Take On The South

The story of the South is also the story of Civil Rights.  On this episode of Take on the South, we explore how the Civil Rights Movement has shaped the South and how the story continues to unfold.  Mark Smith is joined by Professor Bobby Donaldson, a professor in the History department and Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research, at the University of South Carolina, who shares some remarkable stories about Civil Rights in the American South.

This special episode of Take on the South is a compilation of short segments from the students in the Spring 2024 course Popular Musics of the US South. Each student discusses the history of a particular pop music artist or genre with roots in the South. The students featured in this episode are Brooks Bishop, Josh Browning, Will Byars, Justin Gilbert, Jorden Jeffers, Annie Matson, Chris Nash, Cameran Peake, Logan Rodgers, and Wilson Stokes. 

Emily Allen interviews Dr. Sophia Enríquez, who is the Andrew W. Mellon assistant Professor Music, Latino/a Studies, and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. They discuss her work with Latino communities in Appalachia, the US South, and Mexico. 

Dr. Mark Smith of the Institute for Southern Studies is joined by the 2024 McNair Conversation in Southern Studies Honoree, Chief Justice Jean Toal. This discussion explores the Chief Justice’s upbringing in South Carolina, her experience in southern politics, and her signal achievements in the legal field. The McNair Conversation is an annual event in which thinkers, leaders, and just plain interested people from the South are interviewed about their lives and how they understand the region. It is funded in part by a generous grant from the estate of the late Robert McNair, governor of South Carolina from 1965-1971.

Twenty years ago, Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates, Jr. found, verified, and published what proved to be the first novel written by an African American woman in America: The Bondswoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts. However, little to nothing was known about Crafts' own life--until now. Mark Smith is joined by Furman University's Gregg Hecimovich, author of The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative, to discuss her remarkable life, the story of his work to piece together Crafts' biography, and the complexity of social interactions in the Old South.

In another of our miniseries of rehearsals and evaluations of AI-produced scripts of conversations with famous dead Southerners, Mark Smith is joined by Professor Stephanie Y. Mitchem to talk about Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks. They discuss the famous incident on the Birmingham bus--which AI gets mostly right--the complexities of Parks's identity and activism, and all of the details and nuances that ChatGPT misses.

Mark Smith is joined by Ed Madden, former poet laureate of Columbia, SC, to talk about the role of poetry in recording the history and exploring the places of Southern cities.

Mark Smith asked ChatGPT to produce a scripted interview with the writer William Faulkner. Matt Simmons joins him to discuss that script, the work and background of the South's most famous writer, and the limits and promises of AI.

Mark Smith is joined by Sarah Gardner of Mercer University to talk about the role the English playwright William Shakespeare played in the military, political, and interpersonal life of the American Civil War.

In another of our series of AI-generated conversations with famous dead Southerners, Mark Smith is joined by USC history professor Kent Germany to discuss the odd understanding ChatGPT has of our 36th president, Lyndon Baines Johnson

September 22-24th was Family Weekend at the University of South Carolina, and we in Southern Studies held an open house for students, parents, and family members to come in and tell their Southern stories. This episode features highlights from that open house, with reactions to the South from two Iranians, a New Englander parsing what "just Southern enough" means, and a native Carolinian sharing how she fell in love with home after having trouble finding something to eat in Germany.

Mark Smith interviews Wendy Homeyer, a native of Greenville, SC, alumna of the University of South Carolina, and former George W. Bush administration staffer about her experience of the fateful day of September 11, 2001 from within the White House.

Mark Smith sits down with James Williams, CEO of Columbia, SC-based Food People Restaurant Group, to discuss the challenges and opportunities of doing business in the South. Along the way, they discuss why struggles with access to capital continue to lead so many Southern entrepreneurs leaving the region and why so many eventually return home. Finally, how does Southern hospitality shape how business is done in the South, and what does the future for entrepreneurship in the region look like?

In the last of our summer repeats, we get y'all ready for football season! Mark Smith is joined by Andy Doyle, Associate Professor of history at Winthrop University to discuss the origins of college football in the South. How did this thoroughly industrialized, northeastern game associated with New England gentry and the Ivy League--which was originally rejected by Southerners as a "Yankee game"--come to dominate the region? It's a fascinating story full of colorful characters that you'll want to share with all of your football-loving friends and family.

How do roads help to shape and define the South? In this episode, we talk particularly about "Malfunction Junction," South Carolina's most notorious highway interchange, the stretch of highway where I-20 and I-26 come together west of Columbia. What's the history of Malfunction Junction and what does that history tell us about the development of South Carolina over the last several generations? More importantly, what is its future as it transforms into "Carolina Crossroads" over the rest of this decade? Mark Smith is joined by Brian Klauk, project manager of the Carolina Crossroad projects, and Pete Poore, the communications director of the South Carolina Department of Transportation, to discuss.

https://www.scdotcarolinacrossroads.com/

An Englishman, a New Englander, and a Southerner walk into a podcast studio and have...a simply incredible conversation about the South, what ideas we bring to the region, and what we have to unlearn about it to make sense of it and ourselves within it. 

Matt Simmons is joined by Mark Smith and Andrew Berns, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, for an electric conversation. We could have gone on for three times as long!

[This is the first of a series of repeats of some of our best episodes during the summer. We will be back with all new episodes with the new academic year!]

Professional Wrestling has a rich history in the South, a history that arguably reaches its apogee in the last 25 years of the 20th century. During that time, many of the major wrestling 'territories' of the region came together to form Atlanta-based World Championship Wrestling; throughout the 1980s and 90s, WCW functioned as the #2 wrestling promotion worldwide. Further, with the post-Jim Crow landscape of the South leading to integration of both performers and audiences and WCW's introduction of Mexican-style lucha libre wrestling into the American context, Southern wrasslin' emerged in the 1980s and 90s as a way to tell the story of a changing South to the nation and the world. How was this story told?

We are joined by Andre Key and Robert Greene, II of Claflin University and Miles Smith, IV of Hillsdale College to discuss the topic.

Mark Smith is joined by Matt Childs, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, to discuss the longstanding connections between the South, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They discuss shared cultural practices, economic realities, and histories and the idea that, in some ways, the South has always been akin to the more southerly parts of the Americas than the US North. Childs argues that, in order to understand the South as more than simply "the place that is not the North," we need to place the region into hemispheric and global contexts, looking for places of interconnection that transcend national borders.

Mark Smith talks to Southern Studies alumna Emily Ames (University of South Carolina class of '23) about her senior thesis: an examination of nearly 50 years of recipes in Southern Living magazine. How do these recipes, and their evolution over time, speak to how the South's ideas of itself and the region's place in America?

Jennifer Gunter spoke with the poet, Christian J. Collier. He is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His works have appeared in several journals and poetry reviews. A 2015 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellow, he is also the winner of the 2020 ProForma Contest and the 2019-2020 Seven Hills Review Poetry Contest. His most recent work The Gleaming of the Blade,  was named the 2021 Frost Place Competition Editors’ Selection.

They discussed the parameters of spoken word and the power of language.  Collier also talked about ways he uses race as a way at getting at a number of other issues such as intimacy and vulnerability. His take on the South is that we exist in a multitude of Souths, some not necessarily evident to all residents.

What does a South Carolina-born child understand about the South and Southern identity? Mark Smith is joined by his eight year old daughter, Rose, for an intriguing (and adorable) short interview that reveals much about how ideas such as "South" are put into larger social, pop cultural, and familial contexts as children begin the process of understanding their place in the world.

Dr. Mark Smith of the Institute for Southern Studies is joined by the  2023 McNair Conversation in Southern Studies Honoree, Lou Kennedy. Ms.  Kennedy is an alumna of the University of South Carolina and the CEO of  Nephron Pharmaceuticals. This discussion touches on economic  development, the doors a Southern accent opens, and the challenges faced  by women in business.  

The McNair Conversation is an annual event in which thinkers, leaders,  and just plain interested people from the South are interviewed about  their lives and how they understand the region. It is funded in part by a  generous grant from the estate of the late Robert McNair, governor of  South Carolina from 1965-1971.

Mark Smith is joined by Dr. Amy Snipes of Penn State to discuss the state of Latino farm labor in the South. What policies--both formal and informal--created the current reality of the South's agricultural sector being dominated by Latino labor? How does this echo previous eras of agricultural labor in the South? What current challenges are faced by Latino farm laborers? How do Southern cultural norms create a space in which Latinos feel comfortable doing seasonal farm labor in the South?

Professor Kent Germany of USC's History department steps in as a guest host to interview David Masciotra, author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters, about the life of the civil rights leader and Democratic party stalwart, and how Jackson's Southerness informed his work.

In January 1958, the Ku Klux Klan decided to hold a rally outside of the small town of Maxton, North Carolina. The goal was to intimidate local Native American groups and inscribe their place within the Jim Crow hierarchy--but when large numbers of armed Indians showed up, the plan backfired spectacularly.

Matt Simmons is joined by Judge James Lockemy, the recently-retired chief judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals, to discuss the background, events, and aftermath of what is now remembered as the Battle of Hayes Pond, as well as the place of Native Americans, and particularly the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina, in the story of the South.

We're in the midst of bowl season, and we figure some of y'all are itching for even more football content--we're here for you! On today's episode, Mark Smith is joined by Andy Doyle, Associate Professor of history at Winthrop University to discuss the origins of college football in the South. How did this thoroughly industrialized, northeastern game associated with New England gentry and the Ivy League--which was originally rejected by Southerners as a "Yankee game"--come to dominate the region? It's a fascinating story full of colorful characters that you'll want to share with all of your football-loving friends and family.

This will be our last episode of 2022. We'll see y'all in the new year!

Mark Smith is joined by Ted Mauro, Chair of the South Carolina Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, to discuss the history and consequences of civil asset forfeiture in South Carolina.

From D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation through this past summer's smash hit, Where the Crawdads Sing, the South has always been a key locale of Hollywood's vision of America. How does the region feature in America's cinematic imagination? How does Hollywood use the South, and how has the South on screen evolved over time? Matt Simmons is joined by a panel of guests today to discuss. You'll leave with a list of movies to watch!

An Englishman, a New Englander, and a Southerner walk into a podcast studio and have...a simply incredible conversation about the South, what ideas we bring to the region, and what we have to unlearn about it to make sense of it and ourselves within it. 

Matt Simmons is joined by Mark Smith and Andrew Berns, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, for an electric conversation. We could have gone on for three times as long!