there is at once a subtle distinguishing quality that can be heard 斤 om one loca- tion tO another—and at the same time a general style and substance that marks the speakers as Southerners. Eventually, inevitably, the powerful currents Of contemporary culture may erase the most salient features Of region- alism ⅲ this diverse land—but if and when that happens, the South and its people may be the last t0 give up their claims tO distinction. Who are the Southerners? Whoever is self-consciously, self-confidently, self- evidently so; whoever claims the title and affirms the description; whoever bears the signs. With a feeling ofcomfort and a sense ofbelongmg, the people ofthe South return tlme and time agam tO their chO- sen land and to the familiar places ofli and work that ⅱⅡ their dreams and stir their memories. In ceremonial circles, they gather andjoin hands with those who never left, the sons and daughters whose stewardship ofthe land, ofthe homeplace, and ofthe workplace has been continuous. With all their human diversity and variety, they are nonetheless one, united by history and myth and the overpowermg presence Oftheir place earth. One and all, once and always, they are the Southerners. Opposite page: んわ〃 4 ハ / 勧の〃仏 72

Acknow1edgements My debt is 甼℃ at indeed to the many people and institutions whO have assisted me in the planning and pro- duction of this book. No successful project that covers this much territory over such a long periOd Of time can be the product of a solitary effort. I am very much obliged to B0b and Lee Anderson for their thoughts on the structure of the book and in helping to select the author. I am also grateful to Oliver and Lisa Houck for their enthusi- astic help in planning my coverage 0f their region and for giving me shelter when needed. I am deeply indebted to Dick Durrance Ⅱ and Steve Uzzell III for their tireless editorial assistance and strong personal support. I was also very fortunate tO have the assistance ofMark Schifrin, who gave so much ofhimself when it was needed most. My deep gratitude goes to the Citizens and Southern Banks, a financial institution with roots fnmly planted in Southern soil and with an abiding appreciation ofthe South and the people who live and work there. Their initialinterest led tO a gener- ous gmantwhich makes this b00k possible. I was pleased and honored to work closely with the C&S staff in several states. A very special thank you goes tO John Haynie,Jr., and to Enoch Prow, as well as tO 、 lr. Bennett Brown who is chairman of C&S for their trust in my ViS1()Il and their 、 Of encourage- ment along the way. 128 A special word of thanks goes to the National Geogmaphic Society and to Bill Garrett, editor, for their permission tO use some Of the images I produced on earlier assignments for them south Of the Mason-Dixon line. Along the way I was supported by many people who gave graciously 0f their time energy, and knowledge. I would like to give a very special thanks to Orissa Arend andJohn Schenken, Ben Chapman, Ron Comedy, Dana Contratto,John Crawford and Kathy Sakas, Ralph and Nonnie Daniel, Kim Davidson Jacques DePuy, Scott and Beth Glass, Critt Graham, Greg and Bubbles Guirard, Panos Kammenos, Rob Kennedy, Sue Lyons and Mark Lyons,Jorge Mom, Dick andJoy ℃ e Murlless and the wonder- ful staffat Wilderness Southeast, David Pemson and Chris Pemson, Wallace Sfi ℃ et, CharIes C. WiIkes, Patricia Young of the Delta Queen Steamship Company, and the many Others. 、 ly tWO assistants during the pro- duction phases were Peter Ⅵ第 andJ0hn MuIIin. As the miles and days went by, they supported me with their good ideas, strong backs, and high energy Without the support and friendship 0fPeter and John, I could never have hoped to cover SO much in SO little time. When all the photos were made and it came time tO design the bOOk, I relied entirely on the extraordinary good taste and fine design 0fBob Cargill and Art Riser ofCargill and Associates, lnc. in Atlanta. Bob, Art, and their talented staff, especially Pam Ei レ en, performed the delicate task of designing the book with consummate skill, remarkable patience, and old-fashioned gracious- ness. I shall long be in their debt. A very special debt must be acknowl- edged to my office manager and col- lea 鵐 Shelley Yerman, who kept the fort going in my long absences and did a yeoman'sJ0b on all the necessary typ- ing and collecting 0f the b00k parts. My hat is also off toJean Andrews ofGraphic Arts Center Publishing Company for her outstanding editing and organizational efforts. Her superior command of the English language as well as her long suffering patience made her efforts critical tO the book's success. Doug Pfeiffer, my editor at Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, has proven to be an excellent b00k producer. His suggestions were always right on the mark. lt was a pleasure tO get tO know and tO work withJohn Egerton, the sensitive and insightful writer 0f the literary side of the book. He responded to the pres- sures and tight deadlines with special grace and silent determination during a difficult time ofhis ⅱ . I am honored to share these pages with him. Last, but perhaps most important, I say a special thanks t0 my wife, Prisca, my son, Will, and my daughter, Prisca. As the days became weeks and then months, it has been their special sense of togetherness and purpose that has unified us all. They were often with me on the road, and when not physically so, their love and spirit sustained me. ー召襯 We 翩Ⅳ

Celebrating the South and its people, S 側 is a movmg portrayal of those things that make up this fascinating, eclectic part of the country. Whether you re from the North or are a South- ern son or daughter, you'll find this collection of photographs warming, stirring, and always memorable. Shot by the well ・ known Southern Ph0tographer BilI Weems, So ん brings the reader on an enthralling Southern adventure—from the thundering fast tracks ofChurchilI Downs to the dusty back roads of1Y Gleaming Atlanta is juxtaposed against fields blanketed in white cotton And through it all is an hon- est feeling ofthings Southern, a heritage felt and treasured by a colorful people who have always enjoyed the regional distinction Oftheir part Of the country.. lt's a11 here, as seen unerringly through the lenses ()fMr. Weems cameras. Bill Weems was born in Atlanta and although he moved to the Middle West when he was a child, he never forgot his Southern roots. He returned tO the Sou 山、 tll e and time again, effectively recapturmg its mag1C and its mysticism in hiS view finder. For those who live in the South, or once did, for those who've never visited, but would love to... S 側 is a celebration 0f a people and a land—romantic expressive, and dynamIC Relive the Southern experience or ex- plore it for the first time with Mr. Weems' compellingly beautiful photographs, each one telling a story … as only a Southerner can. C()ver shOt: 0 面砌 ~ P れ阨 0 れ , &. 乃•al な海 , ん側の .

people—all required unremitting labor. For two and a half centuries, much Of it was slave labor, a fact that influenced the work habits of both black and white Southerners throughout that time and for well over a century after slavery was abolished. During and after slavery, though, people 0fb0th races were con- stantly up against a far more physically demanding labor requirement than they are today, and the sort of leisure time that most people now enjoy rou- tinely was unheard of then for all but a privileged w. And beyond the work, there was the weather: in some parts bitterly cold in winter, always a veritable furnace Of suf- focating heat and humidity in the dog days Of summer.. Southerners became acclimated tO the extremes, learned tO live with them and work in them, or they left, there being no other choice open tO them. Sometimes puzzled out- siders have watched Southerners at work—deliberate, methodical, unhurried—and incorrectly concluded that they were lazy and unproductive; on the contrary, the experience Of gen- erations has taught them the most sensi- ble and efficient way to perform hard work in hOt weather.. Living SO close tO the very heartbeat of nature, feeling its breath upon the skin, inhaling its earthy perfumes, hear- ing its myriad cries and whispers, South- erners earlier times learned above all tO respect the natural order, even when they could neither predict it nor com- prehend it. The pathfinders and those who followed them came to understand the wisdom Of Obse ハ ring the n100n , the tides, the currents, the rainfall, and the S1gns Of seasonal evolution. Directly or indirectly, almost all of them worked somewhere in the fOOd chain. NOW, removed though they are from such close association with the life Of the land, most native Southerners neverthe- less have an appreciation for it, and it keeps many 0f them attached, however tenuously, tO traditional feelings about work and leisure. Animals are another reminder Of the mystical call of nature. Some of the farm livestock, the beasts of burden— mules, horses, and oxen—once were SO essential as tO be considered part Of the work force. The rest contributed in varl- ous ways—eggs 仕 om the chickens, milk and cheese and butter 仕 0n1 the cows, wool from the sheep, lard fi 、 om the hogs, This page: れ S 〃屮Ⅷ , Opposite page: S カ 00 なか〃 / 代な 襯襯 , S 力の加〃わⅢ g , 襯ん C 矼 0 〃 . 50

Tampa Bay on the west coast ofFlorida and led a small company ofsoldiers on a four-year exploration Ofthe vast interior wilderness ofNorth America S southeast- ern region. Surely they were awed to speechlessness by the wild beauty of it all. The parade quickened. One May morning ⅲ 1607 , Captain Christopher Newport landed with a handful of sea- weary Englishmen on a marshy penin- sula of theJames River and established there a beachhead ofthe Virginia Colony. StilIIater, in 1682 , the French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur dela Salle, descended the Mississippi River to the GuIfofMexico by canoe. lmagme the wonders they beheld. These were the adventurers, the pathfmders, the intrepid astronauts, and the moonwalkers Of their time; they were sojourners in a land ofdeep mystery, pil- grims to the South before there was a South. What they saw in the territory bordered on the north by the Ohio River and on the west by the watershed of the Mississippi was a half-million square miles Of enormous geogmaphical diversity and stunning primeval beauty.. From the beginning and all along, it has lingered in the memory as a singular land, a place apart. For more than three centuries after Ponce de Le6n'sjourney to FIorida, the South lacked a clear identity. To the first European explorers, it was thought of simply as a part of America, an undiffer- entiated mass Of wilderness territory ripe for colonial exploitation. Later, tO the coastal settlers, it was the West—the land beyond—and it retained that des- ignation until Texas and California and the "true West" became part Of the United States in the middle of the nine- teenth century. Throughout that time, as These are Southern people on the land, with the elements, in nature— looking, listening, feeling the pulse, searching for the signs. They have been here for centuries, for longer than the span of recorded memory. ln every state, every season, and every C1rcum- stance, Southerners have always been close to the land. lmagine how this Eden must have looked to Tecumseh's and Sequoyah's ancestors, those aboriginal hunters, fish- ers, and farmers whose eyes first saw the glory of it thousands of ) ℃ ars ago. Or imagine how it looked toJuan Ponce de Le6n, sailing northward in the ink-blue waters of the Atlantic in 1513 and seeing Off the port side a narrow strip of white sand and a dense thicket of lowland 甼℃ enery that turned out to be not another West lndies island but the east coast Of Florida. The scouts went back with spellbind- ing tales Of excitement, and Others soon came tO see for themselves: Hernando de So い for example. ln 1539 , he landed in 0 This page: Central 〃祠れ〃厖 . ()pposite page (above): Snail な“ななん行砒 4 M ゆ . Opposite page (below): 召 0 の 0 勧 azv ム / の雇 Georgva.

Addresses change, and so do ways of living; old domestic habits must yield tO new neceSSlt1eS, preferences. There was a time not so long ago when families sat down together to eat two or three meals a day, but that is an anach- ronism no 、 V.. other activities rangmg 斤 om religlon and education to shopping and entertainment have been equally as affected, as Southern society moves to 01e threshold ofthe twenty-first century. StiII, in the homeplaces themselves, tradition IS as ever-present and visible as a member of the family, and contempo- rary living is accented by daily remem- brance of things past. Now, as always, signs of the real South, the good South, come shining through: human comedy and drama, words and music, 応 od and drink, manners rituals, friends, birth and marriage, death and burial. lt is in the homeplace, as much as anywhere else, that Southern history is told, remembered, preserved, and sometimes made. The land and the homeplace are extensions ()f ()ther, permanently and inseparably linked. ln the frame house, the mansron, the cabin, Southerners cling to myth and history, and sometimes the two seem virtually identical. The Southern homeplace—city, town, and country— is both a repository of the past and a seedbed of the future. The connection between the two was one ofWilliam FauIkner's central themes. 、、 ln the South', he once said, 'the past is never dead. lt's not even past: ()pposite page: C んカ燗 S 甲鷓 S 〃襯ん , Georgia. 100

、、 ln the North they telljokes',' said Robert Penn War1 ℃ n, who has gone from his non-urban Kentucky and Ten- nessee roots tO world fame as a poet and novelist, 、 'but in the South, at least in the South Of that pre-television time, they told tales—elaborate, winding, wan- dering creations that might never wear out, stories full ofhuman perception and subtlety, told with a richness of lan- guage and expressionl' lt was, said War- ren, 。 a regional difference'.' Talk in the porch age, he concluded, was "a South- ern gift that springs fi 、 om the pores of the society.. lt is easy tO trace the extension Of that gift ofwords from thelevel ofcasual conversatlon mt() ()ther dimensl()ns Of Southern Ⅲ 6. Out ofall proportion to their numbers, people who were raised in this region have gained prommence as novelists, poets, teachers, preachers, journalists, historians, lawyers,judges, politicians—and all ofthose professions require the same sort oflistening and talking skills that long evenings on the porch provided. Expression—verbal, written, and musical—is a Southern hallmark. If it is correct tO generalize about taciturn New Englanders or Western men offew words, itis equally ℃ ct to speak ofganulous Southerners. Fired with imagination, inspired by their own rhetoric and that of others, they are forever talking and singing, preaching and praying, crying and laughing. A gmadual flattening of regional accents has been taking place across the United States ( ) 、℃ r the past quarter- century or so. Television is probably the mam contributing factor, valuing as it does the sort Of neutral, standard, unac- cented speaking style that is easily understood in a11 regions Of the country.. Against this trend, Southern voices have shown flashes Of persistence. There are dozens Of distinctive subregional accents within the South; some Of them, particularly in rural areas, seem hardly to have changed at all over the ) ℃ ars. ln the Mississippi Delta, in the Cajun coun- try of Louisiana, in the Ozarks and the Appalachians, in the South Carolina Low Country, and along Virginia's East- ern Shore, the lyricalcadence of local speech reverberates with language that echoes a distant past. ln these rich voices of black and white Southerners,

The People tured the people in clear-cut terms Of white and black. lndeed, Ang10-Saxons and Afi 、 o-Americans dO comprise the tWO largest segments Of the population, as they always have, but there are other nationalities and ethnic 部、 oups whose presence has been clearly visible and whose influence is still lt. The imprint ofthe Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana is primary and indelible. The German heritage ⅲ North Carolina and Kentucky has been substantial, too, and the same can be said ofthe ltalians and Greeks in several ofthe Southern states. East Europeans have been less numerous, but they still have made Who are the Southerners? RomantlC novels and m()VleS and television have projected a long line 0f stereotyped images in answer tO the question. Out Of the antebellum era came goateed plantation colonels, fluttering ladies in crinolines, and happy slaves sing- ing in the cotton fields. ln modern times, a different but no less banal and artificial cast ofcharacters has been featured: dim- witted hillbillies and mountaineers, red- neck sheriffs, sweet-vo iced b eauty queens, and tobacco-chewing good old boys. Reality brings a much broader and deeper array of people into focus—not distorted, one-dimensl()nal caricatures, but a congeries of humanity T0day's Southerners range across the spectrum Of age, race, residence, occupation, and lncome. They are men and women, native- born and adopted, whO sometimes seem as different fi 、 0n1 one another as they are unlike people elsewhere—and yet, at the same time, many ofthem have in com- mon certain manners and habits, certam ways ofspeaking, and certain traits 0f personality that mark them unmistakably as Southerners. lt is both their differences and their similarities that make them interesting. The people of the South often stand apart 仕 om their Ⅱ ow Americans— more markedly, perhaps, than do North- erners or Easterners or Westerners. For better and worse, through generations Of fabricated images and stark realities, Southerners somehow have managed tO preserve remnants Oftheir reglonal iden- tity as individuals and as a people, ⅲ spite ofthe gradual emergence ofa look-alike culture across the nation as a whole. Within the region, the simple fact of diversity is a myth-shattering surprise tO many non-Southerners whO have pic- 24 衵 Pages 66 / 67 : D 尾、 C ん矼 / 召豆 0 れ , 、 So 襯ん C 0 / わ乢 Opposite page: ん”雇ハイの・な 〃 g ん , 初プん C 〃川 / わ乢 This page: 4 / いマ “んな化沢イ Race, 69

and deliberate as it once was, certainly, but still not as brisk and frenzied as is the pace in the cities ofthe Nor 山 . There IS a more personal atmosphere, t00 , marked by friendliness and intimacy (or is it simply curiosity?) in the day-to-day dealings Of casual acquaintances and even strangers. "Atlanta (read Nashville, Char10tte, Tampa, etc) isjust an overgrown country townt' the familiar line goes. N0b0dy says that about Boston, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. The Southern cities still take pride in their rural ori- gms, even though the connections have become weaker and more fragile in the ・ l()dern age. Meanwhile, out in the real Southern countryside, small-town and ruralliving is undergoing changesjust as profound and as pe ハ asive as those taking place in the cities. The family farm is disappear- ing, losing out tO mechanized superfarms WhiCh are larger in SIZe and fewer in num- ber. Manufacturing and serVlCe industries are the main employers now—they and the federal, state, county, and municipal governments. Southerners from the coun- try are moving intO the towns and cities, looking for work—and at the same time, many urban dwellers, weary ofthe frenetic pace oflife on the avenues, are dnving up and down the backroads, searching for country homes and a little tranquility. FIorida's explosive growth (its population has quadrupled since 1950 ) virtually has created several cities 斤 0n1 scratch. ln 1900 , Miami was a swampy village 0f a few hundred people, and Fort Lauderdale did not exist at all; now, both are hubs ofmetropolitan areas that number more than a million people. Orlando is yet another ofthe Sunshine State's "new" cities. Finally, between the mountains and the sea, the South is spot- ted with thriving capital cities such as Jackson and Montgomery and Raleigh, budding metropolises such as Char10tte, and the prototype urban center ofthem all, the one and only Atlanta. ln these thirty-six cities live about twenty million people—one-third 0f the entire population Ofthe regl()n. AS cities everywhere become more and more alike what d0 the ones in the South still have in C01 れ 1 on , and What basic charac- teristics still glve them recognition as Southern places? One thing is the climate, especially the hot and humid summers. Another is the pace of ⅱ —not as SIOW 1 引 99

The Workplace 召 00 , No ん C 0 Nf 勧 Co 襯襯り page: イれ襯例 , C 0 瓰 Opposite 襯 0 れ , Pa 襯〃 co 沢んグ No ん Pages 46 / 47 : E ん engaged a large majority ofthe people. agriculture and related occupations they used t0 be, back in the days when query are much 1 蝨 ore varied now than What do they do? The answers to the last are your people? Where are they 仕 om ? ingly familiar: What is your name? Who tions a native puts tO a stranger are tell- rural areas and small towns. The ques- people most clearly, especially in the that describes and defines Southern genealogy and the geography—it is work After name and address—the society on the land. it took—and still takes—to make a these old hands that reveal the labor appearance, a modern character, it iS Now, as the South takes on a different South, explored it, farmed it, built it. They are the hands that found the hug, as expressive as an honest face. as a clenched fist, as SOft as a consoling working people. They can be as solid These are the hands of hard- like chapters ofan autobiography. on display to be read like an open book, creases oflengthening üme—all are there bat with tools and machines, the folds and long experience, 山 e 」 agged scars 0f com- and strength The nimble adroitness 0f dirt beneath the nails, they bespeak power thick, whether neatly mamcured or with Whether long and sinewy or short and shades ofebony and pecan and peach. work gloves. They range in color through but also supple, like good leather sun, they show themselves to be tough ered by wind and water, by earth and Their hands tell the story. Weath- What Southerners do today is very much the same as what Americans else- where do. The work is as much cerebral as it IS manual, as much on paper, C01 - puter screens, or television monitors as it is outdoors on the land, SO the hands no longer tell the story as they once did. But in the long evolution 0fSouthern labor 仕 om the prehistoric fishing, hunt- ing, and farming skills 0f the lndians to the futuristic marvel of high tech- nology that now iS becoming a routine fixture in the workplace, there always has been a certain style or quality or character, a certain attitude, that seems to typify the way people in the regl()n go about their business. ltmight be an over- statement tO say there is such a thing as a distinct and definable Southern work ethic, but there are certainly habits and practices that working people in this cor- ner ofthe country have followed for a very long time. From the beginning, the work itself was arduous, back-breaking, and inter- minable. Clearing the land and farming it, building the towns and cities, raising the children, feeding and caring for the 49