anthony: some time ago something crawled, or slithered, or grew like a fungus. something that started small, got bigger, lurched like a swamp thing out of the mud and moist earth and humid nights of the delta. then, it took over the world. so next time some smart ass foreigner, horrified by our latest ham-fisted foreign policy blunder wonders out loud, what good is america? well, you can always pipe up that the blues, rock n roll, r&b, and soul all came out of this place one state mississippi. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha la la la la sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la geno: right now we re in the middle of downtown jackson. farish street. anthony: it is a street with a lot of history. what did it used to be like back in the day? geno: the street was packed with folks. folks all over, they
wrote extensively about the post-civil war south. he was the first author to do so at a time when most writers were writing about anything but. bill griffith: he always said that he wrote about a south torn between itself. torn between the old ways, the old traditional ways, and modern development. he said he was gonna break the antebellum code. anthony: right. bill griffith: and he did. anthony: but bill griffith: he did, and yet he had those hobbies and interests that were definitely of a gentry class and a gentry nature. jack pendarvis: his portrait and his horse bill griffith: there s a great example. anthony: yeah. bill griffith: in his in his riding habit. that s a great example. you do get to a certain level of success, and all of a sudden, this seems like a good idea. and it s never a good idea at that age. anthony: at any age, really. bill griffith: exactly. anthony: was he politically active at all? i mean, there was a lot going on. bill grif