A Southern Sampler

Because it has been comparatively impoverished, illiterate, rural, and Afro-American, the Southern citizenry has been relegated to the margins of popular historical consciousness. The world of the ordinary Southerner has rarely been brought to light, and with some notable exceptions serious historical treatment of such familiar regional themes as subjugation and racial torment has been sorely lacking. As a result our understanding of the Southern past is for the most part enshrouded in myth, sentimentality, nostalgia, and veneration of political and military leaders. 

Of course, such traits are national as well as regional, but there does exist a history which is distinctly our own. The Southern historical experience of defeat and tragedy, a major aspect of white Southern consciousness, gave rise to what David Potter termed "the compulsive memories of the Lost Cause." These memories developed in conjunction with the movement to elevate Civil War leaders to heroic stature, the establishment of numerous United Daughters of the Confederacy chapters, the erection of war memorials in every Southern county, and the annual celebrations of Confederate Memorial Day. Generations of New South ideologues, from Henry Grady to the urban business-commercial elites of the 1920s, have skillfully manipulated the idea of the Lost Cause to prop up their own visions of Progress. 

Alternatives to the dominant interpretations of the region's past do exist, and they come mainly from within the black community. During the era of segregation, black Southerners sponsored numerous activities to enhance appreciation of their Afro-American heritage. The smattering of black-oriented museums such as the "Colored Pavilion" at the 1895 Cotton States Exhibition can be seen in this light, as can the portrayals of famous individuals and events in quilts, paintings, and other folk art. Popular festivals, such as the "Juneteenth" celebrations in Texas commemorating emancipation in that state, have strengthened cohesion in the black community through observance of a common past. 

More significant in terms of their potential to reshape both scholarly and popular interpretations of Southern history are the thousands of oral history interviews conducted with ex-slaves in the 1920s and 1930s. With the conviction that the memories of former slaves were critical in understanding the Southern past, black historians and social scientists at Fisk University and Southern University began gathering what Fisk researcher Ophelia Settle Egypt called the "Unwritten History of Slavery." A subsequent project of the New Deal Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) collected some 250 additional interviews in Indiana and Kentucky, while workers for the Works Progress Administration's (WPA) Federal Writers' Project conducted the majority of the ex-slave interviews between 1936 and 1938. The approximately 3,000 narratives, many of which have only recently been uncovered, are gathered in the 31-volume The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, edited by George Rawick, and in Weevils in the Wheat, featuring the recollections of Virginia's ex-slaves. These have formed the foundation for seminal works such as John Blassingame's The Slave Community, and helped pioneer the burgeoning discipline of oral history. 

The collection of ex-slave narratives paralleled a number of popular Southern history ventures — popular both in terms of subject matter and in presentation — that emerged during the ferment of the 1930s. At the Highlander Folk School, Jim Dombrowski conducted interviews with veterans of the east Tennessee miners' rebellions against convict labor in the 1890s. An Atlanta FERA-sponsored workers' school, under the direction of labor educator and organizer Tom Tippett, directed a play, Mill Shadows, based on the Gastonia textile strike of 1929. Paul Green's outdoor drama attracted acclaim in North Carolina, and the WPA Federal Theater Project developed several Southern-oriented productions such as Triple-A Plowed Under and King Cotton, though some of these never made it to the South. 

Outside of the ex-slave narratives, the most extensive Southern popular historical effort of the New Deal era was the Southern life history project of the WPA. W.T. Couch, Southeastern director of the Federal Writers' Project and director of the University of North Carolina Press, developed the life history concept to get away from sociological abstractions about Southerners and the distorted creations of fiction writers and to move toward "an accurate, honest, interesting, and fairly comprehensive view of the South." Couch insisted that "somehow [the people] must be given representation, somehow they must be given voice and allowed to speak, in their essential character." Over a thousand Southerners in seven states shared their stories with WPA interviewers in 1938 and 1939. Yet until recently only 35 of these interviews had been made public. These appeared in the classic collection edited by Couch, These Are Our Lives. The demise of the Writers' Project under anti-communist attacks, along with the U.S. entry into World War II, forestalled any further popularization of the life history project. 

The Southern life history interviews received scant attention for nearly four decades after the termination of the project. The past few years, however, have seen Southern life histories reprinted in such works as First Person America by Ann Banks, Such as Us: Southern Voices of the Thirties by Tom Terrill and Jerrold Hirsch, and most recently up before daylight, a collection of Alabama life histories, edited by James Seay Brown, Jr. 

The renewed interest in the life history interviews of the 1930s is part of an enormous burgeoning of Southern popular history activities. Historians, folklorists, and others have generated popular magazines and books, exhibits, radio and television programs, oral history projects, plays, poetry readings, and even dance performances which have substantially enhanced public awareness and understanding of the contours of Southern history. The modern practitioners of Southern popular history are a far from homogeneous group; there exist wide differences in background, orientation, approach, resources, and relationship with community groups and the general public. Yet what is most striking is the unprecedented volume today of popular history efforts by and about Southerners. 

In general, the reasons for this upsurge parallel national developments. Social and intellectual currents of the 1960s and early 1970s, most notably the Southern civil rights movement, directed attention toward the historical agency of ordinary people, the deep-rooted inequalities of American life, and the importance of cultural forms in empowerment. In response to these currents, government and foundation-financed projects have occasionally changed priorities somewhat to support more inclusive, unconventional, and even provocative public history presentations. The general impulse to preserve and document endangered traditional cultures has prompted some valuable Southern efforts, as has the desire of younger activists and intellectuals to root themselves in a heritage of struggle. 

Since 1982 the Reagan administration's policies and cutbacks have severely curtailed popular history efforts. Some humanities councils abandoned projects after the first phase or planning grant was completed, while others now place applicants for grants in an almost impossible position by providing only a fraction of the funds necessary to carry out a given project. 

The problems extend far beyond finances. Like their counterparts throughout the country, Southern popular history efforts have frequently been exercises in nostalgia for a traditional way of life, or uncritical tributes to prominent black leaders, the labor movement, mountain people, or other groups previously omitted from conventional historical sources. Popular history work in the South, as elsewhere, has only occasionally been solidly linked with community-based organizations on a meaningful, ongoing basis. Too often the practitioners of popular history operate in something of a vacuum, perceiving their work in narrow, individualistic terms rather than as part of a broader democratic movement. 

Yet despite these problems some very vital history activities are taking place in the South, projects which portray common Southerners as historical actors in their own right, creating semiautonomous cultures as well as interacting with the larger society. Racial, class, and gender divisions are squarely addressed in these efforts as are other political conflicts and social tensions. The creators of such projects try to convey a dynamic understanding of historical process and change. By and large, they are committed to making their products accessible, by actively involving people in the creative understanding of their own heritage and working closely with members of various community-based organizations. 

What follows are some of the progressive popular history projects going on in the region. The list is by no means exhaustive. It is meant to suggest the subjects and forms of popular history taking place in the South today, and to serve as an introduction to some of the highlights, issues, and problems of the Southern people's history movement. 

 

GOLDEN SEAL 

West Virginia has several public history projects. One of these is Goldenseal, a 10-year-old magazine documenting West Virginia's traditional life, and produced by the state's Department of Culture and History. One of the finest publications of its kind in the country, Goldenseal combines oral history interviews, photographs, and other materials to provide a rich portrait of the state's heritage "from the Southern Coalfields to the Northern Panhandle." The articles feature traditional crafts and folklore, ethnic and racial minorities in West Virginia, work experiences, Appalachian heritage, and other topics. Those interested in contacting Goldenseal can do so through the Department of Culture and History, the Cultural Center, Capitol Complex, Charleston, WVA 25305. 

The Cultural Center also houses an immense exhibit (covering 5,000 square feet), entitled "The Mining Life," portraying working and living conditions in the West Virginia coal fields over the past century. The exhibit was put together with the support of the Miners for Democracy and the Black Lung Association. With the assistance of a $150,000 award from the state legislature, the exhibit traveled to three sites around the state in 1981, received tremendous publicity, and was well attended. Building upon the latest scholarship in Appalachian studies, "The Mining Life" depicts migration of outside capital to the region, life in company towns, work in the mines, and unionizing efforts in a manner that is "acceptable yet controversial," in the words of one of the exhibit organizers. 

 

THE JOHN HENRY FOLK FESTIVAL 

Since Labor Day weekend in 1973, the John Henry Folk Festival has presented "the soulful side of mountain life." Named for the legendary ex-slave and steel driver who challenged and beat a steam powered drill on the Chesepeake and Ohio railroad line in the West Virginia hills, the festival is run by the nonprofit John Henry Memorial Foundation. This group takes as its mission the portrayal of "the heritage and life history of minority groups in the Appalachian region and their participation in the growth and the development of the region and the country." Over the past decade the festival has included: lectures and folk sermons on the legend of John Henry, craft and farm-life displays, spike driving contests, a wide range of musicians, and the presentation of awards, including one in 1981 to the Land Ownership Task Force for its documentation of Appalachian land ownership patterns. In addition, the Foundation published Black Diamonds magazine and presses occasional records on the John Henry label. Those interested can write P.O. Box 135, Princeton, WVA 24740 or call (304) 425-9356. 

 

APPALSHOP 

No popular history effort in the region surpasses the prodigious work of the Appalshop in the eastern Kentucky community of Whitesburg. Founded in 1969 by the Office of Economic Opportunity as part of a national film and television training program for minority youth, Appalshop has evolved into a major regional media center. Over the years Appalshop Films has produced dozens of documentary films about the region, ranging from biographies to celebrations of folk traditions to social commentaries. The three most recent films are: Lord and Father, which addresses the moral issues surrounding the western Kentucky tobacco industry as well as the system of sharecropping in tobacco farming; The Big Lever, which explores politics in Leslie County, Kentucky, the site where Richard Nixon made his first public appearance after his historic resignation; and Coalmining Women, which documents women's struggles to gain employment in the mines. 

The Appalshop members, almost all natives of the region, have moved beyond film to a wide variety of endeavors. June Appal Recordings has produced some 40 albums of traditional and contemporary mountain music since its formation in 1974. Artists featured on the label include local, traditional, and nationally known artists, as well as activists of all ages who sing about social and environmental issues in the mountains. 

Future plans for the Appalshop Recording Studio include the production of a 26-part record series called Cumberland Mountain Memories, which will combine music from the region with the storytelling of Appalshop's Roadside Theater. Founded in 1975, Roadside is a traveling repertory theater whose original plays draw from the history and culture of the central Appalachian coalfields. Productions include: Brother Jack, a blend of southern Appalachian songs, stories, and tales, many of which were collected by the WPA's Writers' Project; Red Fox/Second Hangin, a multi-media performance about a legendary figure of the Cumberlands; and South of the Mountain, which portrays two generations of a mountain family's life as they interact with industrialization and other modernizing forces. Roadside was also featured in Three Mountain Tales, one of three audio-synched filmstrips produced by Appalshop in 1983. Another filmstrip is Clinchco: Story of a Mining Camp, which presents the boom and bust history of a biracial coal camp in Virginia. 

Clinchco is one of the many offshoots of Appalshop's most ambitious project to date, a proposed seven-part film series on the history of Appalachia. Originally conceived in 1976, the project really got off the ground at a National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored conference on History and Film in 1979. At that time regional scholars and Appalshop members decided that each of the films in the series would treat a given subject tracing the region's history from the presettlement Indians to the present. The presentation was to be varied, incorporating oral history, documentary use of photographs and film, narration, and storytelling. Eventually seven interrelated yet self-contained topics were selected: images of Appalachia, rivers and trails, ethnic groups and migration, land use, work and economic history, resistance movements, and religion. 

Funding, writing, and production have all been lengthy processes. Strangers and Kin, the NEH-funded pilot in the series which depicts images of Appalachia from outside and within, was released in March 1984. Despite the recent decision by NEH not to fund production of the second film in the series, scripts for three of the other films have been written, and Appalshop still hopes to complete the series by the end of 1986. Those interested in learning more about Appalshop activities can write Box 743, Whitesburg, KY 41858, or phone (606) 633-0108. 

 

HIGHLANDER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER 

East of Knoxville, Tennessee is the renowned Highlander Research and Education Center. Founded in 1932 by Don West and Myles Horton, a Tennessean influenced by the teachings of John Dewey and the work of the Danish Folk Schools, Highlander is based on the premise that ordinary people can articulate their own needs and search for answers to their problems. 

Cultural work has always been central to Highlander's activity. It was Zilphia Horton and others at Highlander who first brought the song "We Shall Overcome" — an old hymn transformed by striking black tobacco workers from Charleston, South Carolina in the 1940s — to the students involved with the early sit-ins of the 1960s. Part of Highlander's cultural emphasis from its earliest days has been the development of historical awareness among students. The labor history classes conducted regularly during the 1930s, for example, included Jim Dombrowski's oral history interviews with veterans of the east Tennessee coalfield wars of the 1890s. 

For over 20 years, Guy and Candie Carawan of the Highlander staff have documented songs of struggle, producing three book anthologies of civil rights movement songs — We Shall Overcome, Voices from the Mountains, and Freedom is a Constant Struggle. They have also organized workshops on the cultural history of coalmining communities and other industrial areas, and have produced numerous record albums. One of the more interesting of these is The Nashville Sit-In Story (Folkways, FH 5590), where students involved in the Nashville movement recreate their story in dramatic form. 

A recent Highlander project similarly demonstrates the connection between historical presentation and citizen involvement. In 1983 the center published a book length report, Our Own Worst Enemy, authored by Tom Schlesinger, documenting the impact of military production on the upper South. Among other things, the report details the development of ammunition production, strategic mineral extraction, defense-related university research, and the community of Oak Ridge. In tandem with the report, Highlander supplied a guide to researching local defense contractors and made themselves available to community groups working on military production issues. Copies of the report and the guide can be obtained from Highlander, Route 3, Box 370, New Market, TN 37820. 

 

CENTER FOR SOUTHERN FOLKLORE 

Across the state in Memphis is the Center for Southern Folklore. Founded in 1972 by Bill Ferris and Judy Peiser, the Center has issued dozens of films about Southern folkways as well as a valuable index to American folklore films and video tapes. In the past few years the Center has sponsored a major Mid-South Folklife Festival and has renovated an old theater in downtown Memphis where live performances of traditional music are now seen weekly. In addition, the Center has established an Ethnic Heritage Project which has featured oral history and photographic documentation of the Jewish community of Memphis. While scholarly and popular interest in Southern Jewish studies has increased recently, too often similar history projects have been quite conservative and narrow in focus, portraying Jews primarily as successful businesspeople or professionals. In contrast, the Ethnic Heritage Project has explored issues of assimilation, Southern identity, black-Jewish relationships, and anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, because its project grant has expired, the Ethnic Heritage Project is currently on hold while staff members seek additional funding. The Center can be reached at P.O. Box 40105, Memphis, TN 38174. 

 

ALABAMA LABOR 

Since Alabama is one of the South's most industrialized and unionized states, it is not surprising that many of its popular history projects focus on labor organizing and struggle. In 1983 the United Rubber Workers Local #12 of Gadsden brought out a history of the local which emphasizes its often bloody organizing days of the 1930s and 40s. Also in 1983, Ed Brown of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Center for Labor Education published The Painting Craftsman, a history of Birmingham's Painters Local #57. These works, and others such as the forthcoming Southern Labor Archives-sponsored book on Atlanta's Sheet Metal Workers Local #85, provide an antidote to negative public impressions of organized labor — although they do run the risk of being too uncritical, especially with regards to race. 

 

THE SLOSS FURNACES 

For nearly a century the blast furnaces of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company were a dominant feature in downtown Birmingham, the industrial center of the South. The skyward flames and molten iron of Sloss are still recalled vividly by many residents. When the ironworks shut down in 1971, some local citizens wanted to convert the site into a Disneyland, or Six Flags "theme park." Fortunately another group of residents, calling themselves the Sloss Furnace Association, sought to preserve the site, and in 1977 Birmingham voters approved a $3 million bond issue to pay for the restoration of the site. The Sloss Furnaces National Historical Landmark, now a department of the city, opened for limited hours on April 12, 1982, marking the centennial of the ironworks' beginning. The historical landmark was opened to the public on a permanent basis on Labor Day 1983. 

According to Sloss Furnaces director Randall Lawrence, the 35-acre park and museum is one of the very few twentieth-century industrial sites in the U.S. currently being preserved to present working-class history. For further information contact Sloss, P.O. Box 11781, Birmingham, AL 35202. 

 

ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN MINORITY CULTURE 

Two other Birmingham-related ventures come out of the Archive of American Minority Culture at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. "Images of Work: Birmingham, 1894-1937" is an exhibit of 46 photographs depicting workers' lives in the Birmingham District. Prepared by historians Mike Williams and Mitch Menzer under an NEH Youthgrant, the photographs and accompanying text treat such issues as convict labor, life in company towns, occupational safety, work processes involved in mining and iron and steel production, and unionization struggles. 

The Archive is also producing a 13-part NEH-funded radio series entitled "Working Lives," on the formation of a black urban industrial working class in the Birmingham District before World War II. The series will focus on ways that black people maintained continuity with rural traditions while at the same time making accommodations to the new urban-industrial milieu. The series is scheduled to be completed and aired in the spring of 1985. Founded in 1979 with a seed grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Archive also contains extensive photography, recording, and videotape collections of ethnic, folk, black, and women's history and culture. The Archive can be reached at P.O. Box S, University, AL 35486. 

 

THE CULTURE OF SOUTHERN BLACK WOMEN 

Archive Director Brenda McCallum is one of three principal authors of a recently published curriculum guide, The Culture of Southern Black Women: Approaches and Materials. The volume is the result of a three-year curriculum development project, originating in a student-initiated conference, "Black Women in the South: Retrospectives and Prospects," held in Tuscaloosa in the spring of 1980. Subsequently, the Archive of American Minority Cultures and the University of Alabama Women's Studies Program received funding from the U.S. Department of Education Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education. 

The guide draws upon the interrelated disciplines of history, women's studies, anthropology, black studies, and folklore. The project was rooted in the assumptions that the culture of Southern black women is a central part of American life, that the cultural expressions of Afro-American women are part of a historical continuum going back to Africa, and that these cultural traditions cannot be seen in isolation from broader social and historical developments and the politics of race, class, and gender in the South. Project participants also agreed that the subject matter demanded a non-elitist, folklorist approach in research and presentation. Copies of the guide may be purchased through the Archive of American Minority Culture. 

LIVING ATLANTA 

Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of local history has been community radio station WRFG's Living Atlanta Project, an NEH-funded series of 50 half-hour programs depicting life in Atlanta between the World Wars. Living Atlanta stemmed from the premise that the roots of the modern civil rights movement could be found in the seemingly static era of segregation. The programs feature excerpts from oral history interviews with over 200 older Atlantans, ranging from maids to millionaires, woven together with topical music from the period and accompanying narration. The subject matter of the series was equally broad, including programs on work, leisure, race relations, politics, education, living conditions, and early challenges to the status quo. More so than many oral history projects, Living Atlanta explicitly pointed out how blacks and whites remember the past differently. 

Since the Living Atlanta series was completed in 1980, WRFG has produced hour-long documentaries on the Leo Frank case and on the 1906 Atlanta race riot. Both featured dramatizations in addition to oral history excerpts and topical music. All of WRFG's history programs can be obtained by writing P.O. Box 5332, Atlanta, GA 30307, or phone (404)523-3471. 

 

DEEP SOUTH PEOPLE'S HISTORY PROJECT 

Perhaps nobody in the region has been more committed to developing progressive popular history than Ken Lawrence and Jan Hillegas of the Deep South People's History Project, based in Jackson, Mississippi. Long-time activists Hillegas and Lawrence have compiled a comprehensive library of civil rights movement-related documents, including students' applications for the Mississippi Freedom Summer project, a major collection of materials of and about the Klan and other right wing extremist groups, and taped interviews with movement veterans. The holdings also include records of the development of the textbook "Mississippi: Conflict and Change" and extensive correspondence between Lawrence and Eugene Genovese after the publication of Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. 

In addition to developing the library, Lawrence and Hillegas have been involved in numerous other history-related activities. Lawrence's essay, "The Roots of Class Struggle in the South," has appeared in several places and has been reprinted by the New England Free Press. During the 1970s Project members uncovered many previously "lost" WPA and other accounts of slavery, narratives that have since been published in five supplemental volumes of George Rawick's The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography. Project staff also contributed to a Mississippi Public Television documentary on "The Free State of Jones," an area that in effect seceded from the Confederacy during the Civil War. Despite this outpouring of activity from the Project, its lack of academic affiliation or credentials has meant that the financial difficulties faced by other popular history efforts have been magnified in this case. Those interested in learning more about the Deep South People's History Project can write to P.O. Box 3568, Jackson, MS 39207.