“One of the first things I can remember in my life was hearing about the ‘New South.’ I was 3 years old, in Alabama. Not a year has passed since that I haven’t heard about a New South … my definition of a New South would be a South in which it never occurred to anybody to mention the New South.”
— Walker Percy as quoted by John Meacham in Time magazine
One day last week, finding myself afoot in a northern village with time on my hands, I ventured into a basement thrift store. You know the kind of place, shelves lined with garage-sale cast-offs, children’s toys, dresser-top nicknacks of brightly colored plastic and limp, long-out-of-fashion clothing.
After a brief perusal of the men’s knit shirts and jeans, I made for the exit, pausing to speak to the volunteer on duty. On the counter by the cash register was a cardboard box full of free magazines.
On the top of the stack was the Aug. 6/Aug. 13, 2018, issue of Time magazine, “The South Issue.” There is plenty to smile about and ponder in the 51 pages devoted to this multifaceted, insightful and, at times, uncomfortable portrait. And, other than Meacham’s quote of Walker Percy — which I expect was too good to pass up — there is little mention of the “New South.”
A few snippets:
Here’s hospitality doyenne and writer Julia Reed on the creation of Doe’s Eat Place in her hometown of Greenville:
“So it was that ‘Big Doe’ Signa (who had tried his hand at bootlegging) sold his still for $300 and a Ford Model T and turned his family’s grocery store into a honky-tonk and takeout joint offering up spaghetti, chili and the hot tamales. Located on Nelson Street, the city’s unofficial African-American Main Street, it was part of a bustling scent that included late-night barbershops, sidewalk craps games, more than a dozen Chinese groceries and so many blues clubs that it has been compared to Memphis’ Beale Street.”
Novelist Silas House writes about his hometown of Corbin, Kentucky, where in 1919, a mob of white men drove almost 200 African-American railroad workers out of town. In his essay, House writes about how his town has confronted its past and the disappearance of mining and railroad jobs that had been its economic backbone.
Central to the reinvention underway in Corbin is the Wrigley Taproom & Eatery, a local watering hole that features “the best old fashioned I’ve ever had” and “the food is local, delicious and inventive.
“Corbin, like the South itself,” House concludes, “still has a long way to go. But the spirit of inclusivity that lives in the Wrigley is infectious. In a region that doesn’t always love me as much as I love it, the Wrigley is a place where a rural gay man like me feels safe. That’s the New South — and the America — in which I want to live, a place I could have never imagined as a child.”
My favorite piece in the magazine comes from best-selling crime writer Ace Atkins, who according to his website, “lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his family, where he’s friend to many dogs and several bartenders.” Atkins begins by bemoaning a moral regression he sees in the country:
“Lately, I feel like our moral compass has been broken, spinning to intolerance, greed, hypocrisy and a meanness that’s as thick as the humidity in July.”
Atkins finds succor in a readily available source:
“In time of trouble,” Atkins writes, “I put my faith in Elvis Presley, who represented the South’s better angels. He was a hard worker, and although he lived the high life, he never forgot he had been born into poverty. I don’t think you’ll ever hear an interview with the man when he didn’t express gratitude and humility for all that life had given him. …
“Elvis knew what it was like to be dirt-poor, to struggle for food and shelter. By the time his talent helped him buy a Memphis mansion with golden-edged mirrors and thick, white carpet, he was already using his money to help others, often quietly and with no fanfare. He didn’t create a foundation and then use outside donations to buy a larger-than-life portrait of himself. He just went out and bought that lady a Cadillac. Got that fella a job.”
In Elvis, Atkins finds hope:
“And yet here we are. We know right from wrong, but most of us down here voted for wrong. As Elvis once said, ‘Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.'”
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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