Posted on 01/20/2006 2:50:00 PM PST by oxcart
Greetings from North Carolina, where I'm spending the next few months as a visiting fellow at something called the National Humanities Center. It's located mid-way between the three cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, which together form one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States, along with the region that includes Charlotte, the largest city in the state.
Here's an example of what is known as the "New" South, which is booming as never before. For some time economic power has been shifting in this country, away from the old, industrialised North East towards states that were once far less prosperous than they have recently become. And over the last three decades this change in the distribution of wealth resources and people has also had major implications for American politics and American government.
For much of its history, North Carolina was one of the poorest southern states. The first English settlers arrived in 1585, but they survived barely two years, and it was not until late in the 17th and early 18th centuries that immigration began in earnest. But the soil was unwelcoming, farming was hard, and the colony never achieved the level of prosperity, dominated by great plantations, that characterised neighbouring Virginia and South Carolina.
North Carolina was also backward in other ways: it was reluctant to join the American Revolution, and it was one of the last states to embrace the union after freedom from the British had been won. And although it was a slave-owning state, it was also slow to sign up with the Confederacy on the outbreak of the Civil War. But a quarter of all the southern troops who died in that conflict came from North Carolina, and by the end of the war, the state was a shambles. So, as the 20th century dawned, North Carolina was a poor and under-resourced region, where nearly 20% of whites, and nearly 50% of blacks, were unable to read.
But by then, North Carolina had become home to one major industry, and that was tobacco. In 1881, a machine was invented which could roll cigarettes automatically, and soon after Durham became a great centre of tobacco manufacture, dominated by the Duke family who established the American Tobacco Company in 1890.
They were among the largest employers in the town, they built enormous factories and warehouses, and in 1924 they endowed the local college with a massive gift of $40m, which ever since has borne the Duke name, and is now one of the best universities in the country.
There are many ironies here. The Duke family had made their money by manufacturing a product which often killed people, if consumed in sufficient quantities. Yet Duke University, which they had transformed by their benefaction, has in recent times become renowned for its medical centre, which seeks to save and prolong lives. Such can be the contradictions of capitalism and of philanthropy.
Despite the job opportunities which the tobacco industry created, for both blacks and whites, North Carolina continued to languish down to World War II and beyond. And all this time, North Carolina was a segregated state, along with the rest of the South, with separate schools and buses, and cafes for blacks and whites.
Industry collapse
It's hard to imagine that that such a state of affairs still existed within the lifetime of many Carolinans living today. But it did.
To make matters worse, from the 1980s onwards, the cigarette industry went into decline, and this took away a major source of employment. The economic base of Durham seemed on the brink of collapse, and the great tobacco warehouses now stood silent and derelict. This is hardly a cheering story, and North Carolina was hardly a cheering place when I first visited America during the early 1970s. There seemed no good reason to go there.
In fact, I only encountered the state indirectly. For one of its senators, Sam Ervin, was the chairman of the Senate Committee which was then in the process of investigating the Watergate affair, and he waged a vigorous and ultimately victorious battle against President Nixon, who sought to withhold evidence by claiming executive privilege.
The committee hearings were televised, and they were riveting daytime drama as Ervin became a national celebrity, not only for his decent and determined conduct against a crooked and conspiring president, but also for his folksy humour and pithy observations.
Yet by then Sam Ervin was becoming an example of a fast-vanishing breed: the Southern Democrat. From the early 1930s until the late 1960s, the Democratic Party had dominated American politics, after a long period of Republican ascendancy, and the architect of that dominance had been Franklin Roosevelt.
One of Roosevelt's greatest achievements had been to put together an election winning coalition of northern workers and big city bosses, along with representatives of the white, segregationist South. As such, it was a coalition that was contradictory to the point of instability, but from Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, it was somehow held together, and Senator Sam Ervin was a quintessential example of its southern component.
No longer backward
But by the time of Watergate, something had already happened in American politics which portended the break-up of this Democratic coalition, (especially the Southern element in it) and that was the passing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Johnson's Civil Rights Act was not only overdue and admirable but a rare example of a politician doing something he believed in but which was not consistent with his own, or with his party's, political self-interest
Johnson himself was a Texan, and a product of the segregated, graft-ridden world of southern politics. Yet once he gained the White House he became persuaded that segregation had to end, and that blacks should finally receive full political rights. He duly deployed his formidable political will, and brutal operating skills, to berate, persuade and coerce a reluctant Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act. To this day, it remains one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever sponsored by an American President, and whatever Johnson's failings and errors in his mis-conduct of the Vietnam War, this measure must always stand to his credit.
Yet even as he exerted himself to secure its passing, Johnson conceded that the Civil Rights Act meant the Democratic Party would lose the American South for a generation: for while the newly-enfranchised blacks would vote Democrat, the southern whites would increasingly turn to the Republicans. And that is exactly what has happened.
One indication was that in 1972, North Carolina elected its first Republican Senator in the 20th Century. His name was Jesse Helms, and for the next 30 years he was a powerful conservative force in the nation's capital, fighting against restrictions on smoking and on guns. Today, in Washington, there's scarcely a Democratic senator from the old South left.
Johnson's Civil Rights Act was, then, not only both overdue and admirable, it was also a rare example of a politician doing something because he believed it to be right, but which was not consistent with his own, or with his party's, political self-interest.
Loft apartments
It's not only Johnson's civil rights legislation which has transformed the old South during the last 30-odd years. For at the same time, the economic balance of power in the United States has tipped away from states like Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ohio, and towards the sunrise and sunshine states of the south and the west.
Places like North Carolina are no longer derided as marginal, backward and poor. Instead, they have become extremely attractive to young and old Americans alike; to those wishing to make their careers (and often their fortunes) in IT, or medical research or bio-technology, or to those who wish to retire from the cold North East to warmer climes. Hurricanes like Katrina notwithstanding, the major growth areas in the United States are now in places like North Carolina, and here in Durham. The once-derelict tobacco warehouses have recently been re-born as ritzy lofts (I'm living in one myself) and fashionable restaurants and boutiques.
Such prosperity has never happened in the South before of course, and as Katrina did so vividly show, this isn't true every where. The old poor South does linger, in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, and there are still substantial areas of poverty in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Be that as it may, the South is richer than it's ever been, and it's also become politically more influential as a result.
But as Johnson had both foreseen and feared, this enhanced political clout is no longer mobilised in support of the Democrats. For in recent decades the South has been a major force in the revival of the Republican Party.
One indication of this is that the Texas of Lyndon Johnson is now the Texas of George Bush and of his father. Another is that it is now scarcely conceivable that an American president could be elected who's based in the North East.
That would probably be true even if he was a Republican, and it would be still more true if he (or she) was a Democrat.
John Kerry found that out the hard way in 2004. Will Hillary Clinton be taught the same lesson in 2008? If she is, it will be one more indication that the American South has finally, peacefully and belatedly won the American civil war.
Before 1836! The New England states were very opposed to the War of 1812, as it hurt their mercantile/trading ties with Great Britain. They met it Hartford in 1814 to decide on succession, but that vote lost. The Hartford Convention
Also, this articles reeks of a deliberate attempt to portray Republicans as racists. Note how the author says white Southern Democrats became Republicans as soon as the Voting Rights Act was passed. What he fails to point out was most of the democrats were against it, and most republicans were for it. Also, the South decided long ago to abandon Jim Crow, more for any reason than it was the right, moral thing to do. Some white liberals think criticizing the black community in any fashion is racist, but pointing out bad behaviors; children born out of wedlock, relying too much on the welfare state, epidemic of drugs, etc, is a show of concern for folks. The above behaviors can be found among poor whites, too. Morally we owe it to these folks to never let such behavior be considered KO and natural.
As a native New Hampshire boy now living many years in the South (Alabama) I simply do not see Jim Crow type racism here. Relations between blacks and whites are much better here than the North, imho.
Actually, John Carrier did not invent air conditioning (the cooling process) in 1902 - Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola FL invented that process in 1842 (patented in 1851).
Dr. Gorrie was attempting to quell outbreaks of yellow fever by keeping patients and rooms cooler by having fans blow across bowls of ice. With the panhandle of Florida not being blessed by a plethora of available ice, Dr. Gorrie invented a machine to freeze water, adn then proceeded to "air condition" hospital rooms.
The myth, huh? Your nic is "rebel" base and you think I am creating the myth? You can't guys can't let go of something you don't even truly understand. You've created this amazing myth of what the south was like, building on the small things and ignoring the unpleasant things. The war was over 140 years ago, the South lost, the old south no longer exists, GET OVER IT.
and they don't say the N-word in the North?.....have you been to Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Indiana, Ohio, rural New York State, the Pine Barrens, etc?
I have heard it from a management type in Syracuse NY, originally from NYC. Especially in his references to track and field (thought the only sport for degreed corporate professionals was golf. Track and field was for (n-word)).
It doesn't appear to be a problem for me. And once again, the inference as to the origins of my name are ASSumed wrong.
To be precise, the South did not lose the war. Loyal Americans, whether they were from the North or South, won the war. The disloyal elements, whether they were Southern Confederates or Northern Copperheads, lost.
I think it is easy to get sidetracked into regional chauvinism if we look at the war as a mere conflict of regions.
Perfectly snotty remark. One of the many reasons I left my native state and adopted one with better manners.
Technology in northeastern states zenithed during the industrial revolution. Yankee technology these days consists of finding new ways to tax people out of their house and home.
like mine is dependent on superior education and the classical ability to speak proper English?
You call that gutteral giberish spoken in Noo Yawk, Noo Joisey, and Bassten proper English? I'm not exactly sure I would call what your inner city schools do a "superior education". They seem to excell at spending taxpayer dollars and little else.
This could easily apply to a Redneck Northerner living in rural Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Etc.
Simple, and just plain wrong in points.
The author makes no mention of NC being the first state to declare independence from England. I.e., the Halifax Resolves, and goes on to state that NC was reluctant to join the Revolution? Maybe they just didn't feel bad that the Brits were killing Yankees...
Oh how, the MSM loves to play "masters of historical revisionisms" by omission or by spin.
I agree and leave it to the BBC to try to turn a positive into a negative. It seems that England is still bummed that the United States didn't fall apart during the Civil War.
Most of my family lives in the Deep South so I have one foot there and one foot up here in New England. At some point, I'm moving down there. I much prefer cities like Charlotte, Savannah, Nashville and Huntsville (AL) to cities like Boston, New York, Baltimore and Detroit. People are friendlier, streets are cleaner, weather is more bearable (except maybe July and August) and the food is better.
Atlanta...well it can be as bad as New York City! SO they offset each other.
Anyway, my point is that the South was worth fighting to keep and I'm glad the War between the States ended as it did (though I'd rather it never had to happen at all). I cannot imagine a United States without the Deep South.
I'm a native Virginian who has spent some time in upstate NY the last few years and found the people there to be exceptionally friendly and gracious, the countryside beautiful. OTOH, driving through the Charlotte area of North Carolina the last few years hasn't been too pleasant. It's congested and overcrowded and the roadside service stations were often dirty, while the employees in them acted like they could hardly give a damn about their customers.
My opinion is that buying land is probably a much better investment in NC than upstate NY, but I believe I'd rather live in NY. I'm slightly shocked to find myself saying this, but I can't get past what I've seen the last few years.
That being said, I wonder if there are really very many Southerners who'd truly wish the South were a seperate country. I tend to think not, in spite of the arguments back and forth.
Perfectly stated!
Indeed it might. It also might not.
Southerners wouldn't agree to reunification unless it provided strong guarantees to their institutions -- very much including slavery or segregation. There'd be a demand that the federal government could never pass something like the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s. That in itself would have made any reunited country very different from today's America.
Northerners wouldn't agree to Southerners' demands, and there'd be a desire to wash their hands entirely of the region. Since the compromises of 1787 and 1820 and 1850 hadn't been enough for the South, Northerners might not go down that road again. We would have been a more inward looking country, or pair of countries, and far less of a match for the rest of the world.
It's certainly true that the parts of the US and the countries of the world have been growing closer together over the last fifty years or so. That's someting to take into account. But it's not as though history was bound to end up more or less where we are now. Had events taken a different turn in the past, the world of 2006 might have ended looking very different than it does to us.
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