Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 8, 1995 TAG: 9511080039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-18 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The New South, it is called, though it hardly is new anymore. One of the freshest things about it is the interest it has stirred in the Old South.
Yes, the South is rising again. Colleges and universities throughout the region are discovering that its unique culture is fascinating, both to native sons (and daughters) and to students and scholars as far away as Germany and Japan. The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, alone has 22 full-time professors, editors and scholars publishing and lecturing about the South's music, food, politics, literature - you name it.
So, while rapid economic expansion is inevitably changing the face of the South, and smoothing its heterogeneous wrinkles, that very change is adding to the allure of the region's cherished traditions. And, while antebellum mansions and magnolias are part of the picture, that past is far richer and more diverse than the world from which the fictional Scarlett O'Hara grew.
Black history, too, is part of the history of the South, and an interest in black studies in part has motivated serious study of the region's history. Then there is the history of the Indians, and of poor whites. They didn't live at Tara.
So much of what is admired worldwide as American music is music rooted in the South: country, gospel, jazz, blues, rock. And the world is rediscovering some of America's greatest writers, Southern writers.
At a time when the harsh glare of news events throw our racial divisions into stark relief, and the politics of crime and poverty heighten fears and mistrust among Americans, it is refreshing to get a glimpse of Southern culture from a distance. Europe and Japan don't see blocks of black and white, but one richly woven tapestry.
by CNB