SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT When we unexpectedly showed up at Grandma’s house on any given Sunday, she would send one of my older brothers into the yard to catch a chicken or two. She was quicker and more efficient at wringing the chicken’s neck, so she would deftly, with a flick…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a double immigrant from Italy and Venezuela who became a Texan 25 years ago. On top of that, I am a first-generation college graduate who received a master’s degree in Journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. That’s over 30 years of experience as a…

SOUTHERN LEGITIMACY STATEMENT: Mississippi birthed me skinny, Louisiana fattened me up, Georgia married me off, Tennessee worked me like a borrowed mule and Florida retired me. My favorite quote is from Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. ” The South is a place. East, west, and north are nothing…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: We lived up in a holler outside Waynesboro, Tennessee. My dad was a master sergeant in Korea, at 23 years old. They killed everyone else, except Private Simmons, so they put my dad in charge. We never got along, so I hit the road Jack… Those…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As a student at one of the South’s finest public universities, I rediscovered my childhood penchant for long conversations, piping hot, locally roasted coffee, and kind souls who always have enough time for tradition. The public transportation systems aren’t bad, either. The 32 Bus The 32 bus…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Erik Peters is a teacher with a love of the American south. Whether it is southern comfort -of either the welcoming kind or the sort which warms your throat around a campfire- or country music, the south’s culture of rugged individualism has become a hallmark of Peters’…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in North Carolina and spent more than half my life in the south – variously residing in North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. I admire Mark Twain for mighty specific reasons and Allan Gurganus for others. I have asked both authors questions. Knowing of our…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Galveston, TX, and raised in Houston after my family evacuated following Hurricane Carla. I am educated at the University of Texas, Texas State University, and Texas Tech. That’s a whole bunch of southern bona fides. But here’s more. I grew and still enjoy…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Some folks say Oklahoma is the south, I’m not so sure. I was born there and grew up there but always heard the call of those more southern states. I moved on down to Texas for a while and soon enough I slid on over to New…

My Southern Legitimacy is that I used to work towboats out of exotic ports such as Fouchon and Houma. There I developed a lifelong thirst for sweet tea and gumbo done right. If that isn’t enough legitimacy, I understand. Not everyone can be bona fide Southern. Three Stories Drilling  We…

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,…