• Front Porch
• Marcie Cohen Ferris

Weeping cherry tree, Lake Eden, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 2016. Photograph by Lisa McCarty.

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welcome to this special Human/Nature issue of Southern Cultures. We are honored to have historian Andy Horowitz as our guest editor, on the heels of his brilliant new book Katrina: A History, 1915–2015, published in 2020. In it, Andy details the destructive forces that led to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, notably, that Katrina was not just a natural disaster but also a human disaster shaped by decades of flawed policy, racism, and corporate-led environmental degradation, forces that also continue to shape the current covid-19 pandemic.

In this issue, the essayists take us to spaces where southerners and nature have interacted in both historic and evolving narratives, from the coasts of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina to the bayous of Louisiana. They examine the politics, battles, achievements, and losses, as well as the icons, symbols, and representations of specific environmental moments in the American South. I am struck by the deeply physical and emotional engagement with landscape that these scholars, writers, and artists reveal.

Jeffery U. Darensbourg resuscitates ancestral memories of bison hunting by the Ishak Indians connected to the soil of the Louisiana prairie. Across this same land, Jeremiah Ariaz explores the Black equestrian tradition of Louisiana Trail Riders in Southwest Louisiana, and how those gatherings evolved to embrace Black Lives Matter protest and resistance. Justin Hosbey and J. T. Roane reflect on the Black ecologies of the "untamed" waterscapes surrounding New Orleans and the Tidewater, where historic maroon communities gathered in resistance and solidarity. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore helps us to see lost landscapes of Black female creativity, artistry, and skill—the beautiful and useful urban vegetable and flower gardens that were once a common sight in Charlotte before campaigns of white supremacy, and, later, the racism undergirding urban renewal and economic development projects that displaced thousands of Black families in the early twentieth century. Romare Bearden shows us these worlds through a series of stunning memory paintings of the gardens of Maudell Sleet, a neighbor who lived near his great-grandparents' home. In another urban landscape—of backyard gardens, cemetery mulberry trees, insects and invertebrates, and the chirping of neighborhood birds—Lisa Sorg walks us through her particular southern microcosm that provided healing and companionship throughout the isolating and difficult months of 2020.

The injustice of Black economic underdevelopment and environmental racism are at the center of Madison W. Cates's exploration of the struggle between a West German petrochemical company and the (perhaps) unlikely alliance of the local Black Gullah Geechee community and white residents of the gated community of Hilton Head Island in the late '60s and early '70s. Joshua B. Guild discusses a long Black radical tradition within the history of environmentalism—and environmentalism's place in the history of Black radicalism—in his profile of New Orleanian Malik Rahim. A former Black Panther and Green Party candidate, Rahim's activism [End Page 2] focuses on the catastrophic impact of Louisiana's oil industry–generated environmental pollution on urban Black communities, from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill in 2010.

Knot, Lake Eden, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 2017. Photograph by Lisa McCarty.

In Will Warasila's photography of Walnut Cove, North Carolina—where land, water, and residents were forever changed by Duke Energy's storage of twelve million tons of coal ash—the [End Page 3] devastating realities of chemical pollution, contaminating groundwater and soil, is visceral. Anne Branigin's accompanying essay describes the "slow violence" and "slow death" that pollutants like coal ash cause. They "extract life, resources, and wealth" from underresourced, low-income communities—disproportionately communities of color—who experience high cancer rates and neurological issues as a result of this environmental pollution. Anna Zeide shares the compelling story of her father Boris Zeide, a Soviet Jewish refugee, a scholar of the science of forestry, and an expert on Aldo Leopold, who taught at the University of Arkansas's forestry school. Anna Zeide, now a professor...

• 前阳台
• 玛西·科恩·弗里斯（Marcie Cohen Ferris）

垂枝樱花树，伊甸湖，黑山，北卡罗来纳州，2016年。摄影：Lisa McCarty。

[结束页1]

欢迎阅读南方文化这一特殊的人文/自然问题。我们很荣幸能邀请历史学家安迪·霍洛维茨（Andy Horowitz）作为客座编辑，紧随其后于2020年出版他的新书《卡特里娜飓风：1915年至2015年》。其中，安迪详细介绍了导致卡特里娜飓风及其后果的破坏力。尤其值得注意的是，卡特里娜飓风不仅是自然灾害，而且是由数十年的有缺陷的政策，种族主义和企业主导的环境退化所形成的人类灾难，这些力量也继续影响着当前的covid-19大流行。

在本期杂志中，从南卡罗来纳州希尔顿黑德岛的海岸到路易斯安那州的四面八方，杂文作家将我们带到南方人与自然在历史和不断发展的叙事中相互作用的空间。他们研究了美国南部的政治，战斗，成就和损失，以及特定环境时刻的图标，符号和表示。这些学者，作家和艺术家所揭示的对风景的深刻的身体和情感的接触使我震惊。

杰弗里·U·达伦斯堡（Jeffery U. 在同一片土地上，耶利米亚·阿里亚兹（Jeremiah Ariaz）探索路易斯安那西南部路易斯安那小径骑手的黑人马术传统，以及这些聚会如何演变成包含黑人生活问题的抗议和抵抗。贾斯汀·霍斯比（Justin Hosbey）和JT罗恩（JT Roane）反思了新奥尔良和潮水周围“无拘无束”的水景的黑人生态，历史悠久的栗色社区在这里进行了抵抗和团结。格兰达·伊丽莎白·吉尔摩（Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore）帮助我们看到了黑人女性的创造力，艺术性和技巧所遗失的风景-美丽而实用的城市蔬菜和花卉园，曾经在夏洛特运动之前在夏洛特很常见，后来，种族歧视影响了城市更新和经济发展项目，在20世纪初使数千名黑人家庭流离失所。罗曼·比尔登（Romare Bearden）通过一系列令人惊叹的记忆画作，向我们展示了这些世界，这些画作是居住在其曾祖父母家附近的邻居莫德尔·斯雷特（Maudell Sleet）花园的。在另一个城市景观中-后院花园，公墓桑树，昆虫和无脊椎动物以及附近鸟类的鸣叫声-丽莎·索尔格（Lisa Sorg）带领我们走过了她独特的南方缩影，在整个2020年艰难而艰难的几个月里，它们都提供了康复和陪伴。一个住在曾祖父母家附近的邻居。在另一个城市景观中-后院花园，公墓桑树，昆虫和无脊椎动物以及附近鸟类的鸣叫声-丽莎·索尔格（Lisa Sorg）带领我们走过了她独特的南方缩影，在整个2020年艰难而艰难的几个月里，它们都提供了康复和陪伴。一个住在曾祖父母家附近的邻居。在另一个城市景观中-后院花园，公墓桑树，昆虫和无脊椎动物以及附近鸟类的鸣叫声-丽莎·索尔格（Lisa Sorg）带领我们走过了她独特的南方缩影，在整个2020年艰难而艰难的几个月里，它们都提供了康复和陪伴。

黑人经济欠发达和环境种族主义的不公正现象是麦迪逊·W·卡茨（Madison W. Cates）探索西德石化公司与当地黑古拉赫·盖奇（Black Gullah Geechee）社区（也许是不太可能的联盟）与隔离门的白人居民之间的斗争的中心60年代末和70年代初的希尔顿黑德岛（Hilton Head Island）。约书亚·吉尔（Joshua B. Guild）在他对新奥尔良马里克·拉希姆（New Orleanian Malik Rahim）的论述中，论述了在环境主义历史上悠久的黑人激进传统以及环境保护论在黑人激进主义历史中的地位。拉希姆（Rahim）的前激进主义者曾是黑豹和绿党的候选人[结束第2页] 从卡特里娜飓风的后果到2010年“深水地平线”石油钻井平台泄漏事故，路易斯安那州的石油工业对城市黑人社区造成的环境污染造成了灾难性影响。

结，伊甸湖，北卡罗莱纳州黑山，2017年。摄影：Lisa McCarty。

在Will Warasila的北卡罗莱纳州核桃湾摄影中，土地，水和居民因杜克能源公司（Duke Energy）储存的1200万吨煤灰而永久改变，[结束页3]化学污染的破坏性现实是内脏的，污染了地下水和土壤。安妮·布雷尼金（Anne Branigin）的随笔文章描述了煤灰等污染物引起的“缓慢暴力”和“缓慢死亡”。他们从资源贫乏的低收入社区（不成比例的有色社区）“提取生命，资源和财富”，这些社区由于这种环境污染而罹患高癌症和神经系统疾病。安娜·蔡德（Anna Zeide）讲述了她的父亲鲍里斯·蔡德（Boris Zeide）的故事，他的父亲是苏联犹太难民，是林业科学的学者，也是阿尔多·利奥波德（Aldo Leopold）的专家，后者在阿肯色大学的林业学校任教。安娜·泽德（Anna Zeide），现在是教授