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Southern United States
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The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States.
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The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States. Because of the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, including Native Americans; early European settlements of Spanish, English and French heritage; importation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans; growth of a large proportion of African Americans in the population, reliance on slave labor, and legacy of the Confederacy after the American Civil War, the South developed its own customs, literature, musical styles, and varied cuisines.
In the last few decades, the South has become more industrialized and urban, attracting internal and international migrants. As parts of the South are among the fastest-growing areas in the United States, they are developing new cultures.
Geography
(See Cultural Variations for more about the complexity of southern states).
As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states and the District of Columbia (with a total 2006 estimated population of 109,083,752.) Thirty-six percent of all U.S. residents lived in the South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller units, or divisions:
- The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware
- The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee
- The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
Other terms related to the South include:
a]], Western Maryland, West Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and northeast Georgia.
- Southeastern United States: usually including the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida
- The Deep South: various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included (sections of East Texas, delta areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, and parts of Florida such as the panhandle and north central part of the state).
- The Gulf South: various definitions, usually including Gulf coasts of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.
- The Upper South: Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
- Dixie: various definitions, but most commonly associated with the 11 states of the Old Confederacy.
- The Mid-South: also known as the South Central United States.
- Border South: Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware were the states that did not secede from the United States to join the Confederacy.
The popular definition of the "South" is more informal and is generally associated with those states that seceded during the Civil War to form the Confederate States of America. Those states share commonalities of history and culture that carry on to the present day.
Biologically, the South is a vast, diverse region, having numerous climatic zones, including temperate, sub-tropical, tropical, and arid – though the South is generally regarded as being hot and humid, with long summers and short mild winters, being significantly warmer than the rest of the country. 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 landscapes characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, yellow jessamine vines, Spanish moss and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana. The South is a victim of kudzu, an invasive fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land and kills indigenous plant life. Kudzu is a particularly big problem in the piedmont regions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
History
The first well-dated evidence of human occupation in the south United States occurs around 9500 BC with the appearance of the earliest documented Americans, who are now referred to as Paleoindians. Paleoindians were hunter-gathers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna. Several stages, such as Archaic (ca. 8000 -1000 BC) and the Woodland (ca. 1000 BC-AD 1000), pasted into what the Europeans found at the end of the 15th century-- the Mississippian culture.
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the southeastern United States from approximately 800 AD to 1500 AD. Some noted explorers who found the Mississippian culture, which was in decline, include Pánfilo de Narváez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1540), and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (1699). Descendants of the mound-builders include Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, and Seminole, many of whom still reside in the South.
Ancestry
The predominant culture of the South is rooted in the settlement of the region by British colonists. In the seventeenth century, most voluntary immigrants were of English origins who settled chiefly along the coastal regions of the Eastern seaboard. The French and Spanish established colonies in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. Among the earliest arrivals were enslaved Africans, who have contributed to the culture (food, music and religion). Europeans were sometimes transported as indentured servants who would eventually be freed. Spanish Florida was colonized in the 1500s and reached its peak in the late 1600s. In the British and French colonies most immigrants arrived after 1700. They cleared land, built houses and outbuildings, and worked on the large plantations that dominated export agriculture. Many were involved in the labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco, the first cash crop of Virginia. Tobacco exhausted the soil quickly, requiring new fields to be cleared on a regular basis. Old fields were used as pasture and crops such as corn and wheat, or allowed to grow into woodlots.
The origins of rice cultivation in South Carolina are obscure. Some historians have argued that slaves from the lowlands of western Africa, where rice was a basic crop, provided key skills and knowledge. The early methods and tools used in South Carolina were congruent with those in Africa. British immigrants would have little or no familiarity with the complex process of growing rice in fields flooded by irrigation works. Africans were likely instrumental in the development of major earthworks for cultivating these commodities, as well as in the knowledge of technology and techniques for processing. The earthworks included extensive, elaborate systems of dams and irrigation for rice. The colonies gradually passed laws that hardened early conditions of indenture into lifelong slavery attached to African descent.
In the mid- to late-18th century, large groups of Scots and Ulster Scots (later called the Scots-Irish) immigrated and settled in the back country of Appalachia and the Piedmont. They were the largest group of immigrants from the British Isles before the American Revolution. In a census taken in 2000 of Americans and their self-reported ancestries, areas where people reported 'American' ancestry were the places where, historically, many Scottish, Scotch-Irish and English Borderer Protestants settled in America: the interior as well as some of the coastal areas of the South, and especially the Appalachian region. The population with some Scots and Scots-Irish ancestry may number 47 million, as most people have multiple heritages, some of which they may not know.
The early colonists, especially the Scots-Irish in the backcountry, engaged in warfare, trade, and cultural exchanges with Native Americans living in the region, such as the Creek Indians, Cherokee, and Choctaws.
The oldest university in the South, the College of William and Mary, was founded in 1693 in Virginia; it pioneered in the teaching of political economy and educated future U.S. Presidents Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler, all from Virginia. Indeed, the entire region dominated politics in the First Party System era: for example, four of the first five Presidents— Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—were from Virginia. The two oldest public universities are also in the South: the University of North Carolina and the University of Georgia.
American Revolution
The American Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the South. Tens of thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom, catalyzed by the British governor of Virginia's promise of freedom for service. Many others simply escaped. Estimates are that five thousand slaves escaped from the Chesapeake Bay area, and thirteen thousand from South Carolina reached the British. "The extent of the loss to the slave owners in the lower South is indicated by the sharp decline between 1770 and 1790 in the proportion of population made up of black people (almost all of whom were slaves): from 60.5 percent to 43.8 percent in South Carolina and from 45.2 percent to 36.1 percent in Georgia." In addition, some slaveholders were inspired to free their slaves after the Revolution. In the upper South, more than 10 percent of all blacks were free by 1810, a significant expansion from pre-war numbers.
Antebellum years
Cotton became dominant in the lower South after 1800. After the invention of the cotton gin, short staple cotton could be grown more widely. This led to an explosion of cotton cultivation, especially in the frontier uplands of Georgia, Alabama and other parts of the Deep South. Migrants poured into those areas in the early decades of the 19th century, when county population figures rose and fell as swells of people kept moving west. The expansion of cotton cultivation required more slave labor, and the institution became even more deeply an integral part of the South's economy.
With the opening up of frontier lands after the government forced most Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi, there was a major migration of both whites and blacks to those territories. From the 1820s through the 1850s, more than one million enslaved African Americans were transported to the Deep South in forced migration, two-thirds of them by slave traders and the others by masters who moved there. Planters in the Upper South sold slaves excess to their needs as they shifted from tobacco to mixed agriculture. Many enslaved families were broken up, as planters preferred mostly strong males for field work.
Two major political issues that festered in the first half of the 19th century caused political alignment along sectional lines, strengthened the identities of North and South as distinct regions with certain strongly opposed interests, and fed the arguments over states' rights that culminated in secession and the Civil War. One of these issues concerned the protective tariffs enacted to assist the growth of the manufacturing sector, primarily in the North. In 1832, in resistance to federal legislation increasing tariffs, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification, a procedure in which a state would in effect repeal a Federal law. Soon a naval flotilla was sent to Charleston harbor, and the threat of landing ground troops was used to compel the collection of tariffs. A compromise was reached by which the tariffs would be gradually reduced, but the underlying argument over states' rights continued to escalate in the following decades.
The second issue concerned slavery, primarily the question of whether slavery would be permitted in newly admitted states. The issue was initially finessed by political compromises designed to balance the number of "free" and "slave" states. The issue resurfaced in more virulent form, however, around the time of the Mexican War, which raised the stakes by adding new territories primarily on the Southern side of the imaginary geographic divide. Congress opposed allowing slavery in these territories.
Before the Civil War, the number of immigrants arriving at Southern ports began to increase, although the North continued to receive the most immigrants. Numerous Irish immigrants flooded New Orleans, so much so that one of the sections of the city became known as the Irish Channel. Germans also went to New Orleans and its environs, resulting in a large area north of the city (along the Mississippi) becoming known as the German Coast; however, greater numbers still immigrated to Texas (especially after 1848), where many bought land. Many more German immigrants arrived in Texas after the Civil War, where they created the brewing industry in Houston and elsewhere, became grocers in numerous cities, and also established wide areas of farming.
Tennessee was the last state to secede the union, and it was the first to rejoin after the war.
Civil War
By 1856, the South was losing political power to the more populous North and was locked in a series of constitutional and political battles with the North regarding states' rights and the status of slavery in the territories. President James K. Polk imposed a low-tariff regime on the country (Walker Tariff of 1846), which angered Pennsylvania industrialists, and blocked proposed federal funding of national roads and port improvements. Once the North came to power in 1861, many Southerners felt it was time to secede from the union.
Seven cotton states decided on secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (often known as the pre-Sumter Seven). They formed the Confederate States of America. In early 1861, they were joined by four more states immediately following the firing on Fort Sumter (splinter governments from two more states, Missouri and Kentucky, would join later that year but were unable to fully participate). The United States government refused to recognize the seceding states. It continued to operate several federal military installations in the South, including Fort Sumter, which the Confederacy captured in April 1861 at the Battle of Fort Sumter, in the port of Charleston. That act triggered the Civil War. In the four years of war which followed, the South found itself as the primary battleground, with all but two of the major battles taking place on Southern soil. The Confederacy retained a low tariff regime for European imports but imposed a new tax on all imports from the North. The Union blockade stopped most commerce from entering the South, so the Confederate taxes hardly mattered. Because of low investment in railroads, the Southern transportation system depended primarily on river and coastal traffic by boat; both were shut down by the Union Navy. The small railroad system virtually collapsed, so that by 1864 internal travel was so difficult that the Confederate economy was crippled.
The Union (the name often used in referring to the United States of America during this time) eventually defeated the Confederate States of America (the formal name of the southern American states during the Civil War). The South suffered much more than the North overall, primarily because the war was fought almost entirely in the South. The economic loss and civilian toll has never been fully realized, although the Confederacy suffered military losses of 95,000 men killed in action and 165,000 who died of disease, for a total of 260,000, out of a total white Southern population at the time of around 5.5 million. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South. However, Northern military casualties greatly exceeded Southern casualties.
Reconstruction and Jim Crow
After the Civil War, the South was devastated in terms of population, infrastructure and economy. Because of states' reluctance to grant voting rights to freedmen, Congress instituted Reconstruction governments. It established military districts and governors to rule over the South until new governments could be established. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy were temporarily disfranchised. Rebuilding was difficult as people grappled with the effects of a new labor economy of a free market in the midst of a widespread agricultural depression. In addition, what limited infrastructure the South had was mostly destroyed by the war. At the same time, the North was rapidly industrializing.
There were thousands of people on the move, as African Americans tried to reunite families separated by slaves sales, and sometimes migrated for better opportunities in towns or other states. Other freedpeople moved from plantation areas to cities or towns for a chance to get different jobs and out from under white control. At the same time, whites returned from refuges to reclaim plantations or town dwellings. In some areas, many whites returned to the land to farm for a while. Some freedpeople left the South altogether for states such as Ohio and Indiana, and later, Kansas. Thousands of others joined the migration to new opportunities in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta bottomlands and Texas.
With 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 African American males), African Americans in the South were made free citizens and were given the ability to vote. Under Federal protection, white and black Republicans formed constitutional conventions and state governments. Among their accomplishments was creating the first public education systems in southern states, and providing for welfare through orphanages, hospitals and similar institutions.
Northerners came south to participate in politics and business. Some were representatives of the Freedmen's Bureau and other agencies of Reconstruction; some were humanitarians with the intent to help black people; yet as is often the case in volatile environments, some were adventurers who hoped to benefit themselves by questionable methods. They were all condemned with the pejorative term of carpetbagger. Some Southerners also took advantage of the disrupted environment and made money off various schemes, including bonds and financing for railroads.
Secret vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan—an organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy— had arisen quickly after the war's end and used lynching, physical attacks, house burnings, and other forms of intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights. Although the Klan was defeated by prosecution by the Federal government in the early 1870s, other groups persisted. By the mid to late-1870s, elite white southerners created increasing resistance to the altered social structure. Paramilitary organizations such as the White League in Louisiana (1874), the Red Shirts in Mississippi (1875) and rifle clubs, all "White Line" organizations, used organized violence against Republicans, blacks and whites, to turn Republicans out of office, repress and bar black voting, and restore Democrats to power. In 1876, white Democrats regained power in most of the state legislatures. They began to pass laws designed to strip African Americans and poor whites from the voter registration rolls. The success of late 19th century interracial coalitions in several states made white Democrats work harder to prevent both groups from voting.
Nearly all Southerners, black and white, suffered as a result of the Civil War. Within a few years, cotton production and harvest was back to pre-war levels, but low prices through much of the 19th century hampered recovery. With many freedmen wanting to work on their own account, planters needed additional labor, especially as 90% of the Mississippi Delta was yet to be cleared and developed. They encouraged immigration by Chinese and Italian laborers into the Mississippi Delta, for instance. While the first Chinese entered as indentured laborers from Cuba, the majority came in the early 20th century. Neither group stayed long at rural farm labor. The Chinese became merchants and established stores in small towns throughout the Delta, establishing a place between white and black.
Migrations continued in the late 19th and early 20th century, among both blacks and whites. In the last two decades, about 141,000 blacks left the South, and more after 1900, totaling a loss of 537,000. After that, the movement increased in what became known as the Great Migration from 1910–1940, and the Second Great Migration through 1970. Even more whites left the South, some going to California for opportunities; others heading to northern industrial cities after 1900. Between 1880 and 1910, the loss of whites totaled 1,243,000. Five million more left between 1940 and 1970.
From 1890 to 1908, ten of the eleven states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments which had provisions for voter registration, such as poll taxes, residency requirements, and literacy tests, which were hard for many poor to meet. Most African Americans, Mexican Americans and tens of thousands of poor whites were disfranchised, losing the vote for decades. In some states grandfather clauses were temporarily used to exempt white illiterates from literacy tests. The numbers of voters dropped drastically throughout the South as a result. This can be seen on the feature "Turnout in Presidential and Midterm Elections" at the University of Texas Politics: Barriers to Voting. Alabama, which had established universal white suffrage in 1819 when it became a state, also substantially reduced voting by poor whites. Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to segregate public facilities and services, including transportation.
While African Americans, poor whites and civil rights groups started litigation against such provisions in the early 20th century, for decades Supreme Court decisions overturning such provisions were rapidly followed by new state laws with new devices to restrict voting. Most blacks in the South could not vote until 1965, after passage of the Voting Rights Act and Federal enforcement to ensure people could register. Not until the late 1960s did all American citizens regain protected civil rights by passage of legislation following the leadership of the American Civil Rights Movement.
Despite discrimination, many blacks became property owners in areas that were still developing. For instance, ninety percent of the Mississippi's bottomlands were still frontier and undeveloped after the war. By the end of the century, two-thirds of the farmers in Mississippi's Delta bottomlands were black. They had cleared the land themselves and often made money in early years by selling off timber. Tens of thousands of migrants went to the Delta, both to work as laborers to clear timber for lumber companies, and many to develop their own farms.
20th century - Industrialization and Great Migration
At the end of the 19th century, white Democrats in the South had created state constitutions that were hostile to industry and business development. Banking was limited, as was access to credit. States persisted in agricultural economies. As in Alabama, rural minorities held control in many state legislatures long after population had shifted to industrializing cities, and the legislators resisted business and modernizing interests. For instance, Alabama refused to redistrict from 1901 to 1972, long after major population and economic shifts to cities. For decades Birmingham generated the majority of revenue for the state, for instance, but received little back in services or infrastructure.
Business interests were ignored by the Bourbon class. Nonetheless, major new industries started developing in cities such as Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; and Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, Texas. Growth began occurring at a geometric rate. Birmingham became a major steel producer and mining town, with major population growth in the early decades of the 20th century.
In the late 19th century, Texas rapidly expanded its railroad network, creating a network of cities connected on a radial plan and linked to the port of Galveston. It was the first state in which urban and economic development proceeded independently of rivers, the primary transportation network of the past. A reflection of increasing industry were strikes and labor unrest: "in 1885 Texas ranked ninth among forty states in number of workers involved in strikes (4,000); for the six-year period it ranked fifteenth. Seventy-five of the 100 strikes, chiefly interstate strikes of telegraphers and railway workers, occurred in the year 1886."
In 1890 Dallas was the largest city in Texas. By 1900 it had a population of more than 42,000, which more than doubled to over 92,000 a decade later. Dallas was the harnessmaking capital of the world and center of other manufacturing. As an example of its ambitions, in 1907 Dallas built the Praetorian Building, 15 stories tall and the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi. Others soon followed. Texas was transformed by a railroad network linking five important cities, among them Houston with its nearby port at Galveston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso. Each exceeded 50,000 in population by 1920, with the major cities having three times that population.
The first major oil well in the South was drilled at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas, on the morning of January 10, 1901. Other oil fields were later discovered nearby in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and under the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting "Oil Boom" permanently transformed the economy of the West/South Central states and led to the most significant economic expansion after the Civil War.
In the early 20th century, invasion of the boll weevil devastated cotton crops in states of the South. This was an additional catalyst to African Americans' decisions to leave the South. From 1910 to 1940, and then from the 1940s to 1970, more than 6.5 million African Americans left the South in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern cities, making multiple acts of resistance against persistent lynching and violence, segregation, poor education, and inability to vote. Their movements transformed many cities, creating new cultures and music in the North. Many African Americans, like other groups, became industrial workers; others started their own businesses within the communities. Southern whites also migrated to industrial cities, especially Chicago and Detroit, where they took jobs in the booming new auto industry.
Later the southern economy was dealt additional blows by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the economy suffered significant reversals and millions were left unemployed. Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, an ecological disaster of severe wind and drought caused an exodus from Texas and Arkansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle region and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region forever to seek economic opportunities along the West Coast.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt noted the South as the "number one priority" in terms of need of assistance during the Great Depression. His administration created programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 to provide rural electrification and stimulate development. Locked into low productivity agriculture, the region's growth was slowed by limited industrial development, low levels of entrepreneurship, and the lack of capital investment.
World War II marked a time of change in the South as new industries and military bases were developed by the Federal government, providing badly needed capital and infrastructure in many regions. People from all parts of the US came to the South for military training and work in the region's many bases and new industries. Farming shifted from cotton and tobacco to include soybeans, corn, and other foods.
This growth increased in the 1960s and greatly accelerated into the 1980s and 1990s. Large urban areas with over 4 million people rose in Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Rapid expansion in industries such as autos, telecommunications, textiles, technology, banking, and aviation gave some states in the South an industrial strength to rival large states elsewhere in the country. By the 2000 census, The South (along with the West) was leading the nation in population growth. However, with this growth has come long commute times and serious air pollution problems in cities such as Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Austin, Charlotte, and others which have relied on sprawling development and highway networks.
In the last two generations, the South has changed dramatically. In recent decades it has 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-Benz in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama; the BMW production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina; the GM manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; and the Nissan North American headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee; the two largest research parks in the country: Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (the world's largest) and the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama (the world's fourth largest); and the corporate headquarters of major banking corporations Bank of America and Wachovia in Charlotte; Regions Financial, Amsouth, and Compass in Birmingham; SunTrust and the district headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and BB&T in Winston-Salem; and several Atlanta-based corporate headquarters and cable television networks, such as CNN, TBS, TNT, Turner South, Cartoon Network, and The Weather Channel. This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast of some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States.
Growth and poverty
The South's early cash crops of tobacco, indigo and rice created enormous wealth for many planters in the coastal areas. While city development was limited, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah and others developed a sophisticated society. The wealthiest planters sent their sons to college in England and later to the best schools in the South, and sometimes the North. They imported furniture and furnishings from Europe, as well as employing the best colonial craftsmen. For many it was a mostly rural society, but by the 19th century, some families moved back and forth between plantations and town houses. The planter class controlled the state legislatures and kept taxes low. Their wealth went mostly for private purposes. They invested in no system of public education and little infrastructure.
In the antebellum years, by 1840 New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the country and the third largest in population, based on the growth of international trade associated with products being shipped to and from the interior of the country down the Mississippi River. It had the largest slave market in the country, as traders brought slaves to New Orleans by ship and overland to sell to planters across the Deep South. The city was a cosmopolitan port with a variety of jobs that attracted more immigrants than did other areas of the South. Because of lack of investment, construction of railroads to span the region lagged behind that in the North. People relied most heavily on river traffic for getting their crops to market and for transportation.
In Mississippi before the war, for instance, most plantations were developed along the Mississippi and other navigable rivers. The bottomlands were not developed until after the war, when the chance to buy land attracted tens of thousands of migrants, both black and white. By the end of the century, two-thirds of farm owners in the Delta bottomlands were black. The long agricultural depression meant that many had to take on too much debt - together with disfranchisement and lack of access to credit, by 1910 many had lost their property and by 1920, most blacks in the Delta were sharecroppers or landless workers. More than two generations of free African Americans had lost their stake in property.
After the Civil War, nearly the entire economic infrastructure of the region was in ruins. As agriculture had been the foundation of the Southern economy, disruption of slavery by the Civil War meant that planters had to learn to deal with free labor, a challenge as freedmen wanted most to take care of their own crops and land. Additionally, since there were few industrial businesses located in the south, there were not many other possible sources of income. Textile mills in the Piedmont of Georgia rebuilt rapidly, but it was not until the 20th century that the region dominated the industry. Some areas rapidly rebuilt--Atlanta, for example--through railroads.
After World War II, with the development of the Interstate Highway System, household air conditioning and later, passage of civil rights bills, the South was successful in attracting industry and business from other parts of the country. Industry from the Rust Belt region of the Northeast and the Great Lakes moved into the region because of lower labor costs and less unionization. Poverty rates and unemployment declined as a result of new job growth. Federal programs such as the Appalachian Regional Commission also contributed to economic growth.
While the Southern United States has advanced considerably since World War II, significant poverty still persists in the more isolated and rural areas. Areas like the Black Belt, the eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia areas in Appalachia, the Mexican border area along the Rio Grande in Texas, and the Deltas of Mississippi and Arkansas suffer the most poverty in the South today.
Cultural variations
There continues to be debate about what constitutes the basics elements of Southern culture. This debate is influenced partly because the South is such a large region. As a result, there are a number of cultural variations among states in the region.
Among the variations found in Southern culture are:
- The lowland South was settled first by mostly English in the Chesapeake Bay Colony, and French and Spanish in the lower South. This was the first area developed as plantations for cash crops of tobacco, rice and indigo. Planters imported large numbers of Africans who became enslaved for life by law. The coastal areas were dominated by wealthy planters, who extended their power to state governments.
- Historical, political, and cultural divisions continue to divide the "upcountry" or "hill" culture of the Appalachian and Ozark mountain regions from that of low-lying areas such as the Virginia Tidewater, Gulf Coast, the Low Country of South Carolina, and the Mississippi Delta. By contrast, farmers in the hill country cultivated land for subsistence, and few held slaves. The hill country's population has chiefly Scots-Irish and northern English ancestry. Because they were chiefly yeoman farmers, many upland areas did not support the Confederate cause during the American Civil War (see Andrew Johnson). Those in the hill country continued to support the Republican Party when the remainder of the white South supported Democrats.
- Areas having experienced a large influx of newcomers typically have been 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, partly because of continuing population migration patterns between urban areas in the North and South, historically "Southern" larger urban areas, such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, Nashville, Jacksonville, Dallas and Houston, have assimilated modern metropolitan identities distinct from their historic "Southern" heritage. However, while these metropolitan areas have had their original southern culture somewhat diluted, they nonetheless have largely preserved their distinct "Southern" identity.
- Over the past half-century, numerous Latinos have migrated to the from Mexico and Latin America. Urban areas such as , and have seen a major increase in Latino immigrants over the past ten to fifteen years. Factory and agribusiness jobs have also attracted Mexican and Latin American workers to more rural regions of the South.
Delaware
Most observers do not classify this state in the South, believing that New Castle County (the northernmost of the state's three counties) can be considered a portion of the Philadelphia region. Due to efforts by Quaker and Moravian missionaries, and decline of tobacco cultivation, slaveholders began to free slaves after the American Revolution. By 1810 three-quarters of the blacks in Delaware were free. By 1860 nearly 92% of the blacks still in the state were free.
Florida
Florida is in a unique situation. Despite being the most geographically southeastern state, it has experienced such rapid population growth from regions outside of the traditional South that it is often no longer considered to be "culturally Southern" in many areas (especially true of South Florida and Central Florida). However, this depends on the area of the state. In a 2003 article, John Shelton Reed, a noted cultural scholar of the South, stated that "...almost anything you can say about the South - about speech, religion, music, demography, whatever - isn't true of Florida. In most respects, these days, the most southerly state in the South is the least 'Southern.' " In this article, Reed also notes that a majority of the residents in the peninsula of Florida were born outside of the state. However, he quotes writer, Joel Garreau, who suggested in his boundary-drawing book, The Nine Nations of North America, to split the state, putting northern Florida with the rest of the South. Though much of Northern Florida does still exhibit Southern culture, it should be noted that the population of Florida is heavily concentrated in coastal areas of the central and southern peninsula that are not typically considered "Southern", reversing earlier population trends in which Northern Florida was the most populated region of the state. For example, while the culturally-Southern Florida Panhandle counts for only 7% of the state's population, largely non-Southern South Florida accounts for a full third of the state's population, with Miami-Dade County (where a majority of residents were born outside of the United States) alone having approximately twice as many residents as the entire Panhandle. Florida and Oklahoma are the only two states in the Census-defined South in which the largest ancestry group is German American, as opposed to the "American" ancestry that is most common in the South among whites; in this manner, these states more closely resemble states of the Midwest and Mountain West than they do Southern states. While Southern American English is the dominant dialect across the entire South, this accent is largely absent from Florida with the exception of certain sparsely populated areas in the northern region of the state and other rural areas. The religious composition of Florida is also highly atypical for the South; Florida, Maryland, and Texas are the only Census-defined Southern states in which Catholics outnumber Southern Baptists, and Florida has the largest Jewish population by a significant margin among Census-defined Southern states.
The least "Southern" part of the state is South Florida, which has been transformed by the rapid influx of Northern migrants and immigration from (especially) Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. Miami-Dade County is the only county in the entire United States in which a majority (51.4%) of residents were born outside of the country , with Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties all having far more transplanted residents than native-born Floridians. The northern and rural areas are more "southern", with the Florida Panhandle and North Central Florida demonstrating the typical Southern culture.
The metropolitan areas of Tampa and Orlando have more southern culture than South Florida, particularly in the rural areas, but have less southern culture than the "regular" South and are more like South Florida. In many cultural maps, such as this example from a U.S. Embassy , these large peninsular cities are typically separated from Northern Florida and the "cultural South."
Kentucky
At the confluence of the Upper South and the Midwest, Kentucky was a Border State during the Civil War. It demonstrates multiple influences.. Though the state's official government and a majority of its citizens supported the Union, a portion of Confederate sympathizers formed an alternative provisional state government at the Russellville Convention. They applied for entry to the Confederacy in 1862 and were admitted, but government members spent most of the war in exile.
Cultural studies of the state present a complicated picture depending on questions asked. A 1987 gave participants a range of regions to choose from for identification: 47.8% of Kentuckians identified with the South, and 33% identified with the Midwest. At the same time in Tennessee, over 80% identified with the South and only 1.5% identified as Midwestern. Tennessee, especially in the Mississippi Delta, had more concentrated slaveholding than did Kentucky. In addition, its occupation by Union troops during the war may have created more of a southern identity afterward when resistance to Reconstruction was prized. On the other hand, a study in the 1990s revealed that 79% of Kentuckians agreed they were living within the south. The study also showed that 84 percent of Texans, and 88 percent of Virginians believe they live in the south. Between 80-90% of residents in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia and the Carolinas described themselves as southerners.
Regional identification often varies dramatically within Kentucky. For example, many consider northern Kentucky to be the most Midwestern region as it shares culture with Cincinnati. Studies show that a significant minority of people in Northern Kentucky still identify with the South. Conversely,Southern Ohio,&Southern Indiana is highly Southern in comparison to most of the Midwest, as it is culturally and economically attached to Louisville. Some sources treat Southern Indiana as essentially the upper tip of Upland South culture while others maintain that Southern culture, while significant, is not dominant in the region.
Louisville is viewed as culturally and economically Midwestern in some analyses, especially because it rates highly as a literate city. Other observers think it is southern. It is often described as both "the Gateway to the South" and "the northernmost Southern city and southernmost Northern city."
While varying degrees of Northern cultural influence can be found in Kentucky outside the Golden Triangle, smaller cities such as Owensboro, Bowling Green, and Paducah, together with most of the state's rural areas, have continued more distinctly Southern in character.
Louisiana
The state was first colonized by France and Spain rather than Great Britain, a difference which gave it a different form of law and other distinct cultural traditions. The Creole, Cajun, African, Latin American and Caribbean-influenced culture is especially strong in the southern portion of the state. Coastal Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama were both part of colonial Louisiana and both areas retain strong traces of Louisiana culture which is present in local cuisine such as gumbo and local celebrations such as Mardi Gras. Beaumont, Texas was not originally a part of Louisiana but was settled by many Cajuns from Louisiana who came there in the early 1900s to take jobs in the oil fields. These areas are all rightly considered as "culturally Louisiana"
In the antebellum years, a significant population of free people of color or Creoles of color formed in New Orleans, in part because of the system of plaçage that developed since the colonial period. Many became educated, had their own businesses and owned property. They formed a distinct third class between Europeans Americans and enslaved Africans, although their freedoms were reduced after the Louisiana Purchase and imposition of Americans' binary racial views. Together with the cosmopolitan views of an international seaport, Latin Catholics in metropolitan New Orleans had relatively tolerant attitudes toward alcohol use, gambling, and prostitution in contrast to the outwardly conservative evangelical Protestant beliefs of much of the Deep South.
Maryland
Rural regions of Western Maryland, Southern Maryland, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland retain more conservative culture typical of the South. The areas along the I-95 corridor, which make up much of metropolitan Baltimore and Washington, are sometimes considered to be culturally part of the Mid-Atlantic States. Baltimore itself is sometimes considered a part or satellite of the Rust Belt, as a former center of heavy industry fallen on hard times (though today somewhat recovered). In addition, Southern Maryland has suburbs expanding with commuters to Washington, D.C., becoming part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area.
Like West Virginia, the state was part of the Union during the Civil War. While it still had slaveholders, 49.7% of blacks were free in Maryland before the Civil War. The decline of labor-intensive tobacco cultivation in the 19th century, combined with active Quaker and Moravian missionaries working for manumission after the American Revolution, influenced numerous slaveholders to free slaves, giving rise to a substantial free population. The federal government forced Maryland to stay in the Union to avoid having the capital surrounded by Confederate states (see Maryland in the American Civil War).
North Carolina
Some say that the most recent shift in Southern cultural influence and demographics has occurred in North Carolina. The state's metropolitan areas, notably that of the Research Triangle, have a more liberal tradition and continue to attract scholars and scientists from other U.S. regions and around the world.
Many new residents have come for work from the North and Midwest, especially from the New York City and Cleveland metropolitan areas. The Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham areas have attracted the most new residents because of economic growth: banking/finance in Charlotte; universities; and high-tech in Raleigh-Durham. The Asheville area has attracted more retirees.
North Carolina residents voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election by a 13 percent margin. A tight race in the 2008 Presidential Election gave Democratic candidate Barack Obama a narrow victory; this was the first time a Democrat had won the state in that particular race since the 1970s.
In addition to Northerners, the job markets in North Carolina's three largest metropolitan regions — Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point ("Piedmont Triad" area) — have also attracted large and growing Latino and Asian American immigration and migration. A report released by the Brookings Institute in May 2006 entitled Diversity Spreads Out, noted that the Charlotte metro area ranked second nationally with a 49.8% growth rate in its Hispanic population between 2000 and 2004. The Raleigh-Durham metro area followed in third place with a 46.7% rate of growth..
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is typically considered to be part of the South. Before 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.
Oklahoma has the nation's largest Native American population and a strong western and southern influence. Oklahoma is home of the Gilcrease Museum, which houses the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, including Native American art and artifacts and historical manuscripts, documents, and maps. Oklahoma is sometimes described as being part of the "Great Southwest." Because of its geographic location, eastern Oklahoma is privy to Southern culture.
Texas
Because of its size and unique history, particularly having once been a nation in its own right (i.e.the Republic of Texas), Texas' relationship to the rest of the South is often a subject of debate and discussion. It has been described as "a Southern state, certainly, yet not completely in or of the South." With a history of Southern settlement and cotton plantations, East Texas, North Texas, and parts of Central Texas, are more associated with the South than the Southwest. On the other hand, in terms of geology, economy, and culture, Far West Texas, parts of Central Texas, and South Texas share more similarities with the Southwest.
The upper Texas Panhandle and the South Plains parts of West Texas do not easily fit into either category. The former has much in common both culturally and geographically with Midwestern states like Kansas and Nebraska. The South Plains, though originally settled primarily by Anglo Southerners, has become a blend of both Southern and Southwestern culture due to rapidly increasing Hispanic population.
The size and cultural distinctiveness of Texas prohibit easy categorization of the entire state in any recognized region. Geographic, economic, and cultural diversity among regions of the state preclude treating Texas as a region in its own right. The larger cities of Texas with their burgeoning knowledge economies have attracted migrants from other regions of the United States and immigrants from Latin America and Asia. However, partly due to its membership in the Confederacy, and the fact much of the state is in the Bible Belt, it is usually considered a Southern state rather than a Western one. Also, linguistic maps of Texas place most of the state within the spheres of upper, mid and gulf Southern dialects, helping to further identify the state as being Southern (use of Southern colloquialisms such as y'all is still very much widespread in Texas).
Further, it should be noted that more than 86% of Texans identify themselves as living in the South and a decided majority personally consider themselves to be Southerners.
Virginia
Northern Virginia has attracted many internal migrants coming for job opportunities with the federal government and related businesses during and after World War II, due to the emergence and expansion of the BosWash megalopolis. More expansion resulted from the dot-com bubble around the turn of the 21st century. Economically linked to Washington, D.C., residents of the region tend to consider its culture more Mid-Atlantic than Southern. Some in Virginia refer to the area as "Occupied Virginia." Most of the state is largely considered southern in culture, with its capitol, Richmond, also serving as the capitol of the confederacy.
West Virginia
The formation of West Virginia in 1863 underlined the old divide between the highlands and the rest of the South. While West Virginia is classified by the Census Bureau as a southern state, its peculiar geographic shape means that the northernmost tip is at about the same latitude as central New Jersey. The northernmost part of the state, as well as a number of northern non-panhandle cities, such as Morgantown, West Virginia, about an hour's drive from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have become exurbs of the former industrial city, resulting in a less "Southern" culture.
The easternmost tip of the state is close enough to Washington, D.C. that it is becoming an exurb of that area with a unique North-South "hybrid" culture. The Census Bureau classifies the two easternmost counties, Berkeley and Jefferson as part of the larger Washington Metropolitan Area.
Huntington, West Virginia, near the state's boundary with Ohio and Kentucky, is sometimes identified with the Rust Belt. It has more of a Southern climate and environment compared to the state's Northern Panhandle and North-Central regions.
Lastly, Bluefield and other towns on the southern border of West Virginia are less than a 3-hour drive (170 miles) to Charlotte, North Carolina. They are only an hour and a half (70 miles) to the North Carolina border. For residents of such areas, Charlotte is their closest major city.
West Virginia was created from 50 western counties of Virginia during the Civil War. Although two-thirds of the territory of the proposed state consisted of secessionist counties, the Wheeling Unionists were successful in guiding their statehood bill through Congress. It was signed by President Lincoln. Because of the confusing circumstances of the state's creation, some do not consider West Virginia to be part of the South. People in West Virginia have typically shared ancestry and heritage with the Appalachian culture that extends down the spine of a large swathe of the backcountry South.
Beyond the Census-classified South
Missouri
Missouri is classified as a Midwestern state by the Census Bureau and many of its residents. St. Louis was known as the "Gateway to the West" when settlement was expanding. Some observers include the Missouri Ozarks with the Highland South. The northern edge of the Ozark Plateau was settled chiefly by German immigrants in the mid- to later 19th century, however, who founded numerous vineyards and wineries. Missouri was the second-largest wine-producing state before Prohibition, which destroyed the industry. Wineries have been rebuilt since the later decades of the 20th century, and Missouri wineries are competing well in national festivals. Part of the Missouri River valley, from beyond St. Louis suburbs in St. Charles County to east of Jefferson City, is known as the Missouri Rhineland because of the extensive vineyards and wineries based on German immigrant tradition and descendants.
In the antebellum years, many settlers from the Upper South migrated to counties of central and western Missouri along the Missouri River, where they could cultivate tobacco and hemp. Because the southerners brought their culture and slaveholding with them, this area became known as Little Dixie. Before the Civil War, six of the counties included in the area had populations in which more than 25% were enslaved African Americans, the highest concentrations in the state outside the cotton plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Antebellum houses typical of the South still stand in some of Little Dixie.
The Midwest, Southwest and West
Many areas of New Mexico, Arizona, and California were predominantly settled by European- American southerners as they moved west in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For instance, pro-Confederate governments were established in what is now Arizona and New Mexico during the Civil War. Southerners migrated to industrial cities in the Midwest for work before and after World War II. They went to Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, as well as Missouri and Illinois. During the Great Depression and Dust Bowl crisis, a large influx of migrants from areas such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the Texas Panhandle settled in California. These "Okie" and "Arkie" migrants and their descendants remain a strong influence on the culture of the Central Valley of California, especially around the cities of Bakersfield and Fresno.
In a larger migration, more than 6.5 million African Americans left the segregated South for the industrial cities of the Midwest and West Coast during the Great Migration beginning in World War I and extending to 1970. Many migrants from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas moved to California during and after World War II because of jobs in the defense industry. As a result, many African Americans as well as European Americans have "Northern" and "Southern" branches of their families. Significant parts of African-American culture, such as music, literary forms, and cuisine, have been rooted in the South but have changed with urban northern and western influences, too.
Politics
In the first decades after Reconstruction, when white Democrats regained power in the state legislatures, they began to make voter registration more complicated, to reduce black voting. With a combination of intimidation, fraud and violence by paramilitary groups, they turned Republicans out of office and suppressed black voting. From 1890 to 1908, ten of eleven states ratified new constitutions or amendments that effectively disfranchised most black voters and many poor white voters. This disfranchisement persisted for six decades into the 20th century, depriving blacks and poor whites of all political representation. Because they could not vote, they could not sit on juries. They had no one to represent their interests, resulting in state legislatures consistently underfunding programs and services, such as schools, for blacks and poor whites.
As the Supreme Court began to find such disfranchisement provisions unconstitutional, southern legislatures quickly passed other measures to keep blacks disfranchised, even after suffrage was extended more widely to poor whites. Because white Democrats controlled all the seats apportioned to their states, they had outsize power in Congress and filibustered or defeated efforts by others to pass legislation against lynching, for example. The region became known as the Solid South. The Republicans controlled parts of the Appalachian Mountains and competed for power in the Border States. From the late 1870s to the 1960s, it was rare for a state or national Southern politician to be Republican.
Increasing support for civil rights legislation by the national Democratic Party beginning in the 1940s caused conservative Southern Democrats to take notice. Until the passage of the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s, conservative Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats") argued that only they could defend the region from the onslaught of northern liberals and the civil rights movement. In response to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954, southern legislators developed the Southern Manifesto. It 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 Tennessee senators Albert Gore, Sr. and Estes Kefauver. Virginia closed schools in Warren County, Prince Edward County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk rather than integrate, but no other state followed suit. Democratic governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Ross Barnett of Mississippi, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, especially, George Wallace of Alabama resisted integration and appealed to a blue-collar electorate.
The Democratic Party's national support of civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some Republicans began to develop their Southern strategy to attract conservative white Southerners. Southern Democrats took notice that 1964 Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act. In the presidential election of 1964, Goldwater's only electoral victories outside his home state of Arizona were in the states of the Deep South.
The transition to a Republican stronghold in the South took decades. First, the states started voting Republican in presidential elections, except for favorite sons Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.Then the states began electing Republican 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 cultivated the religious right and attracted strong majorities from the evangelical Christian vote, which had not been a distinct political demographic prior to 1980.
The region's resistance to giving African Americans basic citizens' rights of voting and integration in public places broke out in renewed violence and murders during the 1960s, and major resistance to desegregation extending into the 1970s.
The political realignment of conservatives aligning with the Republicans has created partisan reasons for challenging voter registration and elections. African Americans in the South mostly have strongly supported Democratic Party candidates, since this is the party that helped secure their active citizenship.
Presidential history
The South has produced the first winning presidential candidates for all but two major political parties in the history of the United States. The exceptions are the Federalist Party which claimed its first (and only) presidential victory with John Adams of Massachusetts in 1796, and the Republican Party whose first victory was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The following is a list of presidents who represent their party's first candidate to reach the country's highest office:
(Note: The first President, George Washington, of Virginia, was unaffiliated with any political party.)
Additionally, the South produced most of the U.S. Presidents prior to the Civil War. Memories of the war made it impossible for a Southerner to become President unless he either moved North (like Woodrow Wilson) or was a vice president who moved up (like Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson). In 1976, Jimmy Carter defied this trend and became the first Southerner to break the pattern since Zachary Taylor in 1848.
The last two American Presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were residents of southern states when elected president: William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton is the only one of the two who is a native southerner. Clinton was Governor of Arkansas when elected. Clinton moved to New York City following the end of his administration (1993-2001). George W. Bush was Governor of Texas when elected. George W. Bush is a native of Connecticut and moved with his family to the Permian Basin region of West Texas after World War II, while still a toddler.
George H. W. Bush was once a resident of Texas and an American Congressional Representative from Texas. He is a native of Massachusetts, but moved to the Permian Basin of West Texas after World War II. However, George H.W. Bush was a resident of Maine, since the 1970s, when elected American President in 1988, throughout his administration, 1989-93, and since. His state of origin as American President was his state of residence when elected: Officially Maine.
Other politicians and political movements
The South has 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. They founded the States Rights Democratic or Dixiecrat Party. During that year's Presidential election, the party ran Thurmond as its candidate, but he was unsuccessful.
In the 1968 Presidential election, 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. Nixon's Southern Strategy of gaining electoral votes downplayed race issues and focused on culturally conservative values, such as family issues, patriotism, and cultural issues that appealed to Southern Baptists.
In 1994, another Southern politician, Newt Gingrich, ushered in 12 years of GOP control of the House. Gingrich became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1995, but was forced to resign. Tom DeLay was the most powerful Republican leader in Congress until he was indicted under criminal charges in 2005. Most recent Republican Senate leaders are from the South, including Howard Baker of Tennessee, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Race relations
History
African Americans have a long history in the South, when they accompanied some of the earliest European settlers to the region. Beginning in the early 17th century, planters imported Africans for labor. Some were purchased as slaves; many others served terms as indentured servants and could earn their freedom. Slave traders handled transportation from Africa or the Caribbean, where large plantations had already been established. As economic conditions in England improved, there were fewer people who wanted to emigrate as indentured servants to the colonies. With the rise of tobacco as a lucrative, if labor-intensive, cash crop in the Chesapeake Bay Colony, planters needed more labor and increased their importation of enslaved Africans. Most slaves arrived in the 1700-1750 period. At the same time, the colony hardened the lines between slavery and other forms of labor, passing legislation that associated slavery with race and passed on through the mother.
After the American Civil War, Congress and the states passed constitutional amendments that ended slavery, and granted full citizenship and suffrage to African Americans. During the Reconstruction period that followed, African Americans saw advancements in the civil rights and political power in the South, against a background of wholesale violence and attacks on them. However, as Reconstruction ended, Southern Redeemers moved to prevent freedpeople from holding power, using fraud, voter intimidation and violence to secure majorities at the polls.
From 1890 to 1908, white Democrats in legislatures passed new disfranchising constitutions that completed provisions for making voter registration and voting more difficult. Most African Americans and many poor whites were disfranchised, a condition which the state legislatures maintained for six decades into the 20th century. 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."
Without the ability to vote and no representation in government, blacks had virtually no formal recourse as white Democrats passed Jim Crow laws, creating a system of legal 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, but there were separate water fountains and restrooms, and blacks were not allowed to try on clothes at the stores. Those who could not vote could not sit on juries. As some Supreme Court decisions began to strike down constitutional provisions that disfranchised blacks, the state Democratic parties began to use all-white primaries. The few black voters who managed to register were not allowed to vote in the only contest in which there was competition.
Civil Rights
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, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy. (Katzman, 1996) However, Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the north. 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 Civil Rights Movement. While the movement existed in all parts of the United States, its focus was against disfranchisement and 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". Most of the civil rights landmarks can be found around the South. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta includes a museum that chronicles the American Civil Rights Movement as well as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boyhood home on Auburn Avenue. Additionally, Ebenezer Baptist Church is located in the Sweet Auburn district as is the King Center, location of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King's gravesites.
As a result of the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow laws across the South were dropped. Today, while many 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. A second migration appears to be underway, with African Americans from the North moving to the South in record numbers.
Symbolism
", This pattern is the one most often thought of as the "Confederate Flag" today. Originally, it was used as the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, and as the Confederate Naval Jack ]]
The Battle Flag of the Confederacy has become a highly contentious image throughout the United States because of its use as a symbol of defiance by many in the South who opposed the Civil Rights Movement. 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, groups such as 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.
Other symbols of the Antebellum South include the Bonnie Blue Flag, Magnolia trees, and the song Dixie.
Largest Cities in the Southern U.S.
| Rank | City | State(s) and/or Territory | July 1, 2007
Population Estimate |
|---|
| 1 | Houston | Texas | 2,208,180 | | 2 | San Antonio | Texas | 1,328,984 | | 3 | Dallas | Texas | 1,240,499 | | 4 | Jacksonville | Florida | 805,605 | | 5 | Austin | Texas | 743,074 | | 6 | Fort Worth | Texas | 681,818 | | 7 | Memphis | Tennessee | 674,028 | | 8 | Charlotte | North Carolina | 671,588 | | 9 | El Paso | Texas | 606,913 | | 10 | Nashville* | Tennessee | 590,807 |
*Counts only the balance of the city.
Major metropolitan areas in the Southern U.S.
| Rank | Metropolitan Statistical Area | State(s) and/or Territory | July 1, 2007
Population Estimate |
|---|
| 1 | Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington | TX | 6,145,037 | | 2 | Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown | TX | 5,628,101 | | 3 | Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach | FL | 5,413,212 | | 4 | Washington–Arlington–Alexandria | DC–VA–MD–WV | 5,306,565 | | 5 | Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Marietta | GA | 5,278,904 | | 6 | Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater | FL | 2,723,949 | | 7 | Baltimore–Towson | MD | 2,668,056 | | 8 | Orlando-Kissimmee | FL | 2,032,496 | | 9 | San Antonio | TX | 1,990,675 | | 10 | Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News | VA–NC | 1,678,754 | | 11 | Charlotte–Gastonia–Concord | NC–SC | 1,651,568 | | 12 | Austin–Round Rock | TX | 1,598,161 | | 13 | Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin | TN | 1,521,437 | | 14 | Jacksonville | FL | 1,300,823 | | 15 | Memphis | TN–MS–AR | 1,280,533 | | 16 | Louisville–Jefferson County | KY–IN | 1,233,735 | | 17 | Richmond | VA | 1,212,977 | | 18 | Oklahoma City | OK | 1,192,989 | | 19 | Birmingham–Hoover | AL | 1,108,210 | | 20 | Raleigh–Cary | NC | 1,047,629 | | 21 | New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner | LA | 1,030,363 | | 22 | Tulsa | OK | 905,755 | | 23 | Baton Rouge | LA | 770,037 | | 24 | El Paso | TX | 734,669 | | 25 | Columbia | SC | 716,030 |
See also
External sources
Further reading
External links
- - numerous online text, image, and audio collections
- - an academic center devoted to the study of "southern history, literature, and culture as well as ongoing social, political, and economic issues"
- -- an open-access peer-reviewed scholarly journal examining the spaces and places of the American South.
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