Posted by: Captain Haddock March 8, 2007
Login in to Rate this Post:
0 
? 
?
In light of a related conversation on another thread, I found this somewhat relevant article about how the American South has changed even though it is still more conservative than the rest of the country.Like many articles tackling issues of substance with facts and figures, this is a bit long, but worth the read. Also, at the end of the article below, there are a series of other articles on the subject that you can check out.
###############################################
Source: - http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8729871
SURVEY: THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Goodbye to the blues
Mar 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition
The American South, once notorious for violence, poverty and racism, is now pleasant and prosperous, says Robert Guest (interviewed here). But it still has some catching up to do
IN 1943 Achie Matthews quit sharecropping and headed north to seek a better life. He found it. His wages in a steel factory in Ohio were fatter and more predictable than the pittance he had earned coaxing cotton out of Mississippi's soil. And although race relations in Ohio were hardly ideal, he was at least free of the daily indignities and the pervasive threat of violence that made life so cruel for a black man in the segregated South.
His story was typical. Seventy years ago the average income in America's South was $314 a year. In current dollars that would be about $4,400, meaning that southerners then were about as rich as the people of Botswana are today. Half the workers in the South in the 1930s were farmers, and half of those did not own the land they farmed. Some paid rent. Others, like Matthews, gave their landlord a share of their crop. The average landless cotton farmer made $73 a year ($1,023 today). Small wonder that by the late 1930s a quarter of those born in the southern countryside—black and white—had emigrated to the north or to southern cities.
Matthews lived and worked in Ohio for the rest of his life and died, much lamented, last year. During his lifetime the South was transformed. A political system based on fear and division was replaced by multiracial democracy. Southerners no longer subsist by sweating in fields, but by making cars, pampering tourists or flying urgent packages around the world.
In 1937 southern incomes were only half the American average; today they are 91% of it. If you allow for the lower cost of living in the South, the gap all but vanishes. Since the 1960s, more whites have moved to the South than have left it. Since the 1970s, the same has been true for African-Americans. The South's share of America's population has risen from just over a quarter in 1960 to a third today, making it the most populous American region. (This special report defines “the South” as the 11 states of the old Confederacy plus Kentucky and Oklahoma; see map.)
Last May, Matthews's granddaughter, Katrice Mines, joined the southward surge of young black professionals and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Over a lunch of chicken with peaches, crushed walnuts and snap peas, Ms Mines admits that, before she moved, she was somewhat afraid of the South. But she quickly found a job, as an associate editor of the Atlanta Tribune, a black business magazine. Up north in Sandusky, Ohio, she had felt her talents were untapped. Down South, she feels more optimistic. Atlanta is majority-black. It is also rich, with more Fortune 500 headquarters than any other American city bar New York and Houston. “There are so many African-Americans in powerful positions,” says Ms Mines. “You can get your foot in the door.”
The new New South
It is old hat to talk of the “New South”. The phrase dates back at least to 1886, and the writer Joel Garreau counts “at least six major, widely hailed, New Souths since Lee's surrender to Grant, not to mention the minor, trial-balloon, New Souths that the sad surplus of New Southern journalists float from time to time (everybody's got to eat).” But repetition does not make a label false. People talk about the New South because the region really has changed, dramatically and repeatedly, in a startlingly short space of time.
Before the civil war the southern economy depended on slavery. This was not only inhuman; it was also inefficient. The slave-owners prospered, to be sure. Their workers did not have to be paid, and their assets multiplied by having children. But only a small minority of southern whites owned slaves, and the system hurt nearly everyone else. Blacks, obviously, were the principal victims. Unskilled whites suffered, too, since unpaid black labour depressed their wages. And slavery helped keep the South backward. The planters, with all their capital tied up in slaves, had little incentive to invest in labour-saving technology. And with few modern industries to man, the southern ruling class saw little point in mass education.
Then the civil war wiped out two-thirds of the South's wealth. Partly, this was for the happy reason that freed slaves were deemed to be human beings, not chattels. But the Unionist troops also burned several cities to cinders, ransacked farms and tore up most of the South's railways, tying some stretches of track around trees to form “Sherman bow ties”, named after a northern general, William Sherman. Roughly a quarter of able-bodied male southerners were killed or wounded. In the first year of peace, Mississippi spent a fifth of its state budget on artificial limbs.
During the “Reconstruction” period of 1865-77 the South was occupied by northern troops. This humiliation—something no other part of America has tasted—still rankles for some white southerners. For blacks it was a blessing: the occupying northern army upheld their right to vote. But when that army withdrew, they lost it again. During the “Jim Crow” era, southern Democrats ruthlessly reasserted white supremacy. Blacks were barred from voting, and their disfranchisement allowed white politicians to keep white schools white and black schools shabby. Any black who protested could be lynched.
In short, for nearly all of its recorded history the South has been ruled by violence, or the threat of it. From 1619 (when the first shackled African landed in Virginia) until 1865, slaves had to work or be whipped. From the end of Reconstruction until the triumph of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, southern blacks who tried to vote risked a beating or worse. It took a war to dismantle the first system. The second was swept away almost without bloodshed, by peaceful protesters whose televised encounters with thuggish policemen shamed the federal government into intervening once more.
The lesson of southern history is that non-violence works, both in that narrow sense and in a broader one. An economic system based on free labour and free exchange is far more dynamic and adaptable than a system based on coercion. And a political system that heeds all voices is far more stable than one that heeds some and seeks to silence the rest.
For those whose freshest impressions come from news coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it may seem odd to describe the South as peaceful, pleasant and prosperous. Surely the storm that hit New Orleans revealed a society plagued with poverty and teetering on the edge of barbarism? No. Granted, there was a lot of looting, but reports of widespread murder and even cannibalism were hysterical and false. And pundits who likened the flood's aftermath to a third-world disaster cannot have seen many of those.
New Orleans, for all its joie de vivre, is one of the worst-run cities in America. For the South as a whole, the picture is much brighter. Indeed, the question is no longer “will the South rise again?” but “will it one day overtake the north?” Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, does not hesitate before answering “yes”. The South, he says, has low taxes, weak unions, business-friendly state governments, sunshine and a quality of life that will increasingly attract people who can work anywhere with a broadband connection.
The South's share of American GDP has risen from 22% in 1963 to 31% today. Its share of America's population is still growing, but income per head, which peaked at nearly 96% of the national norm in 1981, has struggled to regain that proportion. Does this matter? As Georgia's governor, Sonny Perdue, points out, it is not a race. There are worse fates than remaining nine-tenths as rich as America, a country that is richer and grows faster than any other large rich country. There is even an argument that growth, by attracting so many newcomers to the South, threatens the region's unique charm. Walker Hodges, who manages a trucking firm in Wilson, North Carolina, laments that the “Tom Sawyer adventures” of his youth in the 1950s are now impossible, because the deserted rivers where he enjoyed them now have thousands of boats on them.
On the other hand, faster economic growth could solve many of the South's lingering problems: the large remaining tracts of relative poverty; the 19% of southerners who lack health insurance; perhaps even the South's high rate of violent crime. Greater prosperity translates into more choices for individuals—no small boon in a culture that so fervently celebrates cussed individualism. Most southerners would be happy to see more economic growth. The biggest obstacle, many believe, is the poor state of southern schools, though even those are improving.
This special report will describe how success has changed the South—economically, politically and culturally. It will offer food for thought about America's most distinctive region (and some brief thoughts on its food). It will examine the changing (but undiminished) role of religion in southern society. But it will start with the most explosive subject: the partially cleared minefield of race.
Next article : - http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8729837
(you might need a free pass to the Economist site for some of these. I get it about one in 5 or 6 visits to the site)
IN 1943 Achie Matthews quit sharecropping and headed north to seek a better life. He found it. His wages in a steel factory in Ohio were fatter and more predictable than the pittance he had earned coaxing cotton out of Mississippi's soil. And although race relations in Ohio were hardly ideal, he was at least free of the daily indignities and the pervasive threat of violence that made life so cruel for a black man in the segregated South.
His story was typical. Seventy years ago the average income in America's South was $314 a year. In current dollars that would be about $4,400, meaning that southerners then were about as rich as the people of Botswana are today. Half the workers in the South in the 1930s were farmers, and half of those did not own the land they farmed. Some paid rent. Others, like Matthews, gave their landlord a share of their crop. The average landless cotton farmer made $73 a year ($1,023 today). Small wonder that by the late 1930s a quarter of those born in the southern countryside—black and white—had emigrated to the north or to southern cities.
Matthews lived and worked in Ohio for the rest of his life and died, much lamented, last year. During his lifetime the South was transformed. A political system based on fear and division was replaced by multiracial democracy. Southerners no longer subsist by sweating in fields, but by making cars, pampering tourists or flying urgent packages around the world.
In 1937 southern incomes were only half the American average; today they are 91% of it. If you allow for the lower cost of living in the South, the gap all but vanishes. Since the 1960s, more whites have moved to the South than have left it. Since the 1970s, the same has been true for African-Americans. The South's share of America's population has risen from just over a quarter in 1960 to a third today, making it the most populous American region. (This special report defines “the South” as the 11 states of the old Confederacy plus Kentucky and Oklahoma; see map.)
Last May, Matthews's granddaughter, Katrice Mines, joined the southward surge of young black professionals and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Over a lunch of chicken with peaches, crushed walnuts and snap peas, Ms Mines admits that, before she moved, she was somewhat afraid of the South. But she quickly found a job, as an associate editor of the Atlanta Tribune, a black business magazine. Up north in Sandusky, Ohio, she had felt her talents were untapped. Down South, she feels more optimistic. Atlanta is majority-black. It is also rich, with more Fortune 500 headquarters than any other American city bar New York and Houston. “There are so many African-Americans in powerful positions,” says Ms Mines. “You can get your foot in the door.”
The new New South
It is old hat to talk of the “New South”. The phrase dates back at least to 1886, and the writer Joel Garreau counts “at least six major, widely hailed, New Souths since Lee's surrender to Grant, not to mention the minor, trial-balloon, New Souths that the sad surplus of New Southern journalists float from time to time (everybody's got to eat).” But repetition does not make a label false. People talk about the New South because the region really has changed, dramatically and repeatedly, in a startlingly short space of time.
Before the civil war the southern economy depended on slavery. This was not only inhuman; it was also inefficient. The slave-owners prospered, to be sure. Their workers did not have to be paid, and their assets multiplied by having children. But only a small minority of southern whites owned slaves, and the system hurt nearly everyone else. Blacks, obviously, were the principal victims. Unskilled whites suffered, too, since unpaid black labour depressed their wages. And slavery helped keep the South backward. The planters, with all their capital tied up in slaves, had little incentive to invest in labour-saving technology. And with few modern industries to man, the southern ruling class saw little point in mass education.
Then the civil war wiped out two-thirds of the South's wealth. Partly, this was for the happy reason that freed slaves were deemed to be human beings, not chattels. But the Unionist troops also burned several cities to cinders, ransacked farms and tore up most of the South's railways, tying some stretches of track around trees to form “Sherman bow ties”, named after a northern general, William Sherman. Roughly a quarter of able-bodied male southerners were killed or wounded. In the first year of peace, Mississippi spent a fifth of its state budget on artificial limbs.
During the “Reconstruction” period of 1865-77 the South was occupied by northern troops. This humiliation—something no other part of America has tasted—still rankles for some white southerners. For blacks it was a blessing: the occupying northern army upheld their right to vote. But when that army withdrew, they lost it again. During the “Jim Crow” era, southern Democrats ruthlessly reasserted white supremacy. Blacks were barred from voting, and their disfranchisement allowed white politicians to keep white schools white and black schools shabby. Any black who protested could be lynched.
In short, for nearly all of its recorded history the South has been ruled by violence, or the threat of it. From 1619 (when the first shackled African landed in Virginia) until 1865, slaves had to work or be whipped. From the end of Reconstruction until the triumph of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, southern blacks who tried to vote risked a beating or worse. It took a war to dismantle the first system. The second was swept away almost without bloodshed, by peaceful protesters whose televised encounters with thuggish policemen shamed the federal government into intervening once more.
The lesson of southern history is that non-violence works, both in that narrow sense and in a broader one. An economic system based on free labour and free exchange is far more dynamic and adaptable than a system based on coercion. And a political system that heeds all voices is far more stable than one that heeds some and seeks to silence the rest.
For those whose freshest impressions come from news coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it may seem odd to describe the South as peaceful, pleasant and prosperous. Surely the storm that hit New Orleans revealed a society plagued with poverty and teetering on the edge of barbarism? No. Granted, there was a lot of looting, but reports of widespread murder and even cannibalism were hysterical and false. And pundits who likened the flood's aftermath to a third-world disaster cannot have seen many of those.
New Orleans, for all its joie de vivre, is one of the worst-run cities in America. For the South as a whole, the picture is much brighter. Indeed, the question is no longer “will the South rise again?” but “will it one day overtake the north?” Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, does not hesitate before answering “yes”. The South, he says, has low taxes, weak unions, business-friendly state governments, sunshine and a quality of life that will increasingly attract people who can work anywhere with a broadband connection.
The South's share of American GDP has risen from 22% in 1963 to 31% today. Its share of America's population is still growing, but income per head, which peaked at nearly 96% of the national norm in 1981, has struggled to regain that proportion. Does this matter? As Georgia's governor, Sonny Perdue, points out, it is not a race. There are worse fates than remaining nine-tenths as rich as America, a country that is richer and grows faster than any other large rich country. There is even an argument that growth, by attracting so many newcomers to the South, threatens the region's unique charm. Walker Hodges, who manages a trucking firm in Wilson, North Carolina, laments that the “Tom Sawyer adventures” of his youth in the 1950s are now impossible, because the deserted rivers where he enjoyed them now have thousands of boats on them.
On the other hand, faster economic growth could solve many of the South's lingering problems: the large remaining tracts of relative poverty; the 19% of southerners who lack health insurance; perhaps even the South's high rate of violent crime. Greater prosperity translates into more choices for individuals—no small boon in a culture that so fervently celebrates cussed individualism. Most southerners would be happy to see more economic growth. The biggest obstacle, many believe, is the poor state of southern schools, though even those are improving.
This special report will describe how success has changed the South—economically, politically and culturally. It will offer food for thought about America's most distinctive region (and some brief thoughts on its food). It will examine the changing (but undiminished) role of religion in southern society. But it will start with the most explosive subject: the partially cleared minefield of race.
Next article : - http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8729837
(you might need a free pass to the Economist site for some of these. I get it about one in 5 or 6 visits to the site)