If you care to define the South as a poor, rural region with lousy race relations, that South survives only in geographical shreds and patches and mo…

- John Shelton Reed

The nature of the South is changing faster than the stereotypes are. Much of the South now looks like San Jose. Is it still southern?

- John Shelton Reed

The South is like my favorite pair of blue jeans. It's shrunk some, faded a bit, got a few holes in it. it just might split at the seams. It doesn't …

- John Shelton Reed

No one would stand for it [being the fool in the media] in a minute if you took any other group -Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, wome…

- John Shelton Reed

I don't think massification and globalization and all those other 'izations' are necessarily hostile to regionalism.

- John Shelton Reed

Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?

- John Shelton Reed

I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the s…

- John Shelton Reed

Maybe we've been brainwashed by 130 years of Yankee history, but Southern identity now has more to do with food, accents, manners, music than the Con…

- John Shelton Reed

There's an ethic that says: 'You don't run off to the church for the sacraments of salvation, you establish a personal relationship with God. You don…

- John Shelton Reed