Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the South, but I’ve been around. I carry it with me everywhere. An Evening with Friends Jo-Jo shook loose tobacco onto the paper, rolled it and ran his tongue along the edge. He stowed the near-empty pouch and the book of…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: No need for the Confederate flag, which has spread far beyond the South as a symbol of hatred and racism. Waffle House serves as the true boundary marker for the region. Cheesy eggs, grits, raisin toast, and bottomless mugs of coffee work for me. Always have, always…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Sunday mornings at our house it’s grits, red eye gravy, country ham, eggs over easy and buttermilk biscuits. (Please don’t tell my doctor.) I’ve walked 3 miles to a one room schoolhouse taught by an 18-year old girl with one year of business school and lots of…

Southern Legitimacy Statement On my dad’s side of the family, we arrived in North America with Winthrop’s fleet in 1630. They were a whole decade behind mom’s kinfolk, who came on the Mayflower in 1620. I can say with confidence my family fought in every war since (and on both…

Southern Legitimacy Statement : I was born and raised in the great state of North Carolina, where I grew up in what was once a farming community. I was raised by those who grew up working in the tobacco fields of Johnston County. A place where some of the best…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up miles from Kentucky, spent summers in Tennessee, and married a guy from Tennessee. I consider the South my second home. Is that legitimate enough? Oh, my daughter will be attending Ole Miss in the fall. Costumes for a Different Woman The dresses in my…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: There used to be preachers along the North Carolina/Virginia border who ran whiskey Saturday nights and preached fire and brimstone Sunday mornings. I know. I listened to them through the windows of The Holy Way Baptist Church as I smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes and sipped some of…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I ate grits for the first time when I was eighteen and a starving university student in Tallahassee, Florida. Grits filled something deep inside me as did the intoxicating perfume of a rainstorm during a summer afternoon and the sight of Spanish Moss dripping from the Live…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in the North, live in the North, but spent 4 years studying literature in Atlanta, which I’m guessing you don’t consider to be the South. This story is, however, about people who came to America from Sicily, which is its own South, to live…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Hong Kong (it’s in the southern part of China). I lived in Burlington, KY for a few years. While I was coaching high school football across the river in Ohio, the coaches would say, “You can’t be from Kentucky; you’re wearing shoes.” In…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I had a northerner ask me where I was from. I replied, “I’m a Virginian.” He thought that pretty efficient: I told him where I was from and what I was in one statement. Redneck Exhumation “You know my creeds: Dirty for dirty, and Don’t have to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Though I was born in upstate New York and grew up in Michigan, my Southern leanings began to emerge when I studied Faulkner, blues, and jazz in college. I’ve now lived for almost twenty years in the South and have earned regional citizenship by virtue of loving…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As proclaimed in the foreword of my coming-of-age novel “Saint Andrews’ Parish”: “I count it a blessing of the first magnitude: Being born in Charleston, South Carolina, and growing up in that part of it known as Saint Andrew’s Parish. ‘The Parish,’ as many referred to it,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Now, I’m not about to claim New Orleans as distinctly southern, and certainly not New Smyrna Beach or Key West. And I’m sceptical of all variants of y’all on the page. But look at how I spell sceptical…. Three Bus Having brought the coffee to his lips,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was raised in Georgia and came of age in Bama. Summer’s are for fishin’, fryin’ okra, and makin’ tomato sandwiches. Come winter, I’m cussin’ the cold with a glass of bourbon. My wife makes damn fine apple butter jelly, which I hand out to just about…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: One day while riding my motorcycle, I came upon a sign that read “site of the Mason-Dixon Line”. I looked at it for a while, then crossed to the other side, then back again, then sorta straddled it, then started my bike again. Edward Michael Supranowicz has…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent a large chunk of my life in Birmingham, Alabama, working as a freelance writer for various companies, institutions, and magazines. Most of the time I was the only non-Southerner in the group, which can be fine or not so fine. Southerners can be cruel but…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My Momma made me a sack out of a pair of my Daddy’s old blue jeans when I was six-year-old. What on earth for you might be asking. So I could pick cotton. If that ain’t legit enough you can kiss my… Hit and Run First cold…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I attended East Carolina U., Virginia Tech., and NC State U. I married a southern gentleman and have lived in North Carolina for over forty-three years. Once I could pronounce “y’all” as a one syllable word and eat grits, I considered myself a true southern. Wilted “Sharp…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Whelp, I’ve definitely thought about the South before, and I get offended when greens aren’t cooked right, so I’m probably the most legitimately Southern person you’ve ever heard of. Apocalypse Now Until the Streetlights Come On James crawled along a dry patch of shade behind the large…

*Southern Legitimacy Statement: To you folks, I’m not sure I’m legitimate. Read on… Ben Gilbert is founder of TheBlueSpace Guides Co-operative and a consultant to Child Space Foundation, Nepal. He lives in the United Kingdom. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. * so he’s legitimate, right Mules?…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I don’t know if any of my people were legitimate, but they were most certainly poor dirt farmers in the Carolinas back into the 1600’s. My folks consider sweet potato a vegetable, and salads wiggle like a hula girl’s hips. Is that a decent enough pedigree to…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I spent half of my childhood living in an out-of-place dome house in a forest in Arkansas. My dad grew weed in the backyard and told me it was “smelly okra.” Shelf Clouds “Why would she make me go that way?” he asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a native Mississippian, born in Hattiesburg, and raised just across the river in Petal, Mississippi. Most of my life, I was a professional illustrator and graphic designer. About two years ago, I moved to South Carolina, and I am now pursuing my MFA in Creative…