Subjects R-Z

"Looking back, what I'm most proud of is the day I met my wife. I think that's one of the happiest days of my life. She has proven to be one of the jewels of my heart."

"Debutante season was originally established to introduce you into society, to let everybody know that you were "eligible." That was the original purpose of making your debut."

"As a female driver, you have to learn to not look to the right or left and not care what anybody else says or thinks because they're going to talk about you. They're going to make up stories. I have to look at it now as it almost being flattering."

"The old Africans had a way of welcoming babies. When a child was born, they brought it out of the hut, and they held it up, and they said, "Behold the only thing greater than you." Black people need to get back to teaching their kids who they are and what they can do and to have big dreams. We dream so small. I mean not only Blacks, but everyone needs to teach their kids to dream, dream big. Dream your biggest dreams. I mean there are still so many things that I want to get my hands into and I have just begun."

"That's the beauty of the Rural Studio, it's about education. To me that's where it all starts. If you can educate, you can change the world. We've got mostly white kids working side by side with black kids to build houses for black families. We can't understand each other any better than when we work side by side. I think it's going to help change the South."

"Now, honey, let's don't confuse what I do with being a drag queen, because I am not what I would consider a drag queen. I am a marketable theater commodity. I have no desire whatsoever to be a woman. It just so happens that due to the Southern genetics and the bone structure that I have inherited, that it is very easy for me to look like Kittie Ballbangs. I want to be very emphatic about this because I've never altered my body."

"Po Monkey's will be here as long as I'm alive and nothing happen. It'd be hard for somebody to do it. You never find nobody keep the Po Monkey going when I leave this world. A lot of people trying to get like the Po Monkey, but they're just too light. Everybody be lovely with me."

"Hon, this is a silly old southern boy that really loves it but got hurt. That pretty much sums it up. There was a lot of hurt but at the same time it gave me all my joy, too. Now, I think joy and sorrow are like a child with two faces, I mean, you're going to have both all the time. You couldn't perceive joy without sorrow. So, I owe the South probably everything. I wouldn't give anything for exactly who I am. I'm very happy. I'm not living in any kind of regret."

"I can remember my parents telling us that the soul of the black man is in the South. I wasn't believing that at one time, but now I know that it's true -- the soul of the black man is in the South."

"Whatever pops in my mind, I paint it. When I first started, my painting was mostly about Hickory Hill where my mother's family lived. And as I grew up, I started doing Civil Rights events and everyday farming and street life. So I don't have just one thing I paint. I paint by memories and by things that I see in my mind. I have one that I do all the time, and that is one I call Mama Bell. My mother would take in laundry from families. She would have a basket that she'd carry on her head, with those clothes in it. She'd always manage that clothes basket on her head, and I don't know how she did. That's one of my favorite paintings that I do."

"I Dare you..... To tell me Elvis is dead"

"Corvette facilitates this feeling of family like no other car does. The Corvette - it's a beautiful car, a fast car, it's America's sports car since 1953."

"I wouldn't take nothing to leave out of here. I'm 81. I've been here since I was born, and I don't tend to go nowheres. I just want to leave this world right here where I was born."

"Of course we talk about the good old days, but a lot of things in the good old days weren't that damn good."

"To some men, the sea is a challenge. Those who do it a lot, they know what they're doing -- they don't try to win over Mother Nature; they try to get along with her. But there's always that challenge, to be able to do your best and to get along with her."

"In the South, you will tend to hear the phrase "who are your people?" which presumes that you have a people, that you come from a family, a community and that being a part of that community is an important part of who you are. Southern culture seems to recognize that in a way that is very egalitarian. All southerners are almost inherently storytellers because they know stories about people; they know important things about people; not mere facts."

"As the years went on we got kind of famous around here, people would call in and want us to do parties for them. Some would say, "A party is not a party unless you are there. Other people don't have the touch you do."

"Don't ask me why people want to buy an alligator head. They're nuts! I wouldn't buy it. I made me a little bitty head once with pink eyes. Every time I passed it, the little eyes would follow me. So it's in my closet now. I say, 'Uh uh. I work enough with you all. I don't need you following me in my house.'"

"Saturdays were life-learning experiences where you got to understand that if you work hard, save your money, there's a brighter day ahead when you can have something that you can own and call your own. Land ownership amongst African/American families in that community was just very, very rare. You just didn't find very many black families who owned their own farming land."

"Growing up in the South, the church, especially in the black community, was a very, very strong institution. I think this is still true today. Faith always has and, I pray it always will, play a major role in the operating of the family in the South."

"The South is such a place of paradoxes. We can be very xenophobic but we can also be very hospitable."

"Out of all her kids, my mama still tell me, 'You supposed to become a preacher.' I say, 'I preach through my art, Mama."

"I just don't think you can beat the truth. The truth is just pure and it's all right there, and laid out open for you to see. Well, take my ghost stories. They're true. You can visit the places where they happened, the names are accurate, and the events surrounding the supernatural occurrence did take place. I used my investigative reporter skills to ferret out the truth about them. Truth is always stranger than fiction and it's also not as believable as fiction."

"Miss Kathryn, I call her "girl" because she's like a girl to me. She go about her business with just simple ways, and I love that. I needed a lot of balance in my life and I believe she come in my life to be the scale for me. It just made us perfect friends because I'm her maintenance. We keep things balanced between each other. We are friends, and we both is on a mission. And it's okay that we hold hands through all of this."

Photographed for the book project, "A Portrait Of The South."

I'm working toward an act of reconciliation towards native peoples of Georgia and those that forcibly and illegally removed them from their ancestral homeland. I'm not looking for anyone to take responsibility. To this date, the US government has failed to recognize or to commit to a reconciliation with the indigenous peoples, and that doesn't dictate to restitution. But one of the best restitutions that could ever be placed forward is healing. So I say, 'a ni ga do ah i chen chay la" and what that means is the Keetoowah People belong here.

"The pageant circuit is big in the Southern states of the East Coast. I think it may be so predominant in the South because it goes back to the old South where you had the debutantes and the coming out balls. It actually comes from our roots, our ancestors. They always made a big thing about presenting their daughters."