Skip to content
1981
The Next Wave: Critical Turns in Surf History
  • ISSN: 1466-0407
  • E-ISSN: 1758-9118

Abstract

This article uses interviews with southern surfers, surfboard shapers and surf shop owners to chronicle the history of surfing in the American South and interrogate the relationship between oral history and sport. ‘Talking story’ is a Hawaiian phrase for chatting among family and friends. The storytelling tradition also allows elders to pass on knowledge and wisdom to younger generations. Surfers around the world talk story when reminiscing about the sport and their lives. As with the global embrace of wave riding, the practice of talking story by non-Hawaiian surfers treads a fine line between cultural appropriation and heartfelt homage to the sport’s Indigenous island heritage. Based on over forty interviews with surfers from Texas through Virginia, this article analyses the political and methodological issues at the intersection between talking story and oral history.

© 2025 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ejac_00140_1
2025-11-21
2026-04-22

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aho, Paul (2014), Surfing Florida: A Photographic History, Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Allison, Will (2018), interview with S. Estes, Wilmington, NC, 9 June.
  3. Anon. (2012), ‘The walking, talking surf encyclopedia’, The Surf Channel, 11 September, https://www.thesurfchannel.com/NEWS/20120911/THE-WALKING-TALKING-SURFING-ENCYCLOPEDIA/. Accessed 2 July 2018.
  4. Bass, Scott and Ponder, Ty (2008), Between the Lines: The True Story of Surfers and the Vietnam War, Los Angeles, CA: Pure Frustration Productions.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Beck, Peter J. (2013), ‘“War minus the shooting”: George Orwell on international sport and the Olympics’, Sport in History, 33:1, pp. 72–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/17460263.2012.761150.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bissinger, Harry Gerard (2015), Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, New York: Da Capo Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Borte, Jason (2018), interview with S. Estes, Virginia Beach, VA, 14 June.
  8. Busbey, Scott (2018), interview with S. Estes, Buxton, NC, 30 May.
  9. Bush, Scott, and Grow, Tom (2017), interview with S. Estes, Pensacola, FL, 6 June.
  10. Cahn, Susan K. (1994), ‘Sports talk: Oral history and its uses, problems, and possibilities for sport history’, The Journal of American History, 81:2, pp. 594–609, https://doi.org/10.2307/2081175.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Comer, Krista (2010), Surfer Girls in the New World Order, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Coste, Hal, and Proctor, Tom (2017), interview with S. Estes, Sullivan’s Island, SC, 21 June.
  13. Cram, Boog (2017), interview with S. Estes, Galveston, TX, 14 April.
  14. Dawson, Kevin (2006), ‘Enslaved swimmers and divers in the Atlantic world’, Journal of American History, 92:4, pp. 1327–55, https://doi.org/10.2307/4485894.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Dawson, Kevin (2009), ‘Swimming, surfing, and underwater diving in early modern Atlantic Africa and the African diaspora’, in C. E. Ray and J. Rich (eds), Navigating African Maritime History, St. John’s: International Maritime Economic History Association, pp. 81–116.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. DeCarlo, Melody and Wolfe, Sharon (2017), interview with S. Estes, Cocoa Beach, FL, 9 June.
  17. Dixon, Lee R. (2015), ‘The Vietnam War and the U.S. South: Regional perspectives on a national war’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Manchester: University of Manchester.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Dodd, Clif (2017–18), correspondence with S. Estes.
  19. Dodgen, Randy (2017), interview with S. Estes, San Francisco, CA, 14 March.
  20. Einzig, Lara (2022), Women Making Waves: Trailblazing Surfers in and Out of the Water, Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Eissler, Renee (2017), interview with S. Estes, Ormond Beach, FL, 11 June.
  22. Fischer, Walker (2017), interview with S. Estes, Ormond Beach, FL, 13 June.
  23. Folsom, Foster and Folsom, Lilla (2016a), interview with S. Estes, Charleston, SC, 13 July.
  24. Folsom, Lilla O’Brien and Folsom, Foster (2016b), Surfing in South Carolina, Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Frederickson, Kari (2013), Cold War Dixie: Militarization and Modernization in the American South, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Frierson, Bill (2018), interview with S. Estes, Virginia Beach, VA, 17 July.
  27. Frisch, Michael (1990), A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Funderburg, Joseph ‘Skipper’ (2008), Surfing on the Cape Fear Coast, Carolina Beach, NC: Slapdash Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Funderburg, Joseph ‘Skipper’ (2018), interview with S. Estes, Wrightsville Beach, NC, 8 June.
  30. Hairr, John and Wunderly, Ben (2015), Surfing NC: A Timeline of the History of the Sport of Surfing in North Carolina, Beaufort, NC: North Carolina Maritime Museum.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Hill, Lauren L. (2020), She Surf: The Rise of Female Surfing, New York: Gestalten.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Holland, Todd (2017), interview with S. Estes, Cocoa Beach, FL, 11 June.
  33. Housman, Justin (2015), ‘Mythmaking 101: How to spin your own surf yarn the right way’, Surfer, 29 September, https://www.surfer.com/news/mythmaking-101. Accessed 2 July 2018.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Kahrl, Andrew W. (2012), This Land Was Ours: African American Beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South, Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Kodama-Nishimoto, Michiko, Nishimoto, Warren and Oshiro, Cynthia A. (eds) (2009), Talking Hawaii’s Story: Oral Histories of an Island People, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Laderman, Scott (2014), Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Lucas, Will (2017), interview with S. Estes, Melbourne Beach, FL, 10 June.
  38. Martin, Charles (2010), Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, 1890–1980, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Martin, Larry and Cotton, Mike (2017), interview with S. Estes, Pensacola, FL, 6 June.
  40. McKevlin, Tim (2016), interview with S. Estes, Folly Beach, SC, 28 June.
  41. Miller, Robert (ed.) (2002), The Sporting World of the Modern South, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Muir, Lisa (2017), interview with S. Estes, Pensacola, FL, 17 June.
  43. Munoz, DeWayne (2017), interview with S. Estes, Galveston, TX, 2 June.
  44. Orwell, George (1950), ‘The sporting spirit’, Shooting an Elephant and Other Stories, London: Secker and Warberg, https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit. Accessed 12 July 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Pierson, Dashel (2016), ‘Celebrating the first Black surfer’, Surfline, 3 June, https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/remembering-nick-gabaldon-first-african-american-surfer/45089. Accessed 15 July 2021.
  46. Portelli, Alessandro (1991), The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Reft, Ryan (2015), ‘Surfing for freedom: Black surfers and reclaiming cultural history in Los Angeles’, Tropics of Meta, 9 February, https://tropicsofmeta.com/2015/02/09/surfing-for-freedom-black-surfers-and-reclaiming-cultural-history-in-los-angeles/. Accessed 14 July 2021.
  48. Ritchie, Donald A. (2003), Doing Oral History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Robello, Kaipo (2017), interview with S. Estes, Pensacola, FL, 5 June.
  50. Ross, Charles (ed.) (2006), Race and Sport: The Struggle for Equality On and Off the Field, Oxford: University Press of Mississippi.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Savage, Skip (2017), interview with S. Estes, Cocoa Beach, FL, 11 June.
  52. Shell, Lynn (2018), interview with S. Estes, Nags Head, NC, 13 June.
  53. Singleton, Stone (2018), interview with S. Estes, Charleston, SC, 27 June.
  54. Skillen, Fiona and Osborne, Carol (2015), ‘It’s good to talk: Oral history, sports history and heritage’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32:15, pp. 1883–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2015.1132204.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Slater, Kelly and Borte, Jason (2003), Pipe Dreams: A Surfer’s Journey, New York: Harper Collins.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Tanner, Glenn (2016), interview with S. Estes, Folly Beach, SC, 1 July.
  57. Thompson, Neal (2007), Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR, New York: Broadway Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Walker, Isaiah Helekunihi (2011), Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth Century Hawaii, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Warshaw, Matt (2010), The History of Surfing, San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Woods, Ted (2011), Whitewash, USA: Trespass Productions.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Young, Mike, Dodd, Clif, and Gabel, Gene (2017), interview with S. Estes, Mobile, Alabama, 4 June.
  62. Estes, Steve (n.d.), A collection of interviews with author, Southern Oral History Program collection (Project R 49) at the University of North Carolina.
  63. Lassiter, Matthew and Crespino, Joseph (eds) (2009), The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Shafer, Byron and Johnston, Richard (2009), The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Post-War South, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  65. Westwick, Peter and Neushul, Peter (2013), The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing, New York: Crown Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ejac_00140_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): American South; environmentalism; gender; oral history; race; surfing

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test