Southern Cultures

01/10/2025

We had a great time celebrating the Home issue last night at . Thanks to everyone who came out on a chilly night. And biggest thanks to our guests & for such a thoughtful conversation.

Guest edited by & , the Home issue is available now! See link in bio to order a copy or subscribe.

01/06/2025

New year, new issue of Southern Cultures! Join us THIS WEEK on Thursday, 1/9, 5:30 PM at the for a conversation with Kennedi Carter & Endia Beal to celebrate the Home issue!

More details via link in bio.

In the Home issue, guest edited by Blair LM Kelley and LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, we explore critical reflections of home that invoke the necessity of grounding in place, understanding that while the meanings of home are myriad (and both universal and discrete), the word home invokes something for everyone.

12/19/2024

As we look toward the New Year, here’s a look back at some pieces we’ve loved this year—our baker’s dozen.

We might need a new story. We’re staying strong. We’re looking for something beautiful out of the darkness. And looking for lessons in a fig library. We’re putting on a pop, err, country song. We’re confronting the afterlives of Jim Crow. We’re getting creative about voting rights. We’re making a space for all of us. We’re thinking about memory and mothers. And power and democracy. Plus a benediction.

Wishing you peace this holiday season, and happy reading.

*Articles accessible via link in bio

—

1. Detail from Calling the sun to work, by Lindsay Adams, 2024. Oil on canvas, 48 × 72 in., as featured in Sojourning.
2. “I Might Need a New Story” by James Harrison, photo by Aliese Harrison
3. “stay strong” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, photo of Audre Lorde by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images
4. “Something Beautiful out of the Darkness,”
Jesmyn Ward & Regina N. Bradley in conversation, photo by Kennedi Carter
5. “Lessons from a Fig Library” by Katy Clune, illustration by Miriam Riggs
6. “‘Pop Stars Don’t Die, They Move to Nashville to Record’” by Amanda Marie Martínez, illustration by Laura Baisden
7. “Confronting the Afterlife of Jim Crow” by Brian Palmer, photo by Brian Palmer
8. “Sewing for Voting in Post-Jim Crow Mississippi” by William Sturkey, photo by Doris A. Derby
9. “A Rooming House for Transient Girls” by Jovonna Jones, illustration by Nancey B. Price
10. “A Visual Dispatch” by Colony Little, illustration by Shefon N. Taylor
11. “Captive Maternal” by Kennedi Carter, photo by Kennedi Carter
12. “There Has to Be Power,” Sherrilyn Ifill & Errin Haines in conversation, illustration by Nancey B. Price
13. “The South’s New Democracy Struggle Reaches New Urgency” by Benjamin Barber, photo by Kate Medley
14. “Benediction” by Meg Day, illustration via Alamy

12/05/2024

Today, we’re sharing a preview from the HOME issue—Kennedi Carter’s photo essay, “Captive Maternal.”

A Durham, North Carolina native by way of Dallas, Texas, Kennedi Carter is a visual artist with a primary focus on Black subjects. Her work highlights the aesthetic and sociopolitical aspects of Black life, as well as the overlooked beauties of the Black experience: skin, texture, trauma, peace, love, and community. Her work aims to reinvent notions of creativity and confidence in the realm of Blackness.

Kennedi will join us at on January 8 at 11:30am to give a talk about her work as part of the Thinking South series. We hope you can join us!

Photo essay via link in bio

11/21/2024

This summer, in partnership with Virginia Folklife, we had the good fortune of visiting Bernard L. Herman’s living library of fig trees at his home in Machipongo, Virginia, on the Eastern Shore. The archive of some thirty trees is a collection at localest of levels, with varieties named for neighbors, nearby islands, and Herman’s own home. In this feature, Virginia state folklorist Katy Clune introduces four figs from the library—Westerhouse, Princess Anne, Hog Island, and Brunswick. 

“I’ve come to believe that a fig library is a sort of a mandate for a good life,” writes. “For attention to subtle differences and the seasons, to the resilience of a single plant over time, to how to use what is around you for pleasure and for sharing, to be generous, to save things for later, to take care of your community. To pass it on.”

And in time for Thanksgiving, find Gerry Newman’s recipe for Figgy Newmans, as featured in the Southern Ground cookbook. Newman, co-owner of Albemarle Baking Company in Charlottesville, Virginia, developed the recipe using dried Hog Island figs gifted from Herman.

*Read via link in bio
Illustrations by Miriam Riggs, photos by Nina Wilder/Virginia Folklife.

11/14/2024

Introducing our new music reader, “Country’s Cool Again,” curated by Amanda Marie Martínez. Featuring twelve classic hits from the archive and three new essays, this collection brings country music’s past and present together to consider why country’s cool again (and again).

As Loretta Lynn sings, “You’re looking at country”—from a short history of the term redneck (vol. 1) to a just-released piece that explores that tradition of pop stars like Beyoncé and Post Malone going country to what we can learn about the industry from next week’s CMAs.

*Link in bio*
Illustrations by Laura Baisden

11/05/2024

Election Day is in the bag. Or dress. Or hat. As final votes are cast and tallied for the 2024 presidential election, photojournalist Kate Medley provides a dispatch from her work across the state of North Carolina covering the long election season, and gives us a glimpse of what’s in fashion across party lines.

View photo essay via link in bio

10/29/2024

Exactly one week before Election Day, we’re excited to share a powerful conversation with Sherrilyn Ifill and Errin Haines on what this moment demands. “What I want to see is a different way of talking about voting being unequivocal about the desire and the need for power to make change,” says Ifill. “The only way you make change is with power.”

*Read via link in bio*
Illustration by Nancey B. Price

10/21/2024

Friends, have you voted yet? Have you gotten a sticker? Send us a note at [email protected] with your mailing address and we’ll send you VOTE and Southern Cultures stickers (while supplies last). 🗳️

10/09/2024

Photographer Jesse Barber provides an on-the-ground look at what he's been seeing in his home of Western North Carolina. "I echo so many people I’ve talked to when I say we will rebuild. We will continue to live where we’re planted. We will put our home back together. Not by ourselves, but with each other."⁠
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https://www.southerncultures.org/article/not-by-ourselves/

10/09/2024

Whitewater paddler Jim Harrison used to have one story he told over and over to recruit students to the small school where he teaches in Southwest Virginia. "I might need a new story," says Harrison. "I might need a new story because on September 27, Hurricane Helene ripped into Southwest Virginia. The violent winds toppled hundreds of trees, and the deluge of rain caused Whitetop Laurel Creek to flash and send a torrent of destructive water down the mountain and into Damascus, destroying bridges, inundating houses with mud, wrecking businesses, and shattering the nature lover’s paradise."⁠
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I direct an outdoor program at a small college in Southwest Virginia, and if you work at a small, private college, a significant part of your job is recruiting, selling the value of the institution to…

09/18/2024

Snapshot: Climate, mountain edition. We loved seeing our friends, old and new, at Emory & Henry this week.

09/06/2024

Letitia Huckaby’s stunning “Memorable Proof” just went up at ! Drive down Franklin Street to get a glimpse, or join us at the Sojourning issue launch on Sunday to celebrate with us. Details via link in bio.

08/29/2024

Meet the SOJOURNING Issue!

Building on the legacies of Harriet Jacobs’s life and work, this issue explores sojourning as a creative and intellectual act, specifically engaging landscapes as experiential and revolutionary research. Guest edited by , , & , Sojourning considers how we reimagine and re-experience place as liberatory through Black geographies, feminist mapping, and womanist cartography.

Order a copy via link in bio!

06/20/2024

Last week found us on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for the opening of Snapshot: Climate at the beautiful Barrier Islands Center, presented in partnership with Virginia Folklife. The show is on view through July 25.

Photos by Nina Wilder / Virginia Folklife

05/01/2024

Save the date! The Snapshot: Climate exhibition just arrived at the Barrier Islands Center in Monchipongo, Virginia. Find us on the Eastern Shore soon!

On view: May 25–July 25, 2024
Opening reception: June 13, 2024 | 4:00–6:00 PM
More details via link in bio

Presented with the Barrier Islands Center and Virginia Folklife

04/11/2024

Introducing FRESH OR FRIED: A Southern Cultures Seafood Reader. Twelve fish(ish) tales—from harvesting wild oysters along Georgia's coast to celebrating bonefish in the Carolinas. Plus, three essential accompaniments: a sleeve of saltines, a bottle of Florida hot sauce, and a wedge of Ocracoke fig cake. Read the whole platter:
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https://www.southerncultures.org/reader/seafood/

Illustrations by Julienne Alexander

04/04/2024

After 30 years, we have many stories to tell—find all the old favorites and a whole lot of new at the redesigned SouthernCultures.org