Sept/Oct 08 | Features

Best of the New South

50 people, places and things that make us proud

Sounding a bit like Jim Nabors, Norman Winter greets listeners of his daily audio podcast with an inviting “Hello, gardeners” before launching into his latest two-minute treatise on larkspur or purple gomphrena. A horticulturist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service and a newspaper columnist, Winter has been doing the show on local radio for thirteen years. He ventured into the podcast realm in 2006. Gardening aficionados can subscribe to the segments for free via iTunes. The shows are also available on the MSU Web site. (msucares.com/news)

Poet

Natasha Trethewey, Atlanta, Georgia

In 1966, Natasha Trethewey was born to a white father and a black mother, married illegally, in Gulfport, Mississippi. In 2007, the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair of Poetry at Emory University was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a book titled Native Guard. The work ties Trethewey’s memories of a biracial childhood and the 1985 murder of her mother by an ex-husband together with the nearly forgotten service of a regiment of black soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War.

Trethewey is determined that her memories be felt by future generations. She writes in “South,” “I returned to a country battlefield…where the roads, buildings, and monuments / are named to honor the Confederacy, / where that old flag still hangs, I return / to Mississippi, state that made a crime / of me—mulatto, half-breed—native / in my native land, this place they'll bury me." (houghtonmifflinbooks.com)

Preservationist

Gaston Callum, Raleigh, North Carolina

In the mid-1990s, Gaston callum began to photograph old, abandoned plantation homes and farmhouses—just walking right in without permission. “It doesn’t take long before you start wanting to learn the history,” he says. “Once I got to know the owners, and learned whether they were planning to tear them down or hoped to give them away for restoration, I decided to keep going.” Callum started Southland Historic Preservation, a nonprofit group that shines a spotlight on these disappearing structures in hopes that they’ll be bought and restored.

The obstacles can be daunting—from rotten heart pine to those who feel that homes built with the help of slave labor are not worth restoring. “But those slaves were building something—the craftsmanship was incredible,” says Callum. “The houses they built have survived numerous hurricanes. When we tear them down or let them fall, we’re not doing anyone any favors.” (southlandhp.org)

Public Garden

Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia