Pretty Southern

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  • “I have a dream today!”

    MLK

    Today marks the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech which would change the course of our nation’s history. His son, Martin Luther King III, was among the thousands of people who converged on Capitol Hill in honor of his late father. “This is not the time for nostalgic commemoration,” he said. “The task is not done. The journey is not complete. We can and we must do more.”

    Here in Atlanta, the birthplace of MLK Jr. and “a city too busy to hate”, we must look back to see just how far we’ve come in the past decades and the amount of work left to do. Southerners in particular must reflect on both the good and not-so-pretty (actually downright ugly) parts of our history. Let’s take a moment to read Dr. King’s powerful “I Have A Dream” speech. “This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with…” he states towards the end. As Southerners, let us continue the hope and faith that the South, and our nation, will continue with Dr. King’s quest for peace.

    “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

    Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

    But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

    In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

    But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

    We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

    It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

    But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

    The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

    We cannot walk alone.

    And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

    We cannot turn back.

    There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹

    I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

    Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

    And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

    I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

    I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

    I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

    I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

    I have a dream today!

    I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

    I have a dream today!

    I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

    This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

    With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
    And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

    My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
    Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
    From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

    And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

    And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

    Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

    Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

    Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

    Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

    But not only that:

    Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

    Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

    Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

    From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

    And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

    “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

  • Bitter Southerner

    If y’all haven’t been keeping up with the Southern blogosphere, then you missed the launch of The Bitter Southerner. One such gentleman named Chuck Reece, a writer and editor with more than 30-plus years of penmanship, was fed up with the great stories of the South going undocumented, so he set out to do just that. Every Tuesday from now ’til the Rapture (Lord willing) the Bitter Southerner will bring y’all another great story from the South. Y’all can read his first stellar interviews with Holeman & Finch’s Greg Best and Patterson Hood, frontman for Drive-by Truckers. Here’s what Reece had to say about launching The Bitter Southerner:

    This whole thing got started because I got pissed off. Bitter, as it were.

    Here’s how it happened. My then-fiancée and I spent a week in New Orleans. We spent time with amazing barkeeps like Chris Hannah at Arnaud’s French 75, Kirk Estopinal at Cure and one of the granddaddies of the American cocktail revival, Chris McMillian at Bar Uncommon. We drank very well. We heard great stories. We learned.

    Chris Hannah doing what he does best.

    Shortly after we returned, Drinks International released its list of the top 50 bars in the world. Not a single bar in New Orleans — or anywhere in the South — was on the list. I felt a familiar twinge of bitterness. I remembered the first time I moved away from the South, to New York City, and learned that my accent could trigger certain negative assumptions. To my new NYC acquaintances, my twang equaled “dumb” or “backward” or worse. Of course, when people discovered that I was reasonably intelligent and could speak in complete sentences, their assumptions quickly melted away. I learned a lesson: Sometimes, you just gotta show people.

    I decided somebody needed to show the world our region’s drinking secrets. So I rounded up a gang of co-conspirators — designers, photographers, videographers, whiskey geeks — with a plan to hunt down the South’s finest barkeeps and ask them to tell their stories. We would give them their due.

    Then we started thinking: There’s a larger point here, a bigger story to be told.

    You see, the South is a curiosity to people who aren’t from here. Always has been. Open up your copy of Faulkner’s 1936 masterpiece, “Absalom, Absalom!” Find the spot where Quentin Compson’s puzzled Canadian roommate at Harvard says to him, “Tell about the South. What it’s like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

    It always comes down to that last bit: With all our baggage, how do we live at all? A lot of people in the world believe that a lot of folks in the South are just dumb. Or backward. Just not worth their attention.

    And you know what? If you live down here, sometimes you look around and think, “Those folks are right.” We do have people here who will argue, in all sincerity, that the Confederacy entered the Civil War only to defend the concept of states’ rights and that secession had nothing to do with the desire to keep slavery alive. We still become a national laughing stock because some small town somewhere has not figured out how to hold a high school prom that includes kids of all races.

    If you are a person who buys the states’ rights argument … or you fly the rebel flag in your front yard … or you still think women look really nice in hoop skirts, we politely suggest you find other amusements on the web. The Bitter Southerner is not for you.

    The Bitter Southerner is for the rest of us. It is about the South that the rest of us know: the one we live in today and the one we hope to create in the future.

    According to Tracy Thompson’s brilliant “The New Mind of the South,” it’s been only two decades since Southern kids (including the entire Bitter Southerner crew) stopped learning history from censored textbooks, which uniformly glossed over our region’s terrible racial history. Even today, kids are studying texts that Thompson rightfully labels “milquetoast” in their treatment of Southern history.

    And recent election results suggest that the Southern mind hasn’t evolved much, that we’re not much different from what we were in 1936, when Faulkner was struggling yet again with the moral weirdness of the South. Almost 80 years later, it’s still too damned easy for folks to draw the conclusion that we Southerners are hopelessly bound to tradition, too resistant to change.

    But there is another South, the one that we know: a South that is full of people who do things that honor genuinely honorable traditions. Drinking. Cooking. Reading. Writing. Singing. Playing. Making things. It’s also full of people who face our region’s contradictions and are determined to throw our dishonorable traditions out the window. The Bitter Southerner is here for Southern people who do cool things, smart things, things that change the whole world, or just a few minds at a time.

    The world knows too little about these people, which is, alas, another reason to be bitter. But it prompted us to create The Bitter Southerner™.

    We’re talking here about people whose work embodies what my old buddy Patterson Hood once called, in a song, “the duality of the Southern thing.” The purpose of The Bitter Southerner is to explore, from every angle we can, the duality of the Southern thing.

    Last time I saw Patterson, we sat in his van outside Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Ga. We were talking about how his view had changed in the dozen or so years since he’d written that song.

    The Drive-By Truckers rockin' out, photo by Stacie Huckeba

    To him, the 2012 election results brought clear evidence that we are moving into a more progressive era, and that our southern home might actually be following, however slowly. “We may actually wind up living in a more enlightened country,” he said, and laughed a little.

    Still, the tension — the strain between pride and shame, that eternal duality of the Southern thing — remains. Lord knows, most folks outside the South believe — and rightly so — that most Southerners are kicking and screaming to keep the old South old. But many others, through the simple dignity of their work, are changing things.

    We’re here to tell their stories. Over time, you’ll see many pieces about bartenders, because a) that’s where we started and b) we very much enjoy a great cocktail. After all, one Southern tradition worthy of honor is the act of drinking well. But we’ll also cover the musicians, cooks, designers, farmers, scientists, innovators, writers, thinkers and craftsmen. We’ll show you the spots that make the South a far better place than most folks think it is. You’ll also see essays, short stories and poems — pieces that Bitter Southerners like ourselves create as we wrestle with our region. And every now and then, we’ll give you a peek at the oddities that seem to happen only down here.

    We hope you’ll enjoy The Bitter Southerner and spread the word about it. Help us round up other Bitter Southerners, no matter where they live.

    We hope you’ll want to contribute to The Bitter Southerner. In fact, we need you to. Right now, we have no budget and a staff of volunteers, so we’re starting in our hometown of Atlanta. But we know there are others out there like us, people with the skills to capture a good story, or create one. Tell us your ideas. Let us know who you are.

    The stories are out there, all over the South. They deserve to be told.

    Until we tell them all, we will remain as bitter as Antoine Amedie Peychaud.

    The Bitter Southerner offers only this promise: one great story from the South every week. More specifically, every Tuesday.

    Why only one story a week? Well, that word “great” is the operative one. We want to make sure that every story you see on The Bitter Southerner’s site gets treated right. Like any good work, that takes some time.

    We do promise to keep you entertained between stories. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter @bittersouth and/or Google+. We’ll keep you apprised of praiseworthy and interesting stuff going on in the South, with a little bit of Bitter Southerner interpretation for lagniappe.”

    Chuck ReeceChuck Reece has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years, beginning in journalism and then moving through politics, corporate communication and the consulting world. He hails from Elijay, Ga., and calls Atlanta home.

     

  • Faded Blue Jeans and Pearls

    If there’s one thing every Southern lady has in her closet, it’s that favorite pair of faded blue jeans. Miss Kelli Eidson of Atlanta has parlayed her love of simple fashion into a new blog: Faded Blue Jeans And Pearls. As she was already doing so many fabulous things on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter, she has, “finally gotten around to creating a blog about my beloved home.” Here’s a lovely post from Kelli about our honeysuckle ways…

    “I am so incredibly blessed to consider myself a Southern girl. I delight in saying “yes ma’am” to my mother and saying “God bless” when something takes me aback. I involuntarily spit out any tea that is not as sweet as the day is long. I address strangers as sweetheart and dear without so much as a second thought. My hair is forced to suffer through the intensity of the heat and humidity in Georgia during the summertime, but I revel in it because it allows me to wear charming little sundresses.

    I think we’re made a little differently down here. I was made to play outside as a child only to return home with my feet, face, and elbows a little dirty. It is widely accepted that Momma knows best whether I tend to like it or not. I am a God-fearing woman and happy about it.

    Southern hospitality is not a myth. If you come to my home, you will be greeted with a genuine smile and a warm hug from me (and probably my Momma too). Life’s greatest lessons were put under the banner of “growing up things.”

    If you live above the Mason-Dixon line, I am terribly sorry, but you are a Yankee. If you happen to show allegiance to any New York baseball team, you will always be a Damn Yankee in my eyes. Enough of you lost souls have managed to navigate your way down here and we take you. We’ll try to teach you a few things.

    I don’t don as deep of a Southern accent as I did when I was younger, but you will hear me say “y’all” and “fixin’ to” on a fairly regular basis. I could sit on a porch swing for hours and watch the world go by without so much as a glimpse of anxiety.”

    We totally agree. Keep up with all our @Pretty_Southern sayings using #LoveTheSouth, and be sure to keep up with Kelli on Twitter too!

    Kelli Eidson
    Kelli Eidson is a true Southern girl hailing from Kennesaw, Ga. She’s an avid reader, cardigan aficionado and Braves fanatic. Y’all can follow her on Twitter, and on her blog Faded Blue Jeans And Pearls.

  • Love VT

    Love VT

    I recently found Lauren’s piece “Love The South” and wanted to try something in a similar fashion myself. So I thought, what better way to kick off my senior year at Virginia Tech than a tribute to the place I’ve spent the last three years of my life, and where a final year awaits

    And so I present to y’all my profession of undying love to Hokie Land, “Love VT.” (more…)

  • The Atlanta Top 100 Bucket List

    The Atlanta Top 100 Bucket List

    Atlanta Bucket List

    After reading our Atlanta Bucket List, our dear friend (known on Yelp as Ivan S.) contributed his top 100 things to do in Atlanta. You’re gonna need a napkin to wipe your mouth off because this list is extensive! It ranges from the heart of downtown to way outside the perimeter (or OTP for y’all who know what that means). Good luck to anyone who dares to work your way through these 100 places. We’re certainly going to try through, and document it along the way moving forward. Here we go now with Mr. S’s Atlanta Bucket List.

    1. Burger at Miss Ann’s
    2. Burger at Holeman & Finch
    3. Sing at Church Organ karaoke at Sister Louisa’s
    4. Sing karaoke at Mary’s
    5. Sing karaoke at the Southern Comfort
    6. Stone Mountain Laser Show
    7. Fried Chicken at Watershed
    8. Sunrise/Sunset on Stone Mountain
    9. Find the hidden lake at Davidson-Arabia Park
    10. Ride the Ramblin’ Wreck
    11. Dress up at DragonCon
    12. FurryCon
    13. Have a chicken biscuit at the Chik-Fil-a Dwarf House (the one in Hapeville i.e., the first one)
    14. Win Manuel’s trivia
    15. Win The Local’s Trainwreck Trivia
    16. Finish a Scorpion Bowl at Trader Vic’s (by yourself)
    17. Attend the Kingsized’s Elvis Extravaganza
    18, Be in the Inman Park Parade
    19. March in the Pride Parade
    20. Ride in the Pink Pig
    21. Ice Skate in Centennial Park
    22. Take the CNN Tour (and continually ask to see Robin Meade)
    23. Attend/tailgate the SEC football championship
    24. AYCE samgyeopsal jip at HoneyPig
    25. Buy a bonsai from the monks in Lithonia (yes, there actually is a Buddhist monastery in Georgia)
    26. Go to the Waffle House museum
    27. Ride MARTA from the airport to North Point station (and back)
    28. SantaCon
    29. Drink enough to gain entry to the Fred
    30. Wear a kilt to the Highlands Festival
    31. Pass out at SteepleChase
    32. Sneak a flask into the Atlanta Zoo
    33. Take anyone of the GA Preservation Society Historic Walking Tours
    34. Attend Halloween at the Oakland Park Cemetery
    35. Find “Atlanta Marker Zero” near Underground Atlanta
    36. Putt a ball in front of Bobby Jones’ house in Grant Park
    37. Tell Margret Mitchell’s grave (in Oakland Cemetery) that “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
    38. Compete in the Chomp and Stomp
    39. Drive a Dodge Charger around the square in Covington
    40. Be insulted by Nick at Nick’s-To-Go
    41. Stay at MJQ till the turn on the lights
    42. Lapdance by Blondie
    43. Attend Drive-Invasion at the Starlight
    44. Go to a midnight at the High event
    45. Dance with your SO under a T.Rex at Martinis at IMAX
    46. Take a lap around Atlanta Motor Speedway
    47. Go/compete in the Redneck Olympics in Dublin, GA
    48. Go/chicken dance at Oktoberfest in Helen, GA
    49. Watch a tree give birth to a Cabbage Patch Doll in Dalonhega, GA
    50. Go gem grubbing in Dalonhega, GA
    51. Nod knowingly at Bicycle Shorts Man
    52. Create a graffitto in the Krog Street Tunnel
    53. Be challenged for breaking a rule at Your Dekalb’s Farmer’s Market
    54. Use Piedmont Park’s Robot Bathroom
    55. Shoot the “hooch”
    56. Watch the Peach Drop
    57. Attend a Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Plaza
    58. Visit the Wren’s Nest
    59. Get picked on at Dad’s Garage
    60. Order dry-fried eggplant at Tasty China
    61. Watch a Braves game from the $5 seats
    62. Watch a Hawks game
    63. Watch a Falcons game
    64. Watch a Silverbacks game
    65. Watch a 4 a.m. World Cup game at The Brewhouse
    66. Compete in an Autocross at Turner Field
    67. Run/walk the Peachtree Road Race
    68. Take a pic in front of the Atlanta White House
    69. Take a pic in front of the Big Chicken
    70. Watch the Santaland Diaries at the Horizon Theater
    71. Attend the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show
    72. Bike the Freedom Trail from Midtown to Stone Mountain
    73. Learn origami at JapanFest
    74. A first date at Apres Diem
    75. Eat an arepa from Arepa Mia
    76. Buy something at 4 a.m. from Murder Kroger
    77. Find Emory’s president’s house in the Lullwater Conservancy
    78. Order a pork hotpot (with crunchy rice) from Chateau Saigon
    79. Order a pig ear sandwich from The Big Apple Inn-Atlanta.
    80. Get a massage from that lady at Mary Mac’s.
    81. Order a beef rib from Fox Bros
    82. Order anything from Heirloom Market (and be able to sit down and eat it.)
    83. Order a sonoran dog at Bone Garden Cantina
    84. Order a haute dog at the Iberian Pig
    85. Order a quadruple bypass burger at the Vortex
    86. Buy a used book from the Book Nook
    87. A night at the Octopus Bar
    88. 4am eggs at The Majestic
    89. Oysters at the Optimist
    90. Attend the Dames Aflame Valentine’s Show with your SO
    91. Attend a service at Ebenezzer Baptist
    92. Get some chicken at El Norteno
    93. Get some chicken at La Brasas
    94. Noni’s Dance Party
    95. Walk the length of any Atlanta Streets Alive
    96. A meal at the Blue Gorilla
    97. Lobster roll at Nicky’s
    98. Soup buns at Chef Lui’s
    99. Pork from Ming’s BBQ
    100. Drink all the sodas at the Coke Museum

  • Cheerio, London! Howdy, USA!

    Cheerio, London! Howdy, USA!

    When I looked out my window this morning, I didn’t see three rows of train tracks or hear a symphony of honking taxis.  Instead, I saw green grass and birds swarming our four feeders, and listened to my cat meowing outside my bedroom door. Toto, I have a feeling I’m not in London anymore. (more…)