OXFORD, Miss. — For Joe York, a producer and director of
documentary films at the University of Mississippi, the
idea to publish a book of photos of Southern religious road
signs came out of a plan about biscuits.
In the essay “Salesmen of Salvation” featured in his new
book “With Signs Following: Photographs from the Religious
Roadside” (University Press of Mississippi), York explains
he was searching for evidence to back up a theory about how
“something ceases to be Southern and becomes, instead,
Southern style.” This project was quickly replaced by
another.
“Over the thousands of miles I have recently traveled
across the South, I have yet to see one sign that tells me
how to make a biscuit,” York writes. “I have, however, seen
hundred of signs that tell me how to get to heaven, or
perhaps how not to go to hell.”
These road signs inspired York to begin a quest, lasting
nearly three years, to take pictures of Southern religious
road signs. York estimates he took more than 1,000 photos
in his travels.
“Everywhere I went across the South, from North Carolina to
south Alabama and everywhere in between, the one constant
roadside scene — other than dead dogs and live bait — was
the presence of religiously themed signs,” he said. “More
than anything, I decided to focus on photographing these
signs, because I couldn’t seem to get away from them.”
York asked Charles Reagan Wilson, Cook Chair of History and
Southern Studies at UM and a former professor of York’s, to
write the book’s introduction.
“Joe has a particular aesthetic quality that finds beauty
along the Southern roadside,” Reagan said. “His work is
part of a tradition of popular religion that is very
prominent in the South, in which the depth of people’s
spiritual feelings is seen in gospel songs they sing and
gospel concerts they attend, religious books about end
times, television evangelists and other such things.”
The book features 70 signs from towns across the South.
York traveled through Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia,
Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky,
Arkansas and Florida to compile pictures for his book.
Of all the photos, York said the one that really sticks
with him was shot near Lexington, Tenn. It shows a small
sign made to appear like an election ballot, with the
choices “Jesus” and “Devil” and little squares for check
marks.
“I think more than any other sign I saw, this one really
does an amazing job of boiling down all of Southern
evangelical Protestant theology,” he said. “The idea that
everyone gets an afterlife in one of two places and that
everyone has a choice which place they will end up in.”
Reagan says York’s book offers Southerners insights to the
world around them.
“The photographs show a sometimes quirky South of funny and
offbeat messages, but other times, the photos show a
sincere earnestness about faith in the Bible Belt,” he
said.
For more information about York’s book “With Signs
Following: Photographs from the Religious Roadside” go to
http://www.upress.state.ms.us/catalog/spring2007/with?signs?following.html.