Southern United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Southern United States or the South constitute 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), and cuisine. The South has also been prominently involved in numerous issues faced by the United States as a whole, including slavery, the American Civil War, and Presidential politics (with the majority of the recent Presidents of the United States having come from the region).

The U.S. South
The Southern United States Red states show the core of the American South. States shown as pink may or may not be included in the South, with their inclusion or exclusion varying from source to source.
Population:	99,664,761
Total area:	1,481,438 sq/mi, 2,384,143 km²
Largest City (proper):	Houston, Texas 2,009,834
Highest elevation:	Guadalupe Peak 8,750 ft, 2,667 m
Lowest elevation:	New Orleans -8 ft, -2.5 m
Largest state:	Texas 696,241 km²
Smallest state:	Delaware 6,452 km²
Census Bureau Divisions	East South Central South Atlantic West South Central

Contents 1 Geography 2 History 3 Politics 3.1 Presidential history 3.2 Other politicians and political movements 4 Culture 4.1 Religion 4.2 Southern Dialect 4.3 Cuisine 4.4 Music 4.5 Sports 4.6 Literature 4.7 Film 5 Cultural Variations 6 Race relations 7 Symbolism of the South 8 Today's South: "The New South" 9 GDP 10 See also 11 External links 12 References

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.

However, not all definitions of the South are based on 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 the South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana (the six founding members of the Confederate States of America). In addition, the South can also refer to the Old South, which are the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies. The Old South includes South Carolina, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and often Georgia. The Deep South and the Old South used to be known colloquially as Dixie (and is still referred to nostalgically as such).

Despite these definitional differences, when most people today refer to the South they mean to the region as designated by the U.S. Census. This region currently contains a number of the twenty-five largest metropolitan areas in the United States. In order of size they are: Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Washington, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Tampa/St. Petersburg. The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area would be the largest metropolitan area in the South, but is no longer officially recognized by the census burearu—although it is still in popular use. If Missouri is considered to be part of the South, St. Louis' metro would also be included. While not one of the largest metro areas in the South, San Antonio is notable for being one of only three cities in the South with a city proper population of over a million, the others being Dallas and Houston.

The South is a vast 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.

History

Main article: History of the Southern United States

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, taxation, tariffs, and states' rights led to the secession of most of the Southern states after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The Southern states that seceded formed the Confederate States of America with Richmond as its capital. 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. Because of this fact, many white Southerners (Southern blacks were drafted into the Confederate army in March 1865. However, Confederate General Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865 before any black troops were able to participate in the fighting) fought in the Confederate army for what they saw as a defense of their homeland from an invading army.

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. 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 found itself devastated, both 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'd actively supported the Confederacy found themselves without 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), the lack of capital investment also contributed to its economic hardship.

Politics

Main article: Politics of the Southern United States

In the century after the American Civil War and Reconstruction, Southerners often identified with the then-conservative Democratic Party. This lock on power was so strong the region was politically called the Solid South.

In the last thirty-five years this has changed because of Democratic Party's support for the civil rights movement and the conservative realignment of the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan presidencies in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the Republican Party has benefited from Southern support, in large measure due to the evangelical Christian vote.

Although the South as a whole defies stereotyping, it is nonetheless known for entrenched conservatism. Support for such conservative causes is often found in the South, including resistance to same-sex marriage and abortion while in the past there was major resistance to feminism, desegregation, the abolition of slavery and interracial marriage.

Many southern states did not remove their state Constitutional bans prohibiting the recognition of marriages between persons of different races until the 1990s and 2000s. The last state to do so was Alabama in 2000, with 41% of voters wanting to keep it in place. See Interracial marriage bans in the southern United States

Presidential history

The South has long been a center of political power in the United States, especially with regards to Presidential elections. During the history of the United States, the South has supplied between sixteen and eighteen of the country's forty-three presidents. This difference in counts depends on whether people consider George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush as Southern. While both were not born in the South, they lived most of their lives in Texas and received their political starts there. A similar argument could be given for Abraham Lincoln, who was born in Kentucky but started his political career in Illinois.

Most of the recent Presidents of the United States—Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—have either come from the region or, like George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, spent most of their lives there. This fact is a result of the renewed political power of the South and the unique nature of the Electoral College, both of which make it difficult for a Presidential contender to win the White House without carrying part of the South.

Other politicians and political movements

In addition to Presidents, the South has also produced numerous other well-known politicians and political movements.

Infor 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 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, is highly religious, resulting in the reference to regions of the South as the "Bible Belt", from its prevalence of evangelical or fundamentalist Protestantism. The region is often stereotyped as being somewhat intolerant to 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. Cities such as Atlanta and Houston have significant Jewish and Islamic communities. In addition, there are significant Catholic populations in most cities in the South—with larger concentrations in cities such as New Orleans—and immigrants from Southeast Asia have brought Buddhism and Hinduism to the region as well.

Southern Dialect

Main article: Southern American English

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. 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.

Cuisine

Main article: Cuisine of the Southern United States

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. 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 and Alabama, 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. 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, as well as restaurants still serving primarily Southern specialties, so-called "home cooking" establishments.

Music

The South is by far the richest area of 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, Appalachian folk music, and rock n' roll all were either born in the South or developed in the region. 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 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 and Tampa Bay Buccaneers), the region is noted for the intensity with which people follow high school and college football teams -- especially the Southeastern Conference and in Texas where high school football, especially in smaller communities, is elevated to near-religion status.

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).

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.

Ironically, the hot-weather Tampa Bay Lightning are the defending National Hockey League champions.

Atlanta was the host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

Literature

Main article: Southern 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 Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, James Dickey, and Walker Percy. One of the most famous southern novels of the 20th century, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, won the Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 1960.

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.

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, Richmond, and Charleston, 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 would identify themselves as Texans rather than Southerners or Westerners.

• Also, prior to its statehood in 1907, the eastern part of Oklahoma was "Indian Territory." The majority of the Native American tribes in Indian Territory sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Similar to Texas in that it has a Southwestern influence, Oklahoma holds strong ties to Southern culture, evidenced by dialect, religion, politics, cuisine, etc. It is geographically often grouped with the Midwest, but culturally is truly more Southern, especially in the eastern part of the 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.

• 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, and also Puerto Rico, Haiti and other parts of Latin America. Often, non-Hispanic whites and native-born African Americans have migrated north from Miami to find higher wages, lower costs of living, and cultures where they feel more comfortable. While southern and central Florida are seen by many as not truly part of the South in terms of culture, the Florida Panhandle, northeastern areas, North Central Florida, and the Nature Coast of 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." (but not completely; in virtually any part of the state outside of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metroplex, southern accents can still be heard and the culture can still be described as more "Southern" than any region of the U.S. not in the "Deep 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 do not consider Maryland and Delaware to be culturally Southern states, despite those lands being largely colonised by the relatively same people in 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. Today, they are sometimes grouped with Southern states for corporate and governmental administrative regions. 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), is more Southern than it is Midwestern. It forms a coherent cultural region with the Missouri Bootheel, northeast Arkansas, Kentucky's Purchase, and West Tennessee.

Race relations

Main article: Racism in the United States

African Americans have a long history in the South, stretching back to the first settlements in the region. While some Blacks came to the South on their own and lived as free people, most were brought to work as agricultural slaves (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 politcal power in the South. However, as Reconstruction ended, Southern states moved to prevent black people from voting. Since most blacks still worked for whites, this could usually be done by threatening economic coercion. In addition, organized militias like the first Ku Klux Klan also threatened black voters with violence. (Current, pp. 457-458) As Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina 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 brutal system of segregation and discrimination. Blacks could not go to the same schools as whites; they could not eat in the same restaurants, travel on the same train cars, live in the same neighborhoods, shop in the same stores. Nor could they serve on juries, which meant that they had little if any legal recourse.

During the first half of the 20th century, Southern Whites could beat, rob, or murder Blacks at will for minor infractions (Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, pp. 160-165). 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, almost all 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 assasination 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 signifficantly 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 parents 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 number 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

Fights over the "Rebel Flag" of the Confederacy still regularly occur, and it and other reminders of the Old South can sometimes be found on automobile bumper stickers, on tee shirts, and flown from homes. One one side of the issues are groups like the League of the South, who promote the idea of secession from the United States and say they want to protect and defend the heritage of the South. On the other side are groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights group which added the League of the South to its list of watched hate groups.

It is worth noting that most people in the South do not believe in either of these extremes. They instead value their heritage while also recognizing the need to continue improving race relations while also embracing the changing nature of the South.

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, and high technology industries. Examples of this include the surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, numerous new automobile production plants in places like Alabama and a BMW production plant in Spartanburg, SC, and the creation of computer programming and communications companies (such as the Cable News Network, which is based in Atlanta). This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast some of the lowest unemployed rates in the United States.[8]

GDP

3.53 trillion USD

See also

• Country music
• Deep South
• History of the Southern United States
• Politics of the Southern United States
• Southern American English
• Southern literature

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

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).
• Pete Daniel, Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. ISBN 0807848484.
• 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)
• James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, New York: Touchstone, 1996. ISBN 0684818868
• Wilson, Charles Reagan, and Ferris, William (editors). Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
• Richard Wright, Black Boy, Harper & Brothers, 1945

Geographic regions of the United States
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Multinational regions: Border States | Great Lakes | Great Plains | Pacific Northwest