Southern Exposure was an award-winning print journal published by the Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South, from 1973 until 2011. Southern Exposure earned a national reputation for its writing on a broad range of political and cultural issues in the South, with a special emphasis on investigative journalism and oral history.

On the 50th anniversary of Southern Exposure’s birth, Facing South and the Institute will be publishing a full digital archive of the journal over the course of the year. The initial installment of the archives available in March 2023 includes issues from the magazine’s launch in 1973 through 1981.

Vol. 11 No. 1 - January/February 1983
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people sitting in a room

"We'll Never Quit:" Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens fight for clean water

  • Readers Corner

    Reflections on the passing of the ERA deadline, by Carrie J. Knowles

    2

  • Letters from Our Readers

    4

  • Southern News Roundup

    Overcrowding in Southern prisons; Atlanta freeze referendum under right-wing attack; the Eddie Carthan case; and more

    5

  • Voices of Our Neighbors

    The Law of the Sea Treaty; Missiles and the Mafia in Sicily

    12

  • Facing South

    Subtropical Mobile, by Eugene Walter

    14

  • Resources

    Alternatives to prison; How to do leaflets; Contemplating a lawsuit; and more

    15

  • Reviews

    The Southern writer and The New York Times; The Redneck Way of Knowledge; and more

    64

  • Voices from the Past

    From the frontline to the color line, Atlanta, 1898

    72

  • I Ain't Lying

    Mississippi high school students look for their roots, from Mississippi: Cultural Crossroads

    16

  • Taking on TVA

    Tennessee Valley ratepayers protest soaring electric bills, by Jim Overton

    22

  • Linthead

    A poem, by Paul Rice

    28

  • “You Don’t Have to be Grim to be Serious”

    interview with Mavis Belisle by Sam Totten and Martha Wescoat Totten

    29

  • Some Keep the Sabbath

    A poem, by Linda Peavy

    33

  • By the Way of Morning Fire

    a short story, by Michael S. Weaver

    34

  • La Musica Nortena

    A photographic essay, by Scott Van Osdol, with text by Dan W. Dickey

    38

  • "We'll Never Quit It"

    Concerned Kentucky citizens try to clean up Yellow Creek, by Michael E. Staub

    42

  • Southern Books at Home on Campus

    What’s up with the university presses, by John Egerton

    53

  • The Plantation Mistress

    A historical essay on her working life, by Catherine Clinton

    58
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