🎙Interview: Kevin Blackistone & Robert Greene II
Meet the hosts of Our New South podcast.
Kevin Blackistone is a longtime national sports columnist now at The Washington Post, a panelist on ESPN’s Around the Horn, a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, an occasional contributor to NPR and PBS, co-producer and co-writer of Imagining the Indian, an award-winning 2022 documentary on the history of and fight against mascoting Native Americans, and co-author of A Gift for Ron, a memoir by former NFL star Everson Walls published in November 2009 that details his kidney donation to onetime teammate Ron Springs.
Robert Greene II is an Assistant Professor of History at Claflin University. He is also the Publications Chair of the Society of U.S. Intellectual Historians and the President of the African American Intellectual History Society. Dr. Greene II has written extensively on the South, Black history and memory, and political history for publications such as Oxford American, The Nation, Dissent, Scalawag, and Jacobin, among others. Dr. Greene II is co-editor, along with Dr. Tyler D. Parry, of the edited volume Invisible No More: The African American Experience at the University of South Carolina, and he is currently at work on a book titled The Newest South: African Americans and the Democratic Party, 1964-2000, about the relationship between Democratic Party leaders in the South and African American voters.
Learn more about the Our New South podcast by visiting the Museum of the New South website.
To borrow a question you ask your show’s guests, what are your definitions of the “New South”?
Kevin: It is everything most people from beyond it think it is not. It is no longer, of course, the cauldron of racial violence that came to define it, while acknowledging the Mother Emanuel massacre and Charlottesville. But it is not a place people of color, in particular, are fleeing; instead, it is a place they not only are returning to but are running in myriad ways, as elected officials, appointed city managers, and business executives. Yet, it is still a place defined by the defiance of people of color, whether it is Bree Newsome snatching down the Confederate flag or Stacey Abrams organizing voters to elect a Black Democrat from Georgia to the Senate. It is almost as if it is under a new reconstruction.
Robert: For me, the “New South” is a South that is grappling with its long history of Indigenous displacement, slavery, and Jim Crow segregation. This is not–nor can it be–an easy process. But the “New South” also means being a welcoming place, and using the past to look positively to a future that includes everyone, regardless of race, color, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation.
For many Americans, “the South” has a negative connotation. Much of that is, historically, deserved. But I hope listeners come away from our podcast understanding that many Southerners are trying to change the region for the better, while also keeping the best of Southern traditions–foodways, storytelling, music-making, and generosity–alive in the 21st century.
This is a presidential election year here in the U.S. Was this top of mind when developing the show, and if so, what do you want the show to accomplish as it relates to this election and the state-wide/ local races that will also be decided in November?
Robert: It certainly played a role in our discussion of voting rights, education, and environmental justice. But it’s also important, as your question points out, to focus on local and state races as well. Most Southern legislatures have, in a generation, rapidly switched from Democratic to Republican control. This is going to have long-term effects on politics in the region and across the nation. Also, there is a great deal of exciting grassroots work on voting rights and access to the ballot being done in states such as Georgia and North Carolina–listeners across the nation should learn more about that, too.
What would be your pitch to listen for those who live outside of the South, particularly if they don’t have any Southern roots?
Kevin: What I didn’t think about before delving into this podcast was how much the rest of this country was and continues to be heavily influenced by the South, arguably more so than any other region of the country impacts the rest of the country. Of late, we’ve seen it’s power at the ballot box with the election in Georgia of a Black Democrat and Jewish Democrat who flipped control of the U.S. Senate. While we’ve seen the demonization of immigrants at the Texas and Arizona borders by reactionary politicians, quietly the South has welcomed and integrated immigrants at numbers great enough to boost its economy. And the South continues to influence the rest of the country that imports its food and music and art. Is there a North American cuisine more ubiquitous than Southern cooking? A music more regionally identifiable than country, or New Orleans brass band jazz, or Dirty South rap? The South is all around us, if not in us, no matter where we are.
Robert: It’s critical for every American to understand a bit about the South. What happens in the South never stays here. So, to get a grasp on where the nation is going, you need to see what is happening in the South. Also, so many cultural, social, and political trends that originate in the South spread across the nation. Whether it’s the contemporary sound of hip hop, the Black support for the Democratic Party, or the continuing literary legacy of the region, the South continues to influence the nation and the world.
If this show’s topic interests you, you might also want to check out the Sounds Like Impact interview with Jenna Spinelle of When the People Decide podcast.
