Tales of the unknown south

TALES OF THE UNKNOWN SOUTH is a two-hour dramatic special, based on the works of three distinguished but little-known Southern authors: Julia Peterkin ( who won the Pulitzer Prize for 1929 ). Dubose Heyward ( The author of Porgy ) and Diane Oliver ( a young black writer killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 22 ). But the “unknown” refers less to these authors than the teal story of this part of the South during a crucial era of social change, from the end of World War I to the Civil Rights protests of the 1960s. This part of the South ( North and South Carolina ) and the people who live in it ( especially the Gullah blacks of the Carolina low country ) have been either ignored or grotesquely misrepresented by media stereotypes in the past. Poet/novelist James Dickey introduces the program and weaves he stories together in commentary segments that argue, among other things, that film adaptation can also be an exercise in critical interpretation. A program that deliberately confronts difficult questions of race, history and the television medium.