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Articles on American South

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French, Spanish and Japanese are spoken faster than German, Vietnamese and Mandarin, with English somwhere in the middle. Aaron Amat/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Why somepeopletalkveryfast and others … take … their … time − despite stereotypes, it has nothing to do with intelligence

Language, geography, age and other factors can all affect how fast a person talks. But sometimes, these perceived differences are only in the listener’s head.
McCarthy attends the 2009 premiere of the film adaptation of his novel ‘The Road.’ Evan Agostini/AP Photo

Cormac McCarthy’s fearless approach to writing

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author was always willing to experiment with his prose, pacing and narration, crafting an oeuvre that varied wildly in style and structure.
A culture of honor is more likely to develop in areas where law enforcement is inconsistent or nonexistent. 20th Century Fox/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Will Smith’s slap shows ‘honor culture’ is alive and well

While you’ll often hear people say that violence is never the answer, in some communities violence is viewed as a perfectly reasonable response to personal slights.
Floyd’s nephew, Brandon Williams (center), with the Rev. Al Sharpton (left) outside the heavily guarded Hennepin County Government Center, in Minneapolis, Minn., before the murder trial of Officer Derek Chauvin began, March 29, 2021. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Derek Chauvin trial begins in George Floyd murder case: 5 essential reads on police violence against Black men

Research on racism and policing in the US, explained by the experts who study it.
Huntsville reveres hometown hero Sam Houston. And he did not revere the Confederacy. Jimmy Henderson/flickr

Texas distorts its past – and Sam Houston’s legacy – to defend Confederate monuments

Texas’ most famous statesman, Sam Houston, was a slave owner who opposed the Confederacy. But white Texans tend to omit his dissent in current debates over removing Confederate markers.
The Port of Savannah used to export cotton picked by enslaved laborers and brought from Alabama to Georgia on slave-built railways. Cotton is still a top product processed through this port. Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Slave-built infrastructure still creates wealth in US, suggesting reparations should cover past harms and current value of slavery

Geographers are documenting slave-built infrastructure, from railroads to ports, in use today. Such work could influence the reparations debate by showing how slavery still props up the US economy.
Georgia’s recent election of three Democrats for national office – one Jewish, one Black and one Catholic – upended over a century of politics openly hostile to minorities. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

How new voters and Black women transformed Georgia’s politics

Georgia once had ‘the South’s most racist governor,’ a man endorsed by the KKK. Now its senators are a Black pastor and a Jewish son of immigrants. A scholar of minority voters explains what happened.
Richmond’s towering 1890 Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd. John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Latest legal hurdle to removing Confederate statues in Virginia: The wishes of their long-dead white donors

A Richmond court says the city cannot remove its controversial Robert E. Lee sculpture because an 1890 land deed gave the Confederate monument ‘to the people’ of Virginia, not its government.
Richmond’s towering Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd. Is removal next? John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Dead white men get their say in court as Virginia tries to remove Robert E. Lee statues

On June 19, a court will decide whether Virginia must obey a 1890 deed that gave the state a plot of prime Richmond land as long as it would ‘faithfully guard’ the Robert E. Lee statue erected there.
Christmas tours to mansions often present a ‘magical’ experience to tourists, but they ignore the realities of the lives of slaves who worked there. Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau/Flickr

Slave life’s harsh realities are erased in Christmas tours of Southern plantations

Fictional accounts of white Southerners make it seem like it was fun to be a slave on a plantation at holiday time. Many of today’s tours repeat such stories.
A damaged Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, after protesters yanked it off its pedestal in front of a government building. AP Photo/Allen Breed

A Confederate statue graveyard could help bury the Old South

Where do old Confederate statues go when they die? The former Soviet bloc countries could teach the US something about dealing with monuments from a painful past.
Stacey Abrams is the first African-American woman to deliver a State of the Union response in the 53-year history of this tradition. Pool video image via AP

Democrats court rural Southern voters with Stacey Abrams’ State of the Union response

The South is changing, with more Asian and Latino immigrants moving in and diversifying a region that was once black and white. Stacey Abrams knows that Democrats can win these rural voters.

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