Page 249 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

INTRODUCING THE SOUTHEAST  247

This is also true of literature, which
witnessed the creativity of such diverse
writers as Alice Walker, Thomas Wolfe,
Carson McCullers, and James Agee, and
characters and settings such as “God’s
Little Acre” and “Catfish Row” from George
Gershwin’s opera Porgy & Bess. Music,
literature, and the arts still dominate
Southeastern culture, and numerous
events and festivals are celebrated all
Grave of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta, a pilgrimage site over the region.
for people from all over the world
Tourism
Though Dr. King was assassinated while The Appalachain Mountains and their
supporting black sanitation workers in local constituents, the Blue Ridge and
Memphis in 1968, the movement for Great Smoky Mountains, offer miles of
Civil Rights eventually saw his colleague spectacular scenery in near-pristine
Andrew Young elected to Congress from condition. Much of the mountain
Georgia. Young was later elected mayor landscape is now preserved in a series
of Atlanta in 1981. of local, state, and national parks and
forests. The Great Smoky Mountains
Society, Culture, & the Arts National Park, in particular, is one of the
The Southeast has been, and continues to country’s most popular, drawing more
be, a major contributor to American culture. than 10 million visitors each year. Other
Atlanta gave the world Coca-Cola and attractions include the beach resorts
CNN, while Kentucky’s Colonel Sanders that proliferate along the Outer Banks in
and his Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants North Carolina, and Louisville’s Kentucky
helped spread the idea of fast food. Derby, reputed to be the biggest racing
Kentucky is also well known all over the event in the country.
world for its production of high-quality
bourbon whiskey and high-speed horses.
Though important in their own right, the
region’s cities also serve as a conduit into
its hinterlands. Nashville’s country music, for
example, is deeply rooted in Appalachian
folkways, while the blues and rock ’n’ roll
of Memphis emerge from the various
ethnic and historical cultures of the broad
Mississippi Delta. A roll call of the artists
born and bred here spans all musical
genres – the Everly Brothers, Bill Monroe,
and Loretta Lynn are from Kentucky;
John Coltrane, Doc Watson, Thelonius
Monk, and Nina Simone hail from North
Carolina; the Allman Brothers, James
Brown, Otis Redding, and Gladys Knight
came from Georgia; while Tennessee can
take credit for Chet Atkins, Tina Turner,
Carl Perkins, and its favorite adopted son, Local band performing in one of the many clubs in
Elvis Presley (1935–77). downtown Nashville, Tennessee

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