SEC Network’s TrueSouth spotlights Black Belt, Alabama

The sixth season of the critically acclaimed TrueSouth Presented by YellaWood continues on Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. ET, highlighting the Black Belt region of Alabama. The series revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to make larger points about Southern beliefs and identities. Returning in season six is a special bonus episode with behind-the-scenes content and storytelling.

New this year, select episodes of TrueSouth are available on ESPN College Football’s YouTube channel, with all new episodes available on demand on SEC Network+ and ESPN+ immediately upon airing.

Episode Summary

TrueSouth travels The Black Belt of Alabama, southwest of Tuscaloosa, to eat barbecue and witness what art makes possible. Visiting York, Gainesville, and Gee’s Bend, we eat pig tails and pork ribs with pitmasters who bridge the gap between craft and art. Join us as we ferry the Alabama River to talk with modern artists who make extraordinary quilts from ordinary castoffs. Watch and listen as China Pettway and Mary Ann Pettway of the Gee’s Bend Quilting Collective piece together a story of freedom won. Walk the streets of York with Marguerite Hinrichs, director of the Coleman Center for the Arts, to learn how the work of art drives change. Music, always important to our shows, comes courtesy of the Blind Boys of Alabama, a duet from Alabama artist Lonnie Holley and Michael Stipe of REM, and more.

Two restaurants anchor our story:

• T-N-T BBQ – Pitmaster Thomas Taylor works down the road at a box factory. His wife Tommie is a paralegal. T-N-T, a Saturday-only business in downtown York, is the job they do together after a week apart. Up front, she sasses and serves customers. He works the back, in a swirl of smoke, cooking an encyclopedia of Alabama barbecue on a collection of grills and a couple retrofitted refrigerators. Their joint, with its pig tails and pork ribs, is the York clubhouse. You’ll want to make it your clubhouse.
• Alabama Rib Shack – Jamie Lee Mitchell came home from Boston, Massachusetts, to found this log cabin fantasy of a restaurant in the onetime cotton port town of Gainesville. Jamie Lee obsesses over smoke and wood. Instead of harvesting crops, he harvests white oak from the deep forests that surround his little town. His ribs are peerless. His collards swim in a funky potlikker. Jamie Lee and his wife Stephanie came to Gainesville to make something new in his old hometown, a spectacle people have to see (and taste) to believe.

Season Summary

Season six of TrueSouth began Oct. 10 in Hot Springs, Ark. in the Ouachita Mountains, as viewers fell in love with this odd and beautiful spa town and its cast of characters. Join us on Tuesday, Nov. 7 in St. Augustine, Fla. for fried shrimp and a deep dive into the culture and cultivation of datil peppers. And Dublin, Ga., up Tuesday, Nov. 21, for tiny burgers and soul food and a look at what faith makes possible. Episode five, a behind-the-scenes road trip, returns Tuesday, Dec. 5, with stops for, among other eats, roasted oysters in Savannah, Ga.; ribeyes in Scott, Miss.; and gorditas in Little Rock, Ark.

Advance press screeners of TrueSouth: Season Six, Episode Two are available upon request: Amanda.D.Brooks@espn.com 

About TrueSouth

TrueSouth is a limited series on Southern food and culture, airing biweekly on SEC Network. Four-time James Beard Award winner John T. Edge writes and hosts the show, which is executive produced by two-time New York Times best-selling author, ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson, and produced by Bluefoot Entertainment.

The series, now in its sixth season, revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to make larger points about Southern beliefs and identities. This season’s featured places are Hot Springs, Ark., The Black Belt, Ala., St. Augustine, Fla., Dublin, Ga., and a special behind-the-scenes finale to finish out season six. Seasons 1-5 of TrueSouth are available in their entirety on ESPN+.

Music plays an integral role in TrueSouth‘s storytelling via on-screen performances and on-screen credits. TrueSouth playlist on Spotify shares the full soundtrack and score of every season of TrueSouth.

About SEC Network

The Southeastern Conference and ESPN launched SEC Network on August 14, 2014. The network televises hundreds of games across the SEC’s 21 sports annually. Programming includes in-depth analysis and storytelling in studio shows such as SEC Nation, Marty & McGee, Out Of Pocket, Read & React and Rally Cap, daily news and information with The Paul Finebaum Show and SEC Now, original content such as TrueSouth, SEC Storied and SEC Inside, and more. Hundreds of additional live events are available for streaming exclusively on SEC Network’s digital companion, SEC Network+, via the ESPN App and SECNetwork.com. Follow SEC Network on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter/X.

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Media contact: Amanda Brooks at 704-998-5101; Amanda.D.Brooks@espn.com and @BrooksAD