Secretive Scholars of the Old South. The Abbeville Institute is a scholarly society that seeks to promote a "distinctly Southern interpretation of American history and identity ... a valuable intellectual and spiritual resource for exposing and correcting the errors of American modernity." Founded in 2003 by Donald Livingston, philosophy professor at Emory University, the Institute will hold its 8th annual conference, "State Nullification, Secession, and the Human Scale of Political Order" next February.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 24, 2009 - 80 comments

North by South : web content on the Great Migration, the result of a six-year, NEH-funded collaboration between Kenyon College and K-12 students in Ohio and various Southern communities.
posted by Miko on May 1, 2006 - 3 comments

Just a small piece down the road from Christmas Town USA looms the empty Loray Mill, an icon of the old industrial South and a monument to the early labor movement. Gastonia 1929: the chief of police is murdered, the Communist organizer flees the country, and the young union balladeer is killed by a strikebreaking mob. (Hear Pete Seeger sing one of her ballads. [real media]) Much more on the area's rich and turbulent history at A Southern Primer. (Lewis Hine's child labor photographs previously discussed here.)
posted by milquetoast on Dec 9, 2005 - 1 comment

Here's a 40th anniversary that deserves more attention than it probably will get.
posted by darren on May 10, 2001 - 6 comments

Mississippi Reaps What it Sews? Mississippi votes overwhelmingly to keep the Confederate flag as part of the state flag design. Is this democracy in action? This type of issue is usually decided by a state legislature. I understand the idea of heritage but surely there are ways to preserve it without having a banner on every corner widely seen as a symbol of slavery and racism. Even if you don't view the Southern cross as representing this, why hurt the people who do? The Nazi's built their power on the nationalistic idea of German "pride and heritage", but you don't see swastika flags flying today over Berlin. Does anyone think there should be an economic boycott of the State, like the one that was effective in getting North Carolina to remove the confederate symbol from its capital building? (Public buildings here in Texas now display the official Confederate State's flag when flying our "six flags" - not the Southern cross which was actually a battle flag.)
posted by sixdifferentways on Apr 18, 2001 - 41 comments