FRONT PORCH ABOVE LEFT: Southern Oral History Program founding director Jacquelyn Hall (center) interviewing Guy (left) and Guion Johnson in 1974. The Johnsons were sociologists at UNC. ABOVE RIGHT: Students during an oral history performance at the Campus Y.
countries access the journal online. In the early years of the journal, Watson and Reed had to beg their friends for articles. Fortunately, they had some very talented friends: Bland Simpson, Doris Betts, C. Vann Woodward, Shannon Ravenel, Hal Crowther. As the journal’s reputation grew, a variety of scholars submitted pieces. Interdisciplinary in its approach, the journal publishes diverse perspectives on anything Southern, from tobacco queens, blues music and Civil War monuments to whether NASCAR or football is the real Southern sport. Once, the quarterly printed a previously unpublished letter from William Faulkner. The journal’s executive editor, Ayse Erginer, notes that the “s” in “Cultures” is intentional. “We don’t believe there is a monolithic Southern culture,” she said. “Southern Cultures writes about the complexity. People may think, ‘What can you possibly say about the South for 20 years?’ But we’ve just started.” The quarterly’s popular themed issues immerse readers in exploring a topic from multiple perspectives. Music issues have included a CD culled from archives and not available for sale elsewhere. Professors draw on Southern Cultures as a primary source for their teaching. The journal’s editorial staff is expanding multimedia use and digital offerings, with a project under way to make its full back catalogue available in e-book formats, all the while looking forward to the journal’s next 20 years.
“Anyone affiliated with the South should feel compelled to learn about it and figure out what’s going on, in our past and present, to take responsibility for shaping our future,” Neal said. “Southern Cultures makes the newest, most provocative research accessible to everyone.” •
Endowment for the Humanities-funded project that looks at the intersection between activism and journalism in the American South before, during and after the civil rights era. The project is a partnership between UNC, Duke and N.C. Central universities. Seth Kotch, UNC project director, ONLINE EXTRA: For details on upcoming says there was a significant transformation events, visit southerncultures.org. in the South during and after the civil rights movement. The project co-director is Duke historian Joshua Davis. “We are interested in exploring how journalists helped change the communities they covered, as well as how journalists themselves were changed,” he says. “There Program has collected more than were many people who continued and 5,000 interviews over 40 years extended their activism by founding their B Y M I C H E L E L Y N N own newspapers and starting their own radio stations.” Many of these civil rights-era ince its founding in 1973, the Southern journalists are still active today. Oral History Program has held as its “We have a tradition of good guiding principle, “You don’t have to be journalism in North Carolina,” says famous for your life to be history.” Now Kotch. “We have an impressive array of celebrating its 40th anniversary, the focus locally founded, community-oriented has continued to be on preserving the media outlets, particularly in Durham and voices of the American South. Raleigh.” Through more than 5,000 interviews, Among the media included in the which are archived in the Southern project are Durham’s WAFR — the first Historical Collection, and a variety of public, community-based black radio initiatives, the Program showcases the station — and Warrenton’s WVSP, just two voices of everyday people who have lived of the community-oriented radio stations and created history. that offered an outlet for the voices and “Media and the Movement: issues of African-Americans. Journalism, Civil Rights and Black Power “What we learn about the relationship in the American South” is a National between the media and the communities
Preserving the Voices
14 • COLLEGE.UNC.EDU • FALL 2013 • CAROLINA ARTS & SCIENCES