A Mind To Stay Here
Closing Conference Comments on Southern Exceptionalism
Closing Conference Comments on Southern Exceptionalism
John Egerton, Nashville, Tennessee
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Overview: Writer John Egerton reflects
upon thirty years of chronicling Dixie's Americanization and
America's southernization from his post in Nashville. He discusses
the persistence of "southern" themes and offers subjects
for books that he hopes other writers will pursue.
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Presentation Sections:
Video:
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Part 1 (11:01 min.)
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How Egerton came to write The
Americanization of Dixie (1974). Freelancing in Nashville.
What he didn't write, and why. A Story of Utopias. Southern
Food. Changes in the publishing business. The mid-1980s and
Egerton begins Speak Now Against the Day. |
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Part 2 (7:01 min.)
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Egerton compares the social conditions
and directions he observed in Americanization of Dixie
with what he finds today. He bemoans the loss of the family farm,
the drowning of New Orleans and the "exportation of the worst"
of southern culture.
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Part 3 (13:11 min.)
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Recent politics in the South reveal how the
tactics of Bush advisor Karl Rove built upon Nixon's Southern
Strategy. With no pretense to a moderate—let alone progressive—course
of action, the newest New South seeks its future in a utopian cocoon
and its heaven in a gated community of the rich, the powerful, the
acquisitive, and the pious.
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Part 4 (6:33 min.)
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Egerton reflects upon how the South is riddled with contradictions. He makes the claim that "if the South is ever saved, it will be the Black population that saves the South." He talks about the importance of integration in writing books, and he advocates for the importance of the rural life, as it is different from the urban experience. |
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Part 5 (7:06 min.)
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Contradictions riddle the South. Former traitors
turn super-patriots. A land of church-goers is also a place with
high rates of murder and divorce. Egerton considers the importance
of race in persistent southern distinctiveness.
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Part 6 (3:14 min.)
| Unfinished business. Egerton offers a list of
book ideas about neglected but important and fascinating people
and subjects.
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About John Egerton:
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John Egerton was born in Atlanta, Georgia, June
14, 1935, the son of William G. Egerton, a traveling salesman, and
his wife, Rebecca White Egerton. The family settled in Cadiz, Kentucky,
where John remained until leaving to attend Western Kentucky University,
1953-1954. From 1954 until 1956, he served in the United States
Army. He earned a B.A. at the University of Kentucky in 1958 and
an M.A. in 1960.
Between 1958 and 1960, Egerton was with the Public Relations Department of the University of Kentucky, and from 1960 to 1965, he was the Director of Public Information for the University of South Florida. He was a staff writer for Southern Education Report, 1965-1969, and for Race Relations Reporter, 1969-1971. In 1971, Egerton began his career as a free-lance reporter. He was a contributing editor for Saturday Review of Education (1972-1973), Race Relations Reporter (1973-1974), and Southern Voices (1974-1975). From 1973-1975, he was a writer for Atlanta's Southern Regional Council. In 1977-1978, he was journalist-in-residence at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Egerton has written or edited eleven non-fiction books and contributed over two-hundred articles to periodicals. He has also been a participant in and writer for many projects or conferences dealing with desegregation and civil rights. |
Video of John Egerton was taken at "The End of Southern
Exceptionalism" conference held at Emory University in March 2006, an
event organized by Professor Joseph
Crespino of the Emory University History Department and Professor
Matt
Lassiter of the Department of History at the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor.
Presentation Sections:
