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Mississippi's Giant House Party: Being White at the Neshoba County Fair

Mississippi's Giant House Party: Being White at the Neshoba County Fair   ...................... Mississippi’s Giant House Party Being White at the Neshoba County Fair by Trent Watts “In Neshoba County, Mississippi, the basement of the past is not very deep.” —Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia or more than one hundred years, Mississippians have braved their long hot summer to head to the eastern part of the state for the Neshoba County Fair. For one week in late July, thousands of men and women from Philadelphia (the county seat), the rest of F the state, and even farther afield descend upon the fairgrounds to create a Mississippi town of respectable size. Joined by well over fifty thousand additional visitors, including the occasional reporter from a Washington or Boston newspaper, they gather to enjoy food, drink, horse racing, gospel singing, and political oratory—in short, as National Geographic accurately characterized it, to “join in tribal rites of fellowship” where “a whole way of life finds affirma- tion.” This annual ritual is an assertion that one can go home again. “It’s a place,” as one admirer explained, “where there is comfort in knowing that tomorrow will be little changed from today.” The fair’s most striking feature is the cabins that fan out from http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Southern Cultures University of North Carolina Press

Mississippi's Giant House Party: Being White at the Neshoba County Fair

Southern Cultures , Volume 8 (2) – May 1, 2002

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Center for the Study of the American South.
ISSN
1534-1488

Abstract

  ...................... Mississippi’s Giant House Party Being White at the Neshoba County Fair by Trent Watts “In Neshoba County, Mississippi, the basement of the past is not very deep.” —Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia or more than one hundred years, Mississippians have braved their long hot summer to head to the eastern part of the state for the Neshoba County Fair. For one week in late July, thousands of men and women from Philadelphia (the county seat), the rest of F the state, and even farther afield descend upon the fairgrounds to create a Mississippi town of respectable size. Joined by well over fifty thousand additional visitors, including the occasional reporter from a Washington or Boston newspaper, they gather to enjoy food, drink, horse racing, gospel singing, and political oratory—in short, as National Geographic accurately characterized it, to “join in tribal rites of fellowship” where “a whole way of life finds affirma- tion.” This annual ritual is an assertion that one can go home again. “It’s a place,” as one admirer explained, “where there is comfort in knowing that tomorrow will be little changed from today.” The fair’s most striking feature is the cabins that fan out from

Journal

Southern CulturesUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: May 1, 2002

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