Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course and 1859 Slave Sale
Overview Introduction The blades of grass on all the Butler estates are outnumbered by the tears that are poured out in agony at the wreck that has been wrought in happy homes, and the crushing grief that has been laid on loving hearts. —Mortimer Thomson (Philander Doesticks)1Q. K. Philander Doesticks, “Great Auction Sale of Slaves […]
Natasha Trethewey Interviews Elizabeth Alexander
Overview Interview with Natasha Trethewey https://vimeo.com/126189360?fl=pl&fe=sh Part 2: Alexander discusses growing up in NYC and Washington DC, DC as Upsouth, identifications with Blackness and southernness Part 3: Alexander discusses southernness and urban space, and reads from “Letter: Blues,” “Frank Willis,” “Talk Radio, DC” Part 4: Alexander reads “Race” and comments on the pale-skinned body; Trethewey compares “Race” and […]
Insistent Traces
Overview Readings Claudia Emerson reads the untitled opening from Pinion: An Elegy. View poem text here. https://vimeo.com/134755182 Claudia Emerson reads the poem “Rent.” View poem text here. https://vimeo.com/134755765 Claudia Emerson reads the poem “Aftermath.” View poem text here. https://vimeo.com/134756419 Claudia Emerson reads the poem “My Grandmother’s Plot in the Family Cemetery.” View poem text here. […]
Counterblast: How the Atlanta Temple Bombing Strengthened the Civil Rights Cause
Overview Atlanta Temple Bombing On the morning of Sunday, October 12, 1958, shortly after 3:30 a.m., an explosion ripped through the Reform Temple on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Although no one was hurt, the blast, which woke people from their sleep several blocks away, caused almost $200,000 of damage.1Atlanta Constitution, October 13, 1958; New York […]
Southern Memory, Southern Monuments, and the Subversive Black Mammy
Overview Southern Memory, Southern Monuments, and the Subversive Black Mammy Question and Answer Wallace-Sanders responds to questions about the photographs she uses, the proposed Mammy Memorial Institute, the political responses to the proposed mammy memorial in Washington DC, and the mammy figure within Lost Cause discourse. Interested in submitting your work to Southern Spaces? […]
Corporations, Corruption, and the Modern Lobby: A Gilded Age Story of the West and the South in Washington, DC
Overview Corporations, Corruption, and the Modern Lobby: Part 2: White describes the lengths both men went to in an attempt to gain subsidies and credit for their respective railroads Part 3: White shows how Scott and Huntington cultivated political “friendships” to gain corporate influence in federal government Part 4: White addresses questions about the on-going significance of transcontinental […]
Watching the Surface for a Sign
Overview Patrick Phillips grew up in Forsyth County, Georgia, at the northern edge of the Atlanta metropolitan region. Recorded near the town of Cumming and along Lake Lanier, the poems presented here delve into family, place, conflict, and time’s effects. Phillips finds mystery and ambivalence in childhood’s physical and emotional landscapes, scratches the idyllic patina […]
A Plague of Bulldozers: Celestine Sibley and Suburban Sprawl
Overview Introduction Roswell development, 2008 In her 1995 murder mystery, A Plague of Kinfolks, journalist and fiction writer Celestine Sibley (1914–1999) made her feelings clear about Atlanta’s sprawl into the area near Roswell, Georgia, about twenty-five miles north of the city. When the book’s protagonist, Kate Mulcay, attends a dinner party in the new neighboring […]
The Morning with Many Tongues
Overview Editor’s note: This work contains the title of a poem which has a racial slur. Readers are encouraged to engage with this material at their own discretion and comfort level. Updated: 10/21/2026 Readings https://vimeo.com/134754263?fl=pl&fe=sh Sean Hill reads the poem “Just as Sure.” Poem text. https://vimeo.com/134754746?fl=pl&fe=sh Sean Hill reads the poem “Nigger Street 1937.” Poem text. https://vimeo.com/134755208?fl=pl&fe=sh […]
American and British Slave Trade Abolition in Perspective
Overview American and British Slave Trade Abolition in Perspective Part 1: Davis situates African slavery in the Americas in relation to the free market forces of the “New World” global economy https://vimeo.com/130249102?fl=pl&fe=ti Part 2: Davis discusses connections between enslaved African labor, trans-Atlantic trade, and emerging anti-slavery movements. Part 3: Davis discusses three major factors leading […]