“Years pass by and leave things unaltered. The same narrow, red roads run through cotton- and cornfields. The same time-grayed cabins send up threads of smoke from their red-clay chimneys, doorways, and china-berry and crape-myrtle blossoms to drop gay petals on little half-clothed black children.”

—Julia Peterkin (1880–1961), “Ashes,” from Green Thursday: Stories by Julia Peterkin, first published in 1924.