freedom

[Martin Luther] King would be the first to say that this struggle does not rely upon towering leaders and great speeches. Instead, he learned from the mothers and grandmothers of the South that the quilt of freedom is made of many patches and stitched by many hands, that the movement for which he spoke depended upon people working together in their own communities, turning to each other instead of on each other and taking power in their hands to build a world big enough for all the people, a world that is fearless and loving and true. - Timothy Tyson, Martin Luther King and the Southern Dream of Freedom

southern is stories

... southernness is a set of stories that southerners tell about themselves, making themselves up as they go along, always combining new materials and worn-out scraps. Pursuing this conversation is sometimes fun and sometimes grim, but always interesting. - Harry L. Watson & Larry J. Griffin, Front Porch, editors of Southern Cultures: The Fifteenth Anniversary Reader, 2008.

introduction

"More than any other part of America, the South stands apart...Thousands of Northerners and foreigners have migrated to it...but Southerners they will not become. For this is still a place where you must have either been born or have 'people' there, to feel it is your native ground. "Natives will tell you this. They are proud to be Americans, but they are also proud to be Virginians, South Carolinians, Tennesseeans, Mississippians and Texans. But they are conscious of another loyalty too, one that transcends the usual ties of national patriotism and state pride. It is a loyalty to a place where habits are strong and memories are long. If those memories could speak, they would tell stories of a region powerfully shaped by its history and determined to pass it on to future generations." – Tim Jacobson, Heritage of the South