Southern Exposure was an award-winning print journal published by the Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South, from 1973 until 2011. Southern Exposure earned a national reputation for its writing on a broad range of political and cultural issues in the South, with a special emphasis on investigative journalism and oral history.

On the 50th anniversary of Southern Exposure’s birth, Facing South and the Institute will be publishing a full digital archive of the journal over the course of the year. The initial installment of the archives available in March 2023 includes issues from the magazine’s launch in 1973 through 1981.

Vol. 24 No. 4 - Winter 1996
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Magazine cover with painting as background, text reads "Art that refuses to shut up & shut down"

Art that Refuses to Shut Up & Shut Down

  • From the Editor

    2

  • Letters

    3

  • Robert Franklin Williams

    When the author of Negroes with Guns died recently, the world took note—except in his home of North Carolina. By Timothy Tyson

    5

  • Roundup

    6

  • Followup: Hamlet Casualties Continue

    By Betsy Barton

    12

  • Fanning the Flames

    The nvestigators seem to be missing what's right under their noses—who is responsible for church burnings and other acts of racial violence in the South. By Ron Nixon

    13

  • Burning Memories

    A historian finds undercover documents about North Carolina's Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. By David Cecelski

    19

  • Shut Up & Shut Down

    Censored and defunded, artists in the South still hold their heads up. By Pat Arnow

    25

  • Portfolio

    Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Maxine Henderson in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Mona Waterhouse in Mobile, Alabama; Isabel Zamora in Fort Worth, Texas; The Road Company in Johnson City, Tennessee

    27

  • White Only on Main Street

    When Missisippi Cultural Crossroads painted a mural, some Port Gibson townspeople saw red. By Emilye Crosby

    37

  • Out Loud

    The people of Colquitt, Georgia, are facing their own stories. By Jo Carson

    42

  • Not Whistling Dixie

    Arts activists Nayo Watkins and John O'Neal talk about making art for social change. By Meridith Helton

    48

  • Resources

    Groups to keep freedom of expression alive.

    50

  • Blueprint for Change: Community Newspapers

    By Eric Goldman

    51

  • Junebug: Southern Exposure's Storyteller: Bo Willie Strikes Again

    By Junebug Jabbo Jones

    54

  • Voices from the South: On Race, Rage, and the Underclass

    By Mansfield B. Frazier

    56

  • Reviews of Southern Media: It Comes from the People

    By Jeanette Stokes

    59

  • Still the South: Whiskey

    By Mary Lee Kerr

    62
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