American South Quotes

Elvira, as befitting one who represented a magazine, registered first and demanded a room and bath. She pronounced it bawth. The clerk seemed aghast at the request. However, in that hotel, any lady got whatever she asked for. It was her unquestioned right, as a lady. But there was no bath in the hotel, nor running water for that matter. The clerk faltered out something about a nice bowl and pitcher in every room, and said he thought they could provide a foot tub. He was sorry; there was no bath. Elvira couldn't grasp the situation. She thought the clerk was stupid--a hotel without a bath was a contradiction in terms. When she explained that she wanted something for complete immersion, the clerk seemed embarrassed. At his wits' end, he suggested (blushing like fire) that the colored boy could bring up the hog scalder.

~ Beatrice Fairfax

The speech fascinated him. His ear caught the rhythm of it and he noted their idioms and worked some of them into his patter. He had found the reason behind the peculiar, drawling language of the old carny hands—it was a composite of all the sprawling regions of the country. A language which sounded Southern to Southerners, Western to Westerners. It was the talk of the soil and its drawl covered the agility of the brains that poured it out. It was a soothing, illiterate, earthy language.

~ William Lindsay Gresham

Many members of that early band of twentieth-century pilgrims must have yearned for the honesty of Southern landscapes where even if they were the targets of hate mongers who wanted them dead, they were at least credited with being alive. Northern whites with their public smiles of liberal acceptance and their private behavior of utter rejection wearied and angered the immigrants.

~ Maya Angelou

Segregation in the American South was bankrolled by the wealthy eugenicist from the Northeast, Wickliffe Draper.

~ A.e. Samaan

South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.

~ James Louis Petigru