Scenes from the post-racial society: Courthouse edition

The New York Times reports on the continuing practice of excluding African-Americans from juries in Southern states. The article is based on a study by the Equal Justice Initiative: During two years of research in eight southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee), EJI interviewed over 100 African-American citizens who [...]

Stokes County Courthouse

Danbury, NC is a pretty little town along the Dan River, just about an hour’s leisurely drive northwest of my home. I passed through there today, and stopped to take some pictures of the Stokes County Courthouse (built in 1904). In front of the courthouse stands this memorial to local Confederate war dead. A central [...]

Oak Level, Virginia

Intact Brain

You might be a redneck …

Highway 17, Charleston, SC

MC Hawking finally gets his wish

Jesse Helms represented the ugliest parts of my adopted home state’s history. The only thing sad about his death is that it did not occur several decades earlier. (Thanks to LGM for the links to Mother Jones and Salon.)

New publishing genre: shelter & shooting magazines

In today’s mail, I received a free issue of Garden & Gun, a magazine devoted to “21st Century Southern America”. I’ve never heard of it before, but it looks like a good read. True to the name, there are articles about both gardens (South Carolina architect John Paul Huguley’s garden follies) and guns (quail hunting [...]

A higher power

A letter in today’s Greensboro News & Record touches on a touchy issue for non-evangelicals living in the South: The God I already have suits me fine, thanks Lately, small groups of well-dressed, soft-spoken folks have knocked on our door. They come bearing a message: Commit to their god. That would be my only path [...]

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me

Our route today took us past Johnson Bible College, just outside of Knoxville. As we passed, I idly wondered whether the school has taken its motto from Psalms 23:4.

Additions to my “to read” list

In an example of fortuitous timing, this week’s Forward features three books about Jewish life in the South, just as I’m about to embark on my own Dixie Diaspora.