
          In this Issue
                  By Suitts, SteveSteve Suitts
          Vol. 2, No. 1, 1979, pp. 2
          
          This issue brings Southern_Changes full
circle with its first anniversary. Because it has matured in format,
and we hope, coverage of events and issues, the magazine has been
greatly benefitted by the first year's experiences.
          As a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for equality, Southern_Changes apprpriately begins its second
volume with a concern for the status of Blacks in 1979. In the Soapbox
piece, Vernon Jordan sets the tone in his thoughts on the Black agenda
for the 1980s. Jordan believes that the next ten years must improve
the nation's record of achieving a society where race is not a
dividing fact since in the last decades we have failed.
          On the same issue, our cover story for this month reminds us of the
historic beginnings of many of today's most pressing controversies. A
small community of farming Blacks on the Georgia coast struggle to
regain land taken from them in World_War_II for "the national
interest". The fight of families to regain their land and heritage at
Harris Neck is a vivid illustration of how past wrongs ought not
— cannot — be seen as a mere history without
contemporary importance.
          We can also see a little too much of ourselves or neighbors in our
article on the continuing saga of the modern Ku Klux Klan. Although
limited, KKK activities have spread to all parts of the region and may
show more about the present status of race_relations in what
sentiments they echo than the outright racism they exude.
          In another article Steve Hoffius takes a look at an employment and
training program in South_Carolina that is giving some Black and White
women a chance to enter new jobs. It is a story of how the changing
nature of the South can be one of progress and new opportunities.
          Our department pieces include a new section on the comings and
goings of Southerners of note and a review of the North_Carolina
legislature's performance in 1979. As we said last year, we continue
to see in  ourselves, our region, and our nation "the opposing qualities
which make living in the South exciting and worrisome."
        
