Southern United States
The Southern United States or the South constitutes a distinctive region covering a large portion of the United States. Due to the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, the South has developed its own customs, literature, musical styles (such as country music and jazz, rock 'n' roll and blues), and cuisine. The South has also been prominently involved in numerous issues faced by the United States as a whole, including the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, slavery, the American Civil War, and Presidential politics (with the majority of the early and recent Presidents of the United States having come from the region).
History
While Southern history stretches back to prehistoric times, the unique culture of the South primarily has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists in the early 17th century. Many of the immigrants who moved to the South were of European Celtic origins; according to an 1860 census, "three-quarters of white Southerners had surnames that were Scottish, Irish or Welsh in origin." [1] These people mixed culturally with the Native Americans who were already in the region (such as the Creek Indians and Cherokees) and with the Africans who were brought in as slaves to support the region's agriculture.
Early in its history, the South's economy became focused nearly exclusively on agriculture, with tobacco being the first big cash crop, followed by cotton from the 1790s onward. Because of the large amount of labor required to cultivate cotton, the South saw a surge in the enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Slavery did not only exist in the South - during the 18th century New York City ranked second out of the original American colonies for total number of slaves (Charleston, South Carolina being first [2]). However, the explosion of cotton cultivation [3] made this so-called "peculiar institution" of slavery an integral part of the South's early 19th century economy. Due to the South's powerful agricultural success, the region became integral to the political history of the United States, with the South supplying many of the United States' early military and political leaders (including nine of its first twelve presidents).
However, by the middle of the 19th century sectional differences surrounding the issues of slavery, tariffs, and states' rights led to a sense of alienation from the North, and seven states decided on secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. They formed the Confederate States of America, and in 1861 were joined by four more states. The United States government refused to recognize the Confederacy, so the issue was fought out on the battlefield. During the four year Civil War which followed, the South found itself as the primary battleground, with almost all of the main battles taking place on Southern soil.
The Confederates were eventually defeated by the Union. While casualties for the Union were higher than for the Confederates, as a proportion of their respective populations the South suffered much more than the North did - primarily because the war was fought almost entirely on southern soil. Overall, the Confederates had 95,000 killed in action and 165,000 who died of other causes, for a total of 260,000 total Confederate dead and/or missing[4], out of a total Southern population at the time of around 9 million (of which 3.5 million were slaves).[5]
After the Civil War, the South had become devastated in terms of its population, infrastructure and economy. The South also found itself under Reconstruction, with Union military troops in direct political control of the South. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy lost many of the basic rights of citizenship (such as the ability to vote) while with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which outlawed slavery), the 14th Amendment (which granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans) and the 15th amendment (which extended the right to vote to black males), African Americans in the South began to enjoy more rights than they had ever had in the region.
By the 1890s, though, a political backlash against these rights had developed in the South. Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, a clandestine organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy, used lynchings, cross burnings and other forms of violence and intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights, while the Jim Crow laws were created to legally do the same thing. It would not be until the late 1960s that these changes would be undone by the American Civil Rights Movement. (For more on racial issues in the South, see the Race relations section below.)
It is worth noting, though, that not only African Americans suffered in the South after the Civil War. With the region devastated by its loss and the destruction of its civil infrastructure, much of the South was generally unable to recover economically until World War II (1939 - 1945). The South was noted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the "number one priority" in terms of need of assistance during the Great Depression (1929-1939). Locked into low productivity agriculture, the region's growth was slowed by a lack of cities, low levels of entrepreneurship, and the lack of capital investment.
Geography
As defined by the Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes 16 states, and is split into three smaller units, or divisions: The South Atlantic States, which are Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia (plus the District of Columbia); the East South Central States of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee; and the West South Central States of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The region as defined by the Census Bureau currently contains eight of the twenty-five largest metropolitan areas in the United States, as well as portions of two others. However, not all definitions of the South are based on strictly geographic divisions, with culture and history also playing a large role in defining what is the South. For example, the Deep South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the American South which consists of that part of the Mississippi delta region found in East Arkansas and the states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana (six of the seven original states of the Confederate States of America, the seventh state being Texas). Historically, the South can also refer to the Old South, the Southern states represented in the original thirteen American colonies: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Deep South and the Old South used to be known colloquially as Dixie, and may still be referred to nostalgically as such.
The border states of the Civil War constitute a major definitional problem for the South. Missouri and Kentucky both formed rump secessionist governments that applied for admission to the Confederacy, and both remain partly or mostly Southern in culture to this day; across the Ohio and Mississippi, even portions of Illinois and Indiana south of Interstate 70 and especially Interstate 64 exhibit strong Southern cultural characteristics. West Virginia is a unique case, as it itself seceded from Virginia out of reluctance to join the Confederacy and retains an almost prickly sense of independence; whether it is culturally part of the South depends both on what area of the state is under discussion (northern areas being more closely aligned with Pennsylvania and the Rust Belt) and on what distinction the viewer cares to draw between Appalachian and Southern culture. Maryland and Delaware, south of the main length of the Mason-Dixon Line, were slave states at the time of the Civil War, but did not secede; in ensuing decades, Southern influence waned considerably in Delaware and the urbanized portions of Maryland, but remains present in parts of rural Maryland, especially the state's Eastern Shore.
Culturally, two geographically Southern metropolitan areas merit special discussion. The cities of South Florida hardly existed at all prior to the completion of railroads the length of Florida's Atlantic coast in the 1880s and 1890s, and initially developed as resort towns serving a mostly-Northeastern clientele. That influence continued and eventually drew significant numbers of permanent migrants, and has since been flavored by a large influx of Latin American (especially Cuban) immigration; the resulting unique cultural mix has been attractive to many, but could hardly be considered classically Southern. The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area sat on a cultural fault line for many years between Northern-trending Maryland and resolutely Southern Virginia, and the Washington Redskins and Washington Senators professional sports franchises were considered the "home teams of the South" before 1960s expansion in their respective sports. Since the 1970s, though, urbanization and suburbanization accelerated dramatically with the expansion of the defense and technology economy, particularly in Northern Virginia; nowadays, Southern cultural influence begins to degrade at the edges of this area and is shadowy at best by the time one reaches the Capital Beltway.
Biologically, the South is a vast, diverse region, having numerous climatic zones ranging from temperate, to sub-tropical, to tropical, to arid. Many crops grow easily in its soils and can be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. Some parts of the South, particularly the Southeast, have landscape characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, jessamine vines, and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana, which looms large in American film history. The South is famously a victim of kudzu, a fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land and kills indigenous plant life.
Politics
In the century after Reconstruction, the white South usually identified with the Democratic Party. This lock on power was so strong the region was politically called the Solid South. The Republicans controlled parts of the Appalachian mountains, and competed for power in the border states.
Since 1964 the Democratic lock has been broken. A key factor was civil rights. Until the passage of the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s, the Democrats argued that only they could defend the region from the onslaught of northern liberals and the civil rights movement. In response to the Brown decision of 1954, the "Southern Manifesto" was issued in March 1956, by 101 southern congressmen (19 senators, 82 House members). It denounced the Brown decisions as a "clear abuse of judicial power [that] climaxes a trend in the federal judiciary undertaking to legislate in derogation of the authority of Congress and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the states and the people." The manifesto lauded "those states which have declared the intention to resist enforced integration by any lawful means." It was signed by all southern senators except Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee. Virginia closed schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk rather than integrate, but no other state followed suit. A die-hard element resisted integration, led by Democratic governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Ross Barnett of Mississippi, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, especially George Wallace of Alabama. They appealed to a blue collar electorate.
After passage of the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights laws the middle class and business elements accepted integration, and with the barrier to becoming a Republican removed, flocked to the Republican party. Integration thus liberated Southern politics. The transition to a Republican stronghold took decades. First the states started voting Republican in presidential elections--the Democrats countered that by nominated such Southerners as Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and Al Gore in 2000. Then the states began electing Senators, and finally governors. Georgia was the last state to do so, with Sonny Perdue taking the governorship in 2002. In addition to the middle class and business base, Republicans attracted strong majorities from the evangelical Christian vote, which had been nonpolitical before 1980.
The South as a whole defies stereotyping. Support for numerous conservative causes is often strong in the region, especially social issues identified with fundamentalist and evangelical denominations, including opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. Before the religious right shifted the emphasis, there was major resistance to desegregation in the mid 1960s.
Presidential history
Before the Civil War the South produced most of the presidents. Memories of the war made it impossible for a southerner to become president unless he moved North (like Woodrow Wilson) or was a vice president who moved up (like Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson). In 1976 Jimmy Carter became the first Southerner to break the pattern since Zachary Taylor in 1848. With one exception (Ronald Reagan), all the presidents since 1976 had their political base in the South.
Other politicians and political movements
In addition to Presidents, the South has also produced numerous other well-known politicians and political movements.
In 1948, a group of Democratic congressmen, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, split from the Democrats in reaction to an anti-segregation speech given by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, founding the States Rights Democratic or Dixiecrat Party. During that year's Presidential election, the party unsuccessfully ran Thurmond as its candidate.
In 1968, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace ran for President on the American Independent Party ticket. Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to that of Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. While Nixon won, Wallace won a number of Southern states. This inspired Nixon and other Republican leaders to create the Southern Strategy of winning Presidential elections. This strategy focused on securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states by having candidates promote culturally conservative values, such as family issues, religion, and patriotism, which appealed strongly to Southern voters.
In 1994, another Southern politician, Newt Gingrich, ushered in a political revolution with his Contract with America. Gingrich, then the Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives, created the document to detail what the Republican Party would do if they won the that year's United States Congressional election. The contract mainly dealt with issues of governmental reform (such as requiring all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress). Almost all Republican candidates in the election signed the contract and for the first time in 40 years the Republicans took control of the U.S. Congress. Gingrich became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving in that position from 1995 to 1999.
A number of current Congressional leaders are also from the South, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
Culture
Southern culture has been and remains generally more socially conservative than that of the north. Due to the central role of agriculture in the antebellum economy, society remained stratified according to land ownership. Rural communities developed strong attachment to their churches as the primary community institution.
Religion
The South, perhaps more so than any other industrial culture in the world, has a high concentration of religious Christian adherents, resulting in the reference to regions of the South as the "Bible Belt", from its prevalence of evangelical or fundamentalist Protestantism (Baptists, Methodists, etc.). The region is often stereotyped as being somewhat intolerant of other religious faiths or the non-religious. Southern churches evangelize more than churches in other regions, which many non-Protestants consider hostile, but few southerners question the actual freedom of worship or non-worship. In addition, there are significant Catholic populations in most cities in the South, with larger concentrations in cities such as New Orleans. Cities such as Miami, Atlanta and Houston have significant Jewish and Islamic communities. Immigrants from Southeast Asia and South Asia have brought Buddhism and Hinduism to the region as well.
Southern Dialect
Southern American English is a dialect of the English language spoken throughout the South. Southern American English can be divided into different sub-dialects (see American English), with speech differing between, for example, the Appalachian region and the coastal area around Charleston, South Carolina or the "low country" around Savannah, Georgia. The South Midlands dialect was influenced by the migration of Southern dialect speakers into the American West. The dialect spoken to various degrees by many African Americans, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), shares many similarities with Southern dialect, unsurprising given that group's strong historical ties to the region.
The Southern American English dialect is often stigmatized, as are other American English dialects such as New York-New Jersey English. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the Southern dialect. [citation needed]
Cuisine
As an important feature of Southern culture, the cuisine of the South is often described as one of its most distinctive traits. The variety of cuisines range from Tex-Mex cuisine, Cajun and Creole, traditional antebellum fare, all types of seafood, and Texas, Carolina & Memphis styles of Barbecue. Then there is, of course, the ever-popular fried chicken. Non-alcoholic beverages of choice include "sweet tea," and various soft drinks, many of which had their origins in the South (e.g. Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, and Dr Pepper. In many parts of Georgia, Alabama, Texas and other parts of the South, the term "soft drink" is discarded in favor of "Coke"). Lagers and Pilsners are generally preferred to heavier/darker beers due to the predominance of hot climate. Texas is also the center of a burgeoning wine boom, due to its climate and well drained limestone based soils, particularly in the Texas Hill Country.
Traditional African-American Southern food is often called "soul food"; in reality there is little difference between the traditional diet of Southerners and the diet in other regions of the U.S.A. Of course, most Southern cities and even some smaller towns now offer a wide variety of cuisines of other origins such as Chinese, Italian, French, Middle Eastern, Thai, Japanese, and Indian as well as restaurants still serving primarily Southern specialties, so-called "home cooking" establishments.
Literature
The South has a strong literary history. Characteristics of southern literature including a focus on a common southern history, the significance of family, a sense of community and one's role within it, the community's dominating religion and the burden religion often brings, issues of racial tension, land and the promise it brings, and the use of southern dialect.
Perhaps the most famous southern writer is William Faulkner, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Faulkner brought new techniques such as stream of consciousness and complex narrative techniques to American writings (such as in his novel As I Lay Dying).
Other well-known Southern writers include Mark Twain (whose Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are two of the most read books about the South), Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, James Dickey, Willie Morris, Tennessee Williams and Walker Percy. Possibly the most famous southern novel of the 20th century is Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, published in 1937. Another famous southern novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, won the Pulitzer Prize after it was published in 1960.
Music
The South offers some of the richest music in the United States. The musical heritage of the South was developed by both whites and blacks, both influencing each other directly and indirectly.
The South's musical history actually starts before the Civil War, with the songs of the African slaves and the highlands folk music brought from Europe. Blues was developed in the rural South by Blacks at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, gospel music, spirituals, country music, rhythm and blues, soul music, bluegrass, jazz (including ragtime, popularized by Southerner Scott Joplin), beach music, and Appalachian folk music all were either born in the South or developed in the region.
Zydeco, Cajun, and swamp pop, though never reaching the popularity of the preceding genres across the region, remain popular throughout French Louisiana and periphial regions (including Southeast Texas). These unique Louisianian styles of folk music are celebrated as part of the traditional heritage of the people of Louisiana.
Rock n' roll began in the south as well. Early rock n' roll musicians from the south include Johnny Cash (Arkansas), Lynyrd Skynyrd (Florida), Buddy Holly (Texas), Bo Diddley and Elvis Presley (Mississippi), Ray Charles and James Brown (Georgia), Carl Perkins (Tennessee), and Jerry Lee Lewis (Louisiana) among others. Chuck Berry, sometimes considered the most important early rock n' roll figure along with Elvis, is from St. Louis, Missouri, a state that is sometimes considered Southern, and a city with an undeniable Southern influence, largely due to its large African American population and location on the Mississippi River.
Many who got their start in show business in the South eventually banked on mainstream success as well: Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton are two such examples. Recently, the spread of rap music (which is arguably the only major American music not started in the South) has lead to the rise of the sub-genre Dirty South, among others.
Sports
The South is known for its love of football. While the South has had a number of Super Bowl winning National Football League teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Washington Redskins, the region is noted for the intensity with which people follow non-professional teams -- especially the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference in college football, as well as high school football, which especially in smaller communities, is elevated to near-religion status.
Basketball, particularly college basketball, is also very popular in the South, especially in North Carolina and Kentucky; the two states are home to three of the most storied college basketball programs: the North Carolina Tarheels, Duke Blue Devils and the Kentucky Wildcats. The college game is especially popular in the home states of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The region is also home to several NBA teams and almost all of the NBA Development League teams.
Baseball is also very popular in the South, with Major League Baseball teams like the Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins being recent World Series victors. Minor league baseball is also closely followed in the South (with the South being home to more minor league teams than any other region of the United States), and college baseball is particularly popular in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina with Clemson and the University of South Carolina almost always ranked in the top 20.
The South is also the birthplace of NASCAR auto racing. Other popular sports in the South include golf (which can be played year-round because of the South's mild climate) and fishing.
The South would not seem to be a prominent winter-sports destination, but both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars have won the Stanley Cup in recent years. In addition, the mountains of West Virginia and the western parts of Virginia and North Carolina have a wintry-enough climate to host several popular downhill skiing resorts.
Atlanta, Georgia was the host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.
Film
The South has contributed to some of the most-loved and financially successful movies of all time, including Gone with the Wind (1939) and Smokey and the Bandit (1977). The Dukes of Hazzard remains a very popular television show nearly thirty years after its inception. All were filmed in Georgia with other places in the South also featured prominently. Several major motion pictures have been filmed in Memphis, Tennessee in recent years, including Mystery Train (1989), Great Balls of Fire! (1989), Memphis Belle (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Firm (1993), A Family Thing (1996), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Cast Away (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Hustle & Flow (2005), Walk the Line (2005), Forty Shades Of Blue (2005), and Black Snake Moan (2007).
The second largest studio complex in the United States, EUE Screen Gems, is located in Wilmington, North Carolina. Over the past 20 years, many films and television programs have been made on location in Eastern North Carolina. http://www.imdb.com/List?endings=on&&locations=Wilmington,%20North%20Carolina,%20USA&&heading=18;with+locations+including;Wilmington,%20North%20Carolina,%20USA
Cultural Variations
There continues to be debate about what constitutes the basics elements of Southern culture.[6] This debate is influenced, in part, by the fact that the South is such a large region. As a result, there are a number of cultural variations on display in the region.
Among the variations found in Southern culture are:
- Areas having an influx of outsiders may be less likely to hold onto a distinctly Southern identity and cultural influences. For this reason, urban areas during the Civil War were less likely to favor secession than agricultural areas. Today, due in part to continuing population migration patterns between urban areas in the North and South, even historically "Southern" cities like Atlanta and Richmond have assimilated regional identities distinct from a "Southern" one.
- In many ways Texas has one foot in the South, and one in the Southwest, though most Texans would probably claim that both feet are planted firmly in their own boots. Its major cities have a very culturally diverse population, including Hispanic and Asian Americans. Many Americans from other parts of the U.S. have also moved to the state in the last four decades. Generally, East Texas maintains a southern influence, while the rest of the state tends to be influenced by the southwest. In terms of regional identity, however, a vast majority of residents view Texas as its own cultural region and would identify themselves as Texans rather than Southerners or Westerners.
- Prior to its statehood in 1907, Oklahoma was known as "Indian Territory." The majority of the Native American tribes in Indian Territory sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Today, Oklahoma has a mostly Southwestern identity. Furthering the state's Southwestern identity is the fact that following California, it proudly has the nation's second largest Native American population. Oklahoma is also the home of Gilcrease Museum, which houses the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West plus Native American art and artifacts and historical manuscripts, documents, and maps. Oklahoma is frequently described as being part of the "Great Southwest." However, due to its geographic location, Oklahoma is privy to Southwestern, Midwestern, and Southern influences. This combination of regional infuences is especially highlighted in Tulsa, Oklahoma's second largest city, which has a reputation for being a "cosmopolitan" city. Even still, Southern influence can still be found in Oklahoma, particularly in the southeastern region of the state, but the influence becomes less apparent as you move north and west of this area. On a whole, most consider Oklahoma to be a Southwestern and not a Southern state.
- Southern Louisiana, having been colonized by France and Spain rather than Great Britain, has different cultural traditions, especially within the Cajun, Creole, Latin American and Caribbean influenced culture of southern Louisiana. Importantly, the Gulf Coast regions of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and northern Florida also share a similar French/Spanish colonial history, but lack the heavy concentration of French influences present in Louisiana, especially from the Cajuns and their descendants.
- Florida has had rapid population growth due to retirees from the North and immigrants from Latin America. Miami, Florida has become more a part of the culture of the Caribbean, with a large influx of immigrants from Cuba, Brazil, Haiti and other parts of Latin America. While southern Florida is seen by many as not truly part of the South (or in some cases, not even a part of Anglo-America, but rather a Latin American region) in terms of culture, the Florida Panhandle, northeastern areas, North Central Florida, Nature Coast, and Central Florida remain culturally tied to the South. An unofficial "Southern line" can be drawn at or just south of Tampa, Florida on the state's west coast and stretching through Lakeland, Florida over to Melbourne, Florida on the state's east coast; below this line, the culture of the areas can be described as much more "Northern." However, one notable exception to the "Southern Line" is the Daytona Metropolitian area and nearby coastal areas, which contains many more retirees and immigrants from the North . Also, the middle of South Florida (that is, the "inland" areas around the Lake Okeechobee and Everglades region) remain very culturally tied to the South.
- While West Virginia is often defined as a southern state, its peculiar geographic shape means that the northernmost tip is at about the same latitude as central New Jersey. This has caused the northernmost part of the state, which is about an hour's drive from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to increasingly become an exurb of the city, resulting in a less "Southern" culture. The easternmost tip of the state is close enough to Baltimore and Washington, DC that it too has started to become an exurb of these areas with a unique North-South "hybrid" culture (in fact, the two easternmost counties, Berkeley and Jefferson, are considered part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area by the Census Bureau). A visitor to Huntington, near the state's boundary with Ohio and Kentucky, would likely identify the area as part of the Rust Belt. Also, West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the Civil War and remained loyal to the Union; thus, purists do not consider West Virginia to be part of the South.
- Many people do not consider Maryland and most do not consider Delaware to be culturally Southern states, despite the fact that the majority of Maryland (especially Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore region) are very southern-rural in culture and history and was largely colonized by the same groups who colonized Virginia. Their cultural designation is disputed due to their proximity to both North and South. Those who view them as Southern cite the fact that although neither state joined the Confederacy, slavery remained legal in them until ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, and that the Mason-Dixon line, long considered to be the border between North and South, is in fact the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. The latter argument, though, does not apply to Delaware, as the Mason-Dixon Line technically follows the Maryland-Pennsylvania border in an east-west direction, and then turns south to follow the Maryland-Delaware border, thus placing Delaware northeast of the Mason-Dixon Line despite the fact that Delaware is directly east of Maryland. However, Baltimore, Maryland, Wilmington, Delaware, and Newark, Delaware are located within the BosWash megalopolis, which further separates them from the South, and ties them to a culture that has little in common with Southern culture. Most of the northern third of Delaware consists of bedroom communities to Philadelphia and Wilmington, which are definitely not Southern cities culturally. In addition, they are much more liberal than any other region in the defined South, sharing political trends with the Northeastern states (for example, both states voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992).
- The District of Columbia itself is almost never considered to be culturally Southern. By definition as the seat of the Union's government it could not be part of the Confederate States of America, though strictly-speaking it was part of the South (which in itself produced pressure for Maryland to remain with the Union, thus preventing the U.S. Capitol from being completely surrounded by Confederate territory). Politically, its populace is more liberal than any U.S. state and even any major U.S. city except perhaps San Francisco. Nonetheless, it has some Southern characteristics, including a muggy heat in the summer and neo-classical Federalist architecture reminiscent of Southern plantations (many of the Founding Fathers were Virginia planters). John F. Kennedy once famously described D.C. as a city of "Northern charm and Southern efficiency."
- Northern Virginia has been largely settled by Northerners attracted to job opportunities resulting from expansion of the federal government during and after World War II. Still more expansion resulted from the Internet boom around the turn of the 21st century. Economically linked to Washington, D.C., residents of the region tend to consider its culture more Northern, as do Southerners (although most Northerners consider them Southern) mainly due to its proximity to Washington D.C. However, it remains politically somewhat more conservative, as opposed to Washington's suburbs across the Potomac River in Maryland, which are generally politically quite liberal.
- The most recent shift in "Southern" cultural influence and demographics has occurred in North Carolina. As recently as the mid-1980s, this was a very entrenched "Southern" state culturally and demographically (for example, the prominence of extremely conservative politicians such as former Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)). However, many newcomers have transformed the landscape since then. Surprisingly many are from the Northeast and especially from the New York metropolitan area. Three regions have seen the bulk of this migration: the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas due to economic growth (banking/finance in Charlotte's case, high-tech in Raleigh-Durham's); and the Asheville area/western North Carolina by retirees who a generation ago might have moved to Florida but prefer the climatic balance produced by the combination of a relatively high elevation and a southerly latitude. The most extreme example of this is found in Cary, North Carolina, a suburb in the Raleigh-Durham area that has exploded in population since 1980 almost exclusively with Northern transplants to the region. Politically the state is still conservative (the 2004 presidential election was easily won by George W. Bush, though early exit polling had the race much closer than initially expected), but in the Raleigh-Durham area and to a lesser extent the Charlotte area, "Southern" accents are becoming less common; and urban areas in central North Carolina (like Raleigh-Durham and the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point "Piedmont Triad" area) have experienced the fastest rise in Latino and Asian American population of any part of the Southeast during recent years. To a much lesser degree, the same effect is occurring in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
- Southern Illinois, notably (Little Egypt and Buda), forms a coherent cultural region with the Missouri Bootheel, east Missouri, and Kentucky's Purchase. This does not mean that it is Southern in culture, but that it shares more in common with these border regions than with the Upper Midwest.
- Although Missouri is generally considered a Midwestern state, the Ozarks are strongly influenced by Southern culture.
Race relations
African Americans have a long history in the South, stretching back to the first settlements in the region. Beginning in the early 17th Century, black slaves were purchased from slave traders who brought them from the Caribbean (or, less often, directly from Africa) to work on plantations. Most slaves arrived in the 1700-1750 period. (for more information, see History of slavery in the United States).
Slavery ended with the South's defeat in the American Civil War. During the Reconstruction period that followed, African Americans saw major advancements in the civil rights and political power in the South. However, as Reconstruction ended, Southern Redeemers moved to prevent black people from holding power. After 1890 the Deep South disfranchised nearly all African Americans (who did continue to vote in the Border states). The leading white demagogue was Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina, who proudly proclaimed in 1900, "We have done our level best [to prevent blacks from voting]...we have scratched our heads to find out how we could eliminate the last one of them. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not ashamed of it." (Logan, p. 91)
With no voting rights and no voice in government, blacks were subjected to what was known as the Jim Crow laws, a system of universal segregation and discrimination in all public facilities. Blacks were given separate schools (in which all students, teachers and administrators were black). Most hotels and restaurants served only whites. Movie theaters had separate seating; railroads had separate cars; buses were divided forward and rear. Neighborhoods were segregated as well. Blacks and whites did shop in the same stores. Blacks were not called on juries, and were not allowed to vote in the Democratic primary (which usually decided the election outcome).
In Black Boy, an autobiographical account of life during this time, Richard Wright writes about being struck with a bottle and knocked from a moving truck for failing to call a white man "sir" (Wright, Chapter Nine). Between 1889 and 1922, the NAACP calculates that lynchings reached their worst level in history, with almost 3,500 people, two-thirds of them black men, murdered.[7]
In response to this treatment, the South witnessed two major events in the lives of 20th century African Americans: the Great Migration and the American Civil Rights Movement.
The Great Migration began during World War I, hitting its high point during World War II. During this migration, Black people left the racism and lack of opportunities in the South and settled in northern cities like Chicago, where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy. (Katzman, 1996) This migration produced a new sense of independence in the Black community and contributed to the vibrant Black urban culture seen during the Harlem Renaissance.
The migration also empowered the growing American Civil Rights Movement. While the Civil Rights movement existed in all parts of the United States, its focus was against the Jim Crow laws in the South. Most of the major events in the movement occurred in the South, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the March on Selma, Alabama, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. In addition, some of the most important writings to come out of the movement were written in the South, such as King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
As a result of the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow laws across the South were dropped. Today, while some people believe race relations in the South to still be a contested issue, many others now believe the region leads the country in working to end racial strife. It cannot be ignored that the south has a significantly larger black population than any other region of the country. As proof of this, some people cite the fact that a second Great Migration appears to be underway, with African Americans whose ancestors left the South two generations ago moving back to the region in record numbers. Other examples of the improving racial situation in the South are the successful 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia and the fact that there have been few race riots in the South since the 1960s (whereas there have been a few in both the Northern United States and the Western United States, the most recent examples of which were the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 2001 Cincinnati riots).
Symbolism of the South
The "Rebel Flag" of the Confederacy has become a highly contentious image throughout the United States. Although it and other reminders of the Old South can be found on automobile bumper stickers, on tee shirts, and flown from homes, restrictions (notably on public buildings) have been imposed as a result of activism and boycotts.
Groups including the League of the South continue to promote secession from the United States, citing a desire to protect and defend the heritage of the South. On the other side of this issue are groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which believes that the League of the South is a hate group.
Today's South: "The New South"
In the last two generations, the South has changed dramatically. After two centuries in which the region's main economic engine was agriculture, the South has in recent decades seen a boom in its service economy, manufacturing base, high technology industries, and the financial sector. Examples of this include the surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, numerous new automobile production plants such as Mercedes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the BMW production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the two largest research parks in the country, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (the world's largest research park) and the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama, and the corporate headquarters of major banking corporations Bank of America and Wachovia in Charlotte, North Carolina. Also, the creation of computer programming and communications companies (such as the Cable News Network, which is based in Atlanta) have helped to fuel the "New South" economy. This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States.[8]
Major metropolitan areas
*Not in all definitions of the South
3.53 trillion USD[citation needed]
See also
- Country music
- Deep South
- History of the Southern United States
- Politics of the Southern United States
- Protestantism
- Southern American English
- Southern literature
- Confederate States of America
External links
- DocSouth: Documenting the American South - numerous online text, image, and audio collections.
- http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/south.html
- http://www.columbia.edu/~hah15/H_2004_Poetics.pdf
Arts
References
- Richard N. Current, et. al, American History: A Survey, 7th ed., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
- David M. Katzman, "Black Migration," in The Reader's Companion to American History, Houghton Mifflin Co. (accessed July 6, 2005); James Grossman, "Chicago and the 'Great Migration'," Illinois History Teacher 3, no. 2 (1996), (accessed July 6, 2005).
- US Census Bureau region map, retrieved 9 April 2006
- US Census Bureau metropolitan area statistics, retrieved 9 April 2006 (Table 3a)
Further reading
- Edward L. Ayers. The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (1993)
- Billington, Monroe Lee. The Political South in the 20th Century. Scribner, 1975
- Black, Earl and Merle Black. The Rise of Southern Republicans (2002)
- Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South 1935
- Pete Daniel, Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. ISBN 0807848484.
- Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll (1976) on slavery
- William B. Hesseltine; A History of the South, 1607-1936 Prentice-Hall, 1936
- Michael Kreyling; Inventing Southern Literature University Press of Mississippi, 1998
- Lawrence W. Levine; Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom Oxford University Press, 1978
- Rayford Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson,, New York: Da Capo Press, 1997. (This is an expanded edition of Logan's 1954 book The Negro in American Life and Thought, The Nadir, 1877-1901)
- Peter J. Parish; Slavery: History and Historians Westview Press, 1989
- Rabinowitz, Howard N. "From Exclusion to Segregation: Southern Race Relations, 1865-1890". Journal of American History 43( September 1976): 325-50.
- Nicol C. Rae; Southern Democrats 1994. covers 1876-1992
- Jeffrey A. Raffel; Historical Dictionary of School Segregation and Desegregation: The American Experience Greenwood Press, 1998
- Twyman, Robert W. and Roller, David C. (Ed). Encyclopedia of Southern History. Louisian State University, 1979. ISBN 0807105759
- Wilson, Charles Reagan, and Ferris, William. (ed). Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
- C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955)
- Richard Wright, Black Boy, Harper & Brothers, 1945, a novel
- Gavin Wright. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War (1996)
- Michael Andrew Grissom, Southern By The Grace Of God, Pelican, 1989. ISBN 0-88289-761-6
