I'm not going to deny Amherst County's history. My brother graduated from what I believe was the last segregated senior class at the high school in 1968. I attended what once was the black Central High School (then Amherst County Junior High School, and fully integrated) in 1978-79. And yes, it was considerably smaller than the white high school...but the black population is, according to Wikipedia, about 20% of the county. So it could afford to be smaller. Yes, they fought tooth and nail against integration. I'm not proud of that.
But I'll tell you this. I lived there until I went to college in 1984, and came back from 1990 to 1993 to live in Lynchburg. I still have friends in the county and my mom lives in Lynchburg. And in that time period, strides were made in race relations that you would not believe. Interracial dating happens, and now it's no big deal anymore. It wasn't even THAT big a deal in the early 1980s when I was in high school there. I never saw evidence of racism in the school. Never. You can believe it or not, but it's the truth.
Down there, the races mix, and mingle, and work with and for each other, and nobody gives the 1950s and 1960s much of a thought anymore except when someone of the perpetually-offended class decides to squawk about a tiny St. Andrews Cross in the middle of an obscure county seal.
That's because, white or black, we're Southern. We're Virginian. And y'know, it's damned hard to explain to somebody who didn't grow up with it, but sometimes, that just trumps what color your skin is. And there's a hell of a lot of blue states and blue cities that could learn a LOT about race relations from a place like Amherst County, Virginia, regardless of what they've got in the center of their county seal.
After all, it's worth noting that that symbol was on the county seal for forty-three years before somebody complained. Oh, and as for the seal itself...y'know the only place you really ever see it? On the tax stickers that go on the windshield of every car registered in Amherst County, a new one every year. They're about, eh, four inches on a side, so the seal's probably no more than three inches on a side. You'd need a magnifying glass to spot there was a St. Andrews Cross there.
}:-)4
I can totally believe it. The whole country has come a long way since the 1960s, and indeed, the north has plenty of racism.
You cannot explain it, there are no words. It's in our heart and soul.
It has nothing to do with race. Racism and biogtry is bad in any part of the country. And I would suggest that those who continually dump on the South start logging the trees in their eyes.
I lived in Syracuse for 17 years. My last name is rare among whites. My neighbors learned our last name before we moved in. They were sweating bullets, they thought a black family was moving in.
If I had a dime for everytime I heard "I couldn't move to the South--too many blacks," I would be a rich woman. They thought the South consisted of two groups, Blacks and Klan. I usually answered it by saying, "Yeah, I feel the same way up here, a WASP whose name does not end in a vowel." They got the message.
free dixie,sw