Under These Stones:

Vanishing Reflections of Rural

North Carolina

The mystique of Southern identity has long been tied to the land.  The South is a place where history and myth collide; much of it unchanged since before the time of the Civil War.  The earliest Southerners, such as my ancestors, arrived and settled in North Carolina well over 300 years ago.  For much of that time, cotton and tobacco was king, faith was sacred, and the lines between the living and the dead were often blurred.  But over the last 40 years, North Carolina has undergone tremendous change. With the collapse of cotton and tobacco, and the rise of cities like Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro, the face of rural North Carolina is quickly disappearing.  In many places, the small farms and open fields, that I knew in my youth, have been replaced by business parks, housing developments, and strip malls.  As a result, I feel it important to document rural North Carolina as it once was-as it has been-before it is lost to the future.

2008