’s not a bad place to nurse a hangover. worn chopping block, working away at bears the ochre stain of wood-smoke, In an industrial section of town where the smoked hams. Harold Hembree Jr., and the decorations run to old Saturday heavy trucks pockmark the streets, son of the original owner and now in his Evening Post covers, corny cartoons, and you’ll have to cross the railroad tracks to 70s, is behind the cash register, and a sis- religious homilies. “If you have time to get there—no matter where you’re com- ter, Kay, works there too. pray,” one says, “God has time to listen.” ing from. Atlanta’s federal penitentiary Harold’s uses an electric cooker, but The only thing different from a coun- is so close it nearly overshadows the lit- finishes the pork and eye-of-round beef try music song is that a visit to Harold’s tle building with the crooked smoke- over hickory coals. You can request a bit always has a happy ending. stack and barred windows. Harold’s is of outside meat, or a mix, to get your fix Harold’s Barbecue, 171 McDonough best on cold, rainy days, because the best of carbon. Sandwiches come on lightly Boulevard (at Lakewood), Atlanta; 404- dish here, hands down, is the thick-as- toasted white bread with a Monarch dill 627-9268. Open Monday through the-Okefenokee stew. “But what about pickle. Aficionados know to order them Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Mama?” you might ask. As if any true with the slightly sweet slaw on top. The Southerner could leave her out: Who sauce is tomato-based and lightly vine- KRISTA REESE else could have produced the three gen- gary.I like the barbecue here, but the

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, VISIT US AT OUR WEB SITE: www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/foodways or call John T. Edge, SFA Director, at 662.915.5993 or via email at [email protected] 2004 Oxford Conference for the Book

With author readings, book signing parties, panel discussions, a catfish din- ner, and a live radio show, the University’s 11th Oxford Conference for the Book, April 1-4, proved a huge success for attendees—book lovers and leading writers from around the country. Appearing at the 11th conference, dedicated to novelist Walker Percy, were humorist Roy Blount Jr., editor Gary Fisketjon, publisher Jonathan Galassi, novelist Kaye Gibbons, journal- ist Sebastian Junger, poet William Jay Smith, 2003-04 John and Renée Doug McLean Fifth graders from Oxford Middle School Patrick O’Connor performing a skit based on Mildred D. Margaret McMullan, author of In My Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mother’s House and How I Found the Strong for the Study of Southern Culture, the Grisham Writer in Residence Janisse conference’s primary sponsor, along with Ray, and Newbery Award-winner Oxford’s Square Books. “Percy proved to Mildred D. Taylor, among many others. be an unusually popular writer to In addition to honoring Percy with honor—he has so many passionate fans presentations and discussions focusing who were here—and honoring Mildred on his life and work, the conference also D. Taylor, such a renowned author for honored Taylor, who was born in young readers, enabled us to create a Jackson, with the celebration of Mildred new connection with children all over D. Taylor Day in Mississippi, on April 2. the state.”

Newsweek “This year’s conference went beyond To recognize Taylor—who has written Jon Meacham, managing editor of anything we’ve ever done,” said Charles nine award-winning novels for young Newsweek and author of Franklin and Reagan Wilson, director of the Center adults—more than 500 students from Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship Marion Ettlinger

Beverly Lowry, novelist, biographer, and Doug McLean director of the Creative Nonfiction Mary Pratt Percy Lobdell, daughter of Walker Percy, to whom the 2005 conference was Program at George Mason University dedicated, talks with Campbell McCool (right) at Isom Place dinner as Clarke Reed listens.

Page 24 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Doug McLean Raven Bur char d

Janisse Ray, 2003-2004 Grisham Writer at the University of Mississippi

schools in the Oxford area and as far Curtis Wilkie away as West Point and the Delta gath- (left) and Roy ered at the Ford Center for Performing Blount Jr. Arts to see a skit from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and hear Taylor speak (right) Gary about how the book came to be pub- Fisketjon, vice lished. Also at the Ford Center, the president and writer accepted the proclamation signed editor at large at Alfred A. by Governor Haley Barbour declaring Knopf, and April 2 Mildred D. Taylor Day statewide. Julia Reed Additional conference events includ- during a panel

ed the opening of the Mississippi moderated by McLean Doug Mystery Writers Exhibition at the John Barry Hannah Davis Williams Library; a down-home musical performance by the group Reckon Crew, featuring songs adapted among other Southern works; and a spe- conference and included a tour of the from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, cial on-campus broadcast of Thacker writer’s gardens and discussions of her Mountain Radio, the weekly live radio work. program produced by Square Books. Next year’s Oxford Conference for The show featured a reading by Taylor the Book will take place April 7-9 and is and a surprise performance by legendary dedicated to the life and works of rocker Elvis Costello, in town recording Flannery O’Connor.

Sarah Dabney Gillespie at an Oxford studio. “One aspect that I really like about Conference organizers also scheduled the Oxford conference is that the people two extra events this year in an effort to in attendance seem to understand books offer a full week of literary activities. not simply as entertainment or business Preceding the conference was a three- but books as momentous things—as day literary tour of the Delta, featuring vehicles of epiphany and social change journalist Julia Reed and novelist and art,” said Janisse Ray. “Books are Beverly Lowry, both of whom also served important at the level of marrow.” as panelists in Oxford. A two-day Eudora Welty program in Jackson followed the JENNIFER SOUTHALL 2004 Oxford Conference for the Book Sponsored by the University of Mississippi, Barksdale Reading Institute, Junior Auxiliary of Oxford, Lafayette County Literacy Council, and Square Books. Partially funded by a contribution from the R&B Feder Foundation for the Beaux Arts and Pat Stevens and Baxter Knowlton, the grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tribal State Compact Fund, artist who painted Walker Percy portrait for conference program and poster the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council.

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 25 Spring Literary Tours

In an effort to provide a full week of literary events for booklovers, the Center this spring scheduled two special functions in conjunction with the 2004 Oxford Conference for the Book— a lit- erary tour of the Mississippi Delta and a program on Eudora Welty in Jackson. The Delta literary tour, organized by the Center and the Viking Range Corporation, took place March 29 to April 1, preceding the conference, while the Center joined with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History–with the assistance of a National Endowment for the Arts grant–to offer the Welty event April 4 and 5, immediately following the con- ference. On the first leg of the Delta tour, par- Sarah Dabney Gillespie ticipants had the opportunity to explore Pictured at the Percy home in Greenville are (from left) Lisa Percy, Jim McMullan and Carlette McMullan, and Billy Percy Greenwood, the town where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson was put to rest and where playwright Endesha Ida hotel operated by Viking, served as Greenville residents joined the group at Mae Holland spent her youth. home base for the entire trip. the William Alexander Percy Library to Scheduled among the literary stops were The second day of the tour was spent hear literary scholar Kenneth Holditch breaks for barbecue and other favorite exploring Greenville, home of William present “The Athens of the South: Delta foods and, of course, live blues. Alexander Percy,Walker Percy, Shelby Walker Percy and His Circle.” After Additionally, Greenwood’s Alluvian Foote, and novelist Beverly Lowry, who lunch at the home of Lisa and Billy Hotel, the critically acclaimed boutique was on hand for the tour. Many Percy, Hugh McCormick gave a brief history of Greenville, and Mary Dayle McCormick and Princella Wilkerson Nowell led tours of the city and the epi Smith Jeepsie Sarah Dabney Gillespie

Nancy Ashley (right) with Willie Seaberry, operator of Po’ Monkey Lounge Franke Keating (left) and Allen Linton at the Percy home near Marigold, Mississippi

Page 26 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Jeepsie Smith Courtesy Mississippi Depar tment ofchives Ar and Histor y

Touring the newly opened Welty garden Kenneth Holditch and Tay Gillespie in Clarksdale at St. George’s Episcopal Church, where Tennessee Williams’s Patti Carr Black (left) and Tay Gillespie grandfather was rector for many years in the Welty garden

Greenville Cemetery. The day ended at imagery that Eudora wrote about in her McCormick Book Inn, where stories,” said Mary Alice Welty White, Greenville authors signed copies of their Welty’s niece and the home’s curator. books, bluesman Eddie Cusic performed, Later that evening, Welty partici- and members of the Greenville Arts pants enjoyed dinner at the Old Capitol Council served refreshments. Inn while listening to a talk on Welty’s The final day of the tour was dedicat- achievements by Peggy Whitman ed to Clarksdale, where Tennessee Prenshaw and a reading of “Petrified Williams spent much of his early child- Man” by actor John Maxwell. The pro- hood. There, Holditch discussed the gram concluded the following morning playwright and led a tour of sites con- with a tour of the new William Winter nected to his life and work. Luther Archives and History Building, a talk

Brown and Henry Outlaw, of Delta Sarah Dabney Gillespie about the Welty Collections by her State University, joined the group as anyone who visits to admire or take part biographer Suzanne Marrs, and a review guides for visits to Money, Ruleville, in the abundance of literary culture.” of plans for public programming at the Drew, Parchman, Rome, Tutwiler, and An abundance of literary culture can Welty House by Patti Carr Black. “With other Delta communities. Lunch in also be found at 1119 Pinehurst, the the garden and Eudora’s correspon- Clarksdale was at Ground Zero, with address of Eudora Welty’s Jackson home. dence, awards and other papers, Eudora’s music by Big T. Although the house where Welty spent home will be one of the most complete “The Delta has a rich history of music more than 76 years will not open for literary home museums in the country and food,” said Jimmy Thomas, a Delta some time, the garden that Welty main- once it’s restored. Everything is right native and guide for the Greenville part tained with her mother, Chestina there,” said Welty White. of the tour. “But just as important is its Andrews Welty, opened April 3. On The garden will be open one day a rich literary history.” Thomas, who Sunday, April 4, archival gardener week until the Welty House opens as a serves as managing editor for the new Susan Haltom led a private tour of the museum. The garden is now open edition of the Encyclopedia of Southern garden for Welty program participants. Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Culture, said that Greenville, in the Welty’s fiction alludes to more than 150 Admission is free, but reservations are heart of the Delta, has produced more varieties of plant species, many of which required. To make a reservation, e-mail writers per capita than any other city in grew in the garden created by Welty’s [email protected] or call the United States. And that’s a fact the mother. The garden has now been 601-353-7762. people of the Delta are happy to share. restored to its 1940s look, based on doc- “The people of the Delta are very proud umentation found in the Welty home. JENNIFER SOUTHALL of what comes from there, and they’re “To see the garden itself—the flowers also very inviting and appreciative of and plants—evokes passages and

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 27 Notes from the Fire Tower Radio Hour i Higgins Jim Angela Watkins, a Southern Studies graduate student, reports on her first year as assistant to the popular radio show broadcast live in Oxford and rebroadcast on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Another year of Thacker Mountain Radio came to a close this spring with much to look forward to in the future. But, before we move ahead to future guests, venues, and predictions, I’d like to reflect on the past year of Thursday evenings spent at Off Square Books. The fall season kicked off with writer Sena Jeter Naslund and performances by Duff Durrough and the fantastic Jones Sisters. Other highlights include energetic musical performances by the Drive-By-Truckers, Marshall Chapman, and heartthrobs Dave and Serge Bielanko of Marah. Writers ranged from Neal Pollack and his rock and roll outlaws to T. J. Stiles and his biography of outlaw Jesse James. The English Department’s MFA in Creative Writing joined us as a local sponsor and, as a pitch on the show, poet Beth Ann Fennelly composed a poem about the program. The season came to a close with hometown hero Barry Hannah reading a special piece. If the director of the MFA program closes one season, the Grisham Writer in Residence should open the next. Writer Janisse Ray opened the spring season with an essay on activism that roused some audience members to a standing ovation. Perhaps the biggest show to hit Oxford was the April Oxford Elvis Costello (seated, front) with two members of his band Conference for the Book program featuring Roy Blount Jr., Tom House, and Mildred D. Taylor. As if those names weren’t enough, Elvis Costello made a surprise appearance and Mayor Richard Performing Arts at the University. As Thacker Mountain Radio Howorth presented a proclamation in his honor. That show left settles into statewide coverage on Mississippi Public the Thacker crew wondering, “How do we top that one?” Broadcasting, we have begun a statewide promotional cam- But, rest assured, Thacker Mountain Radio will top that one. paign to spread the word about Oxford’s “fire tower radio hour.” Each year brings talent, new and old, to Oxford and provides a Often overlooked are the weekly elements of the show, the venue for writing and music, two of Oxford’s greatest assets. “glue” that holds Thacker Mountain upright. Taylor Grocery This summer, a remote broadcast has been planned in June for Band always plays a solid set on the show and, coupled with the the Yoknapatawpha Film Festival in the Ford Center for the wit of host Jim Dees, provides a firm base that can complement Friends of Thacker Mountain Thacker Mountain Radio • c/o Square Books • 160 Courthouse Square • Oxford, MS 38655 I would like to become a Friend of Thacker Mountain and am including a season donation of J $40 J $10 (student) J Other $_____ (Please make checks payable to Friends of Thacker Mountain.)

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Page 28 Spring 2004 The Southern Register New Ventress Order Member The Center is pleased to welcome Peter Frost as a new mem- ber of the Ventress Order, which administers gifts for the bene- fit of the College of Liberal Arts. A visiting professor of history and senior research associate with the Croft Institute for International Studies, Frost divided his Ventress Order gift between the Center and Ole Miss’s international stud- ies program. Frost joins 10 other order members who have opted to support the Center with their gifts. Frost, who joined the order in honor of Center director Charles Reagan Wilson, said he did so because he is longtime admirer

Jamie Kornegay x 2 of Wilson’s scholar- ship and of the activities of the Center itself. “I’m a Japan historian Peter Frost (above) Ed Dye but like studying different cultures,” Frost said. “It’s useful for us to see different (left) Elmore Leonard regional cultures and we’re all the better for it. It enriches us to be able to see the cultural divisions of our country.” In addition to his current post at Ole Miss, Frost is the any guest, from Claire Frederick L. Schuman Professor of International Relations Holley to Elvis Costello. Emeritus at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Next year, Bryan Frost, who earned undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees Ledford, leader of the from Harvard University, has held several positions in the Taylor Grocery Band Association of Asian Studies and is currently an associate editor and Jamie Kornegay, for the AAS journal Education about Asia. He also currently runs director and producer, hope to use more of Mississippi’s a nationally funded program for Mississippi teachers on Asia. resources by providing the show as a venue for statewide tal- Named in honor of James Alexander Ventress, a founding ent, both obscure and well known. father of the university, the Ventress Order encourages recog- The potential of Thacker Mountain Radio only increases as nition of the College of Liberal Arts as one of the country’s each season passes. We could never reach our full potential outstanding centers of learning. College of Liberal Arts gradu- without the generous gifts and support of our sponsors and the ates, family members, friends, or organizations may join the community. Without these contributions, Thacker Mountain order and designate their gifts to particular departments or pro- would only be a great idea, not a weekly reality. To continue grams within the college. Corporate and full individual mem- this Oxford tradition, we need the help of our friends. If you berships are available by pledging $10,000 and $5,000 enjoy Thacker Mountain Radio, either as a member of our live respectively. Gifts are payable in lump sums or installments not audience every Thursday evening at Off Square Books, or as a to exceed 10 years. Affiliate memberships are also available listener on Bullseye 95.5 or the stations of Mississippi Public through a pledge of $1,000, payable in a lump sum or install- Broadcasting, please consider becoming a Friend of Thacker ments not to exceed four years. Mountain. If you are already a Friend, we offer our sincerest For more information on joining the Ventress Order for gratitude. Please continue that support in helping establish Southern Studies, please contact the Center’s advancement Thacker Mountain Radio as an artistic asset to Oxford, associate, Angelina Altobellis, by calling 800-340-9542 or e- Mississippi, and, perhaps in the future, the nation. mailing [email protected].

ANGELA WATKINS JENNIFER SOUTHALL

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 29 Center Takes Studying South in New Directions

Thinking about the South, and rethinking what we have related to the U.S. South: the Civil War, the civil rights move- already thought, is the job of scholars in Southern Studies. ment, the dividing lines of race, class, and gender. Rather, “The U.S. South in Global Contexts,” an interdisciplinary thinking of the South as both locally grounded and globally symposium held February 13-15, 2004, in Barnard Observatory, connected only widens the avenues of study that make up did just that: it provided the opportunity for scholars to rethink Southern Studies and deepens our sense of regional histories. some of the traditional assumptions guiding the study of the “We cannot understand the U.S. South,” pointed out keynote American South. The 32 symposium participants from all over speaker Marshall Eakin, “unless we recognize that global forces the nation returned to some fundamental questions: Where is created and have always shaped its histories, societies, and cul- “the South”? What makes it distinctive? What constitutes a tures. . . . The region first begins to emerge as a definable enti- sense of regional identity? By posing these questions, pushing ty out of the clash of empires, peoples, and civilizations in the at national borders, and using a variety of theoretical approach- sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” Now, in the 21st centu- es, participants of “The U.S. South in Global Contexts” tack- ry, we find ourselves in what symposium participant Jon Smith led many issues immediately relevant to both American and called “the most vibrant time in Southern studies,” one that Southern Studies. relies upon global connections and interdisciplinarity in trying As one participant, Deborah Cohn, put it, the symposium to understand any patch of Southern soil. foregrounds the idea that defining America and not just the Unlike traditional academic conferences, in which speakers South is always relative: “we are in the Americas whether we read at length from prepared papers, this symposium featured a are in Mississippi or Cuba or Brazil.” By exploring links series of roundtable discussions that brought together scholars between the U.S. South and other Souths, we can consider the from more than 25 different institutions. Academic conversa- role of regional identity in a hemispheric context. Doing so tion and debate focused on five broad topics: “Theoretical does not diminish the importance of more established topics Changes/Directional Shifts in Southern Studies,” “Rethinking Mar y Beth Lasseter The “Southern Studies in the Institution” panel considers how to John Lowe, LSU; Patrick O’Donnell, Michigan State University; overcome systemic obstacles to genuinely interdisciplinary study. Anita Patterson, Boston University; and Charles Wilson, From left to right: George Handley, roundtable anchor, Brigham University of Mississippi. Young University; Monika Kaup, University of Washington;

Page 30 Spring 2004 The Southern Register Symposium participants remaining on Sunday morning gather in front of Barnard Observatory for an unexpected glimpse of Southern snow. From left to right: Row 1: Kathryn McKee, University of Mississippi; Anita Patterson, Boston University; Deborah Cohn, Indiana University-Bloomington; Earl Fitz, Vanderbilt University; Eric Anderson, Oklahoma State University; John Lowe, LSU; Barbara Ladd, Emory University. Row 2: Tara McPherson, University of Southern California; Jon Smith, University of Montevallo; Natalie Ring, Tulane University; Leigh Ann Duck, University of Memphis; Peter Schmidt, Swarthmore College. Row 3: George Handley, Brigham Young University; Marshall Eakin, Vanderbilt University; Monika Kaup, University of Washington; Gray Kane, University of Mississippi. Row 4: Patrick O’Donnell, Michigan State University; Jay Watson, University of Mississippi; Hosam Aboul- Ela, University of Houston. Row 5: John Matthews, Boston University; Susan Donaldson, College of William and Mary, Annette Trefzer, University of Mississippi; Katie Henninger, LSU; Riché Richardson, University of California at Davis.

and Latin America from the disciplinary perspectives of histo- Mar y Beth Lasseter ry and comparative literature. Southern Communities,” “Other Souths,” “Southern Studies Rounding out the conference, the final two roundtables in the Institution,” and “Teaching the New Southern Studies.” shifted from theory to current practices in Southern Studies. The symposium additionally featured two plenary addresses, Composed of regional studies directors from programs around one by Karla Holloway, Professor of English and African the country, the panel on “Southern Studies in the Institution” American Studies and Dean of Humanities and Social explored the challenges of new and expanded definitions of the Sciences at Duke University, and a second by Marshall C. “South” to their respective academic programs. The sympo- Eakin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University. Holloway’s sium ended on Sunday morning with “Teaching the New timely talk, “South Looking South: Surveillance, Science and Southern Studies,” a panel on which many participants shared Homeland [In]Securities” was the highlight of conference information on courses they had taught about the South. events on Friday, and Eakin’s presentation, “When South Is Panelists also discussed strategies that would allow teachers to North: The U.S. South from the Perspective of a Brazilianist,” reach beyond the simple binary of U.S. South versus U.S. was the featured keynote speech at Saturday’s luncheon. Both North. Throughout the conference weekend, scholars repeat- speakers addressed an audience composed of academics, inter- edly returned to questions about how to reframe the South the- ested community members, and students, a number of whom oretically, and they had exciting conversations about the value were enrolled in a graduate seminar devoted to the sympo- and use of postcolonial theory in situating the U.S. South as sium’s topic. At the event’s most robust moment, during both a colonized and colonizing force in the national and Holloway’s keynote address, there were more than one hun- international arena. Sponsored by a variety of departments and dred people in attendance. constituencies on campus, including the Center for the Study The individual roundtable discussions, however, really con- of Southern Culture, the Department of English, the Sally stituted the heart of the conference by offering a forum for pre- McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the Croft Institute for senting work in progress and for engaging in scholarly debate. International Studies, the College of Liberal Arts, the Office of Each panel participant offered brief opening remarks before the Provost, the Graduate School, the Office of Research, involving the audience at large. In the panel on “Theoretical African-American Studies, and Gender Studies, “The U.S. Changes,” scholars addressed topics ranging from William South in Global Contexts” attracted top scholars and success- Faulkner’s continued relevance in the study of a broadly fully anchored one of the most exciting cutting-edge exchanges defined America to the operating principles of one of the U.S. about Southern Studies here at the University of Mississippi. South’s most famous corporations, Wal-Mart. Panelists also You can now hear and see selected proceedings of the sym- reviewed current challenges to the definition of “Southern lit- posium at www.southernspaces.org. Keep an eye out for a erature” and “Southern authors,” and they urged the audience cumulative bibliography, as well as a publication of symposium to be mindful of our continued need to remain attentive to proceedings, which the event’s directors, University of black/white tensions in the region’s literary output. In the Mississippi professors Kathryn McKee and Annette Trefzer, panel on “Rethinking Southern Communities,” scholars con- plan to make available soon. sidered the roles of Latin Americans and Native Americans in shaping both the historic and the contemporary South. KATHRYN MCKEE Panelists who participated in the discussion of “Other Souths” ANNETTE TREFZER explored connections between the U.S. South, the Caribbean,

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 31 In Memoriam Murry Cuthbert Bern Keating Joan Williams “Chooky” Falkner II May 14, 1915 - September 26, 1928 - November 22, 1928 - March 8, 2004 April 11, 2004 April 23, 2004 Center Reception in Natchez In a continuing effort to take the Center and Ole Miss into communities throughout Mississippi, the Center in February hosted a wine and cheese reception in Natchez. Occurring in conjunction with the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, the February 28 reception allowed Center faculty, staff, and advisory members to interact with some 150 guests and discuss vari- ous Center programs. Attending the event from the Center were Director Charles Reagan Wilson, Associate Director Ann Abadie, Director of Documentary Projects David Wharton, and Advancement Associate Angelina Altobellis. Also present were event co-organizers and Advisory Committee members Carolyn Vance Smith and Sherry Jones, both of Natchez. Besides having the opportunity to view photographs by David Wharton and hear a live musical performance by Natchez native Tricia Walker, guests also had the chance to add their names to the Center’s mailing list and pick up copies of the Southern Register and the Ole Miss Alumni Review as well as litera- ture on April’s Conference for the Book and the 2004 Faulkner Conference, which takes place July 25-29.

JENNIFER SOUTHALL

Page 32 Spring 2004 The Southern Register continued from page 1 Mildred D. Taylor Day

Chancellor Robert Khayat, Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies Ethel Young-Minor, Mississippi Library Commission Executive Director Sharman Bridges Smith, and Policy Advisor to the Governor Jason S. Dean. A skit from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, adapted and per- formed by Oxford schoolchildren, was especially well received by the Ford Center audience, which included some 500 area fifth graders. Sporting orange Mildred D. Taylor Day T-shirts, the fifth graders had all received copies of Roll of Thunder thanks to the Lafayette County Literacy Council, the Oxford A major exhibition presented by the Historic New Orleans Junior Auxiliary, and the Central Elementary PTA. Collection returned home after 10 weeks in Paris and will be on dis-

ei anUiest fMississippi of Bain/University Kevin play in New Orleans through October 9, 2004. The exhibition, From Louis XIV to Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Tapestry, showcases more than 100 objects from the Collection’s vast holdings related to Louisiana’s rich history and culture. Major themes highlighted in the exhibition are colonial history, the development of 19th-century New Orleans, the visual arts from 1870 to 1940, and jazz. From Louis XIV to Louis Armstrong is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, except holidays, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 533 Royal Street and at the Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street. For more information and a schedule of free Wednesday afternoon gallery talks, call 504-523-4662 or visit the Web site (www.hnoc.org/). d “Talk to the Music Festival: Arna Bontemps and the Spirit of Central Louisiana” will take place in Alexandria-Pineville, October 7- 17, 2004. A symposium on Arna Bontemps, native son of Alexandria and a major figure of the Harlem Renaissance, is set for October 13-16, Mildred D. Taylor (center) displays a framed proclamation by with members of the author’s family, his principal biographer, and oth- Governor Haley Barbour declaring April 2, 2004, Mildred D. ers as speakers. Another highlight of the festival will be the world pre- Taylor Day in Mississippi. With Taylor are (left) Sharman Bridges Smith, executive director of the Mississippi Library miere of noted African American composer William Banfield’s Commission, and Jason Dean, policy advisor for Governor symphony based on passages from Bontemps poems. The Rapides Barbour. Symphony Orchestra will perform the work on October 16 (evening) and 17 (matinee) with a narrator, a hundred voice community choir, The highlight of the ceremony, though, was Taylor herself, and featured pianist Ellis Marsalis. Other festival events will include a who movingly spoke about how Roll of Thunder came to be chamber music concert at St. James Episcopal Church and music in published and how she knew she would win the Newbery. other area churches; performances of a play, The Delany Sisters: Having Not sure how to finish the book, the words of the song “Roll Our Say; and the opening of an exhibition of African American artists of Thunder”came to Taylor, she said, as she was doing laun- at the Alexandria Museum of Art, to run through December. For dry in her parents’ Ohio home. Taylor finished her talk by details, check www.talktothemusic.com. singing a verse from the spiritual to a rousing standing ova- tion, one of many she received during the celebration of d Mildred D. Taylor Day. The Southern Anthropological Society with hold its annual con- ference at the newly renovated, historic Read House Hotel in JENNIFER SOUTHALL Chattanooga, Tennessee, March 10-13, 2005. The Keynote Symposia theme is “Sustaining and Reimagining Community in a Globalizing World.” These featured, invited panels and papers will explore the myriad ways in which community is expressed and conceptualized today across the world, including the American South. As usual, vol- unteered sessions and papers on any topic employing anthropological Penguin Group Inc. offers (including any disciplinary subfield or interdisciplinary) insights or Mildred D. Taylor methodologies are also welcomed. General Calls for Papers and con- teachers guides on the Web ference details will follow in the summer and fall. For periodic updates us.penguingroup.com/static/packages/us/yread visit the SAS home page: www.smcm.edu/sas/. Address questions by ers-new/tl-guide-landmildredtaylor.html e-mail to Program Chairs Betty J. Duggan ([email protected] and [email protected]) and Steve Folmar ([email protected]).

The Southern Register Spring 2004 Page 33 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

MARK CAMARIGG practiced law in California for several JENNIFER SOUTHALL is a communications specialist for years before moving to Mississippi in 2002 to study the Office of Media and Public Relations at the University Southern history, work for Living Blues magazine as a grad- of Mississippi. She taught high school English and worked uate assistant, visit jook joints, and soak up Southern cul- as a magazine editor before returning to the University, ture. In the spring of 2004, he became publications where she received a BA in English. manager of Living Blues. JIMMY THOMAS is managing editor of a new edition of the RICHARD FORGETTE is professor and chair of political sci- Center’s Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. He received BA ence at the University of Mississippi. He holds a PhD degrees in English and philosophy at the University of from the University of Rochester and previously served as Mississippi and has worked for publications in Oxford and assistant chair at Miami University-Ohio. His research New York. specialization is the U.S. Congress and public policy. ANNETTE TREFZER is assistant professor of English at the JOAN WYLIE HALL teaches in the English Department at University of Mississippi. She recently completed her the University of Mississippi. She is the author of Shirley book manuscript “Native Americans and National Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction and articles on Anxieties in Literature of the Southern Renaissance.” Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Grace King, She is coeditor of Reclaiming Native American Identities and Frances Newman, and other authors. author of several essays on Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and other authors. DONALD M. KARTIGANER holds the William Howry Chair in Faulkner Studies at the University of Mississippi ANGELA WATKINS, a second-year graduate student in and is director of the Faulkner Conference. He is the Southern Studies, is assistant producer for Thacker author of The Fragile Thread: The Meaning of Form in Mountain Radio. She is a talented musician who sings, Faulkner’s Novels and is near completion of a book-length plays the banjo and guitar, and writes songs and music. study, “Repetition Forward: A Theory of Modernist After receiving a BA in English literature from the Reading.” University of the South in 2002, she spent a year working at an environmental education preserve in the mountains KATHRYN MCKEE is McMullan associate professor of of North Carolina. Southern Studies and associate professor of English at the University of Mississippi. She has published essays and BLAND WHITLEY, a Southern Studies alumnus (MA lectured about writers of the 19th- and 20th-century 1996), recently earned his PhD in history from the South, including William Faulkner, Ellen Glasgow, University of Florida. His dissertation was entitled Bobbie Ann Mason, and Sherwood Bonner. “Precious Memories: Narratives of the Democracy in Mississippi, 1865-1915.” He lives in Atlanta with his wife REBECCA LARCHE MORETON is retired from the and fellow Southern Studies alum Sarah Torian. Department of Modern Languages at the University of Mississippi, where she taught French and linguistics. Her CHARLES REAGAN WILSON is director of the Center and dissertation (Tulane University, 2001) is a linguistic study professor of history and Southern Studies. Among his of Mississippi Gulf French, a variety spoken in the vicini- publications are Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost ty of Delisle, near Pass Christian, Mississippi. Cause and Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis. NASH MOLPUS received her MA in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi in May 2004. She received her undergraduate degree at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She is presently working as an intern at the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.

TED OWNBY holds a joint appointment in Southern Studies and History. He is the author of Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1965- 1920 and American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, a Poverty, and Culture, 1830-1998.

Page 34 Spring 2004 The Southern Register For a complete list of posters, cds, videos, and other items, see the Southern Culture Southern Culture Catalog Catalog on our Web Site The University of Mississippi International Orders Barnard Observatory • University, MS 38677 Other video formats Phone 800-390-3527 • Fax 662-915-5814 may be available. POSTER Please call for information. The Sixth Oxford Conference for the Book Sold To: Poster (1999) Poster features Name Eudora Welty portrait by Address Mildred Nungester Wolfe City State Zip from the National Portrait Gallery, Country Smithsonian Institution, Daytime Phone Washington, D.C. J Payment enclosed (check, money order, international money order in U.S. currency or international check drawn on a US bank; made payable to The Southern Culture Catalog) J Charge my: J Visa J MasterCard Account # Full color, 17.5 x 23.5” M9901 ...... $10.00 Exp. Date Signature Friends...... $9.00 How To Order Delivery By mail: Southern Culture Catalog Orders for delivery in the continental United 29th Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Barnard Observatory • The University of States are shipped by US Postal Service unless Conference Poster (2002) Mississippi • University, MS 38677 other means of delivery are requested. Orders for delivery outside the continental United “Faulkner and His Contemporaries” By e-mail: Credit Card orders only: States are shipped by Parcel Post. Poster is illustrated with Sidney J. Waintrob’s [email protected] image of Eudora Shipping and Handling Costs By telephone: Credit Card orders only: Welty and United States: $3.50 for first video or other item, 800-390-3527 (Monday-Friday, 8:15 William Faulkner $1.00 each additional item sent to the same a.m.-4:45 p.m. CST) in the US. on the occasion address. Foreign: $5.00 for each item. Outside the US call 662-915-5993 of Faulkner’s Posters. United States: $3.50 for any number of receiving the By fax: Credit Card orders only: posters sent to the same address. Foreign: National Institute 662-915-5814 (Daily, 24 hours a day) $10.00 for any number of posters sent to the of Arts and same address. Letters Gold Medal for Fiction All sales are final. No refunds will be made. If an order in May 1962. Return Policy contains faulty or damaged goods, replacements will be made when such items Black & white are returned with problem(s) noted. photograph, mauve background M9901 ...... $10.00 Item # Title/Description Qty. Price Total Friends...... $9.00 CD “The Memory Is a Living Thing” Songs based on the writings of Eudora Welty Lester Senter, mezzo-soprano 1996 ROS Production. SR2001 ...... $16.00 Friends...... $14.40 Songs of Faith: African American Shape Note Order Total Singing from the Deep South, Volume One This form may be Mississippi residents add 7% sales tax Selections from shape note singing conventions photocopied. throughout Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Shipping and Handling SR2002 ...... $16.00 Faxed orders Friends...... $14.40 accepted. TOTAL

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