Do you see what is happening? The South is an enigma. It doesn’t fit into this one size fits all Union very well. The South was drug back into this Union at the pint of a bayonet. But the differences remain.
I am quite aware of the South’s tenuous presence in the Union. That’s why the Confederate flag is popular down here: not as a defense of slavery/discrimination, but as a statement of “we may be part of the USA but we’re really not happy about some things”.