Southern United States

Modern definition The states in dark red are almost always included in modern day definitions of the South, while those in medium red are usually included. Some sources classify Maryland and Missouri as Southern, with Delaware only rarely grouped within the region. West Virginia is often considered Southern, because it was once part of Virginia.

map of United States with southeastern states highlighted in shades of red

Historic Southern United States. The states in red were in the Confederacy and have historically been regarded as forming "the South." Those in stripes were considered "Border" states, and gave varying degrees of support to the Southern cause although they remained in the Union. (This image depicts the original, trans-Allegheny borders of Virginia, and so does not show West Virginia separately. See image below for post-1863 Virginia and West Virginia borders.) While Oklahoma was aligned with and controlled by the Confederacy, it is not shaded because at the time, the region was Indian Territory, and thus not a state.

The South is one of four Census Bureau Regions.

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States. Because of the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, including Native Americans, early European settlements of English, Ulster Scots, Scottish,and German heritage, importation of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans, growth of a large proportion of African Americans in the population, reliance on slave labor, and legacy of the Confederacy after the American Civil War, the South developed its own customs, literature, musical styles, and varied cuisines that have profoundly shaped traditional American culture.

In the last few decades, the South has become more industrialized and urban, attracting numerous national and international migrants. The American South is among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Despite rapid economic growth, the South still has persistent poverty, and every Southern state with the exceptions of Virginia and Florida has a higher poverty rate than the American average. Poverty is especially prevalent in rural areas.

Geography

As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. Thirty-six percent of all U.S. residents lived in the South, the nation's most populous region. The Census Bureau defined three smaller units, or divisions:

• The South Atlantic States: Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware
• The East South Central States: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee
• The West South Central States: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas

Other terms related to the South include:

• The Old South: usually the original Southern colonies: Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
• The New South: usually including the South Atlantic States.
• The Solid South: region controlled by the U.S. Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States.
• Southern Appalachia: mainly refers to areas situated in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, namely Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Western Maryland, West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, North Georgia, and Northwestern South Carolina.
• Southeastern United States: usually including the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida
• The Deep South: various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included (sections of East Texas, delta areas of Arkansas and Tennessee, and parts of Florida such as the Panhandle and the north-central part of the state).
• The Gulf South: various definitions, usually including Gulf coasts of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama.
• The Upper South: Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
• Dixie: various definitions, but most commonly associated with the 11 states of the Old Confederacy.
• The Mid-South: defined by the Census as the South Central United States; in another informal definition, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and sometimes adjoining areas of other states.
• Border South: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware were states on the outer rim of the Confederacy that did not secede from the United States but did have significant numbers of residents who joined the Confederate armed forces. Kentucky and Missouri had Confederate governments in exile and were represented in the Confederate Congress and Confederate battle flag. West Virginia was formed in 1863 after the western region broke away from Virginia, and fought off efforts of Virginia to recapture the region.

The popular definition of the "South" is more informal and is generally associated with those states that seceded during the Civil War to form the Confederate States of America. Those states share commonalities of history and culture that carry on to the present day.

Biologically, the South is a vast, diverse region, having numerous climatic zones, including temperate, sub-tropical, tropical, and arid—though the South is generally regarded as being hot and humid, with long summers and short mild winters, being significantly warmer than the regions to its north (and generally exhibiting the nation's highest heat indices). 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 landscapes characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, yellow jessamine vines, Spanish moss, cabbage palms and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Texas. The South is a victim of kudzu, an invasive fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land and kills indigenous plant life. Kudzu is a particularly big problem in the piedmont regions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

History

Main article: History of the Southern United States

The first well-dated evidence of human occupation in the south United States occurs around 9500 BC with the appearance of the earliest documented Americans, who are now referred to as Paleo-Indians. Paleoindians were hunter-gathers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna. Several cultural stages, such as Archaic (ca. 8000 -1000 BC) and the Woodland (ca. 1000 BC-AD 1000), preceded what the Europeans found at the end of the 15th century — the Mississippian culture.

The Mississippian culture was a complex, mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the southeastern United States from approximately 800 AD to 1500 AD. Natives had elaborate and lengthy trading routes connecting their main residential and ceremonial centers extending through the river valleys and from the East Coast to the Great Lakes. Some noted explorers who encountered and described the Mississippian culture, by then in decline, included Pánfilo de Narváez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1540), and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville (1699).

Native American descendants of the mound-builders include Alabama, Apalachee, Caddo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, and Seminole peoples, many of whom still reside in the South.

European colonization

The predominant culture of the South was rooted in the settlement of the region by British colonists. In the seventeenth century, most voluntary immigrants were of English origins who settled chiefly along the coastal regions of the Eastern seaboard. The majority of early British settlers were indentured servants, who gained freedom after enough work to pay off their passage. The wealthier men who paid their way received land grants known as headrights, to encourage settlement.

The French and Spanish established colonies in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The Spanish colonized Florida in the 16th century, with their communities reaching a peak in the late 17th century. In the British and French colonies, most immigrants arrived after 1700. They cleared land, built houses and outbuildings, and worked on the large plantations that dominated export agriculture. Many were involved in the labor-intensive cultivation of tobacco, the first cash crop of Virginia. With a decrease in the number of British willing to go to the colonies in the eighteenth century, planters began importing more enslaved Africans, who became the predominant labor force on the plantations. Tobacco exhausted the soil quickly, requiring new fields to be cleared on a regular basis. Old fields were used as pasture and for crops such as corn and wheat, or allowed to grow into woodlots.

Also in the seventeenth century, colonists started importing African laborers. In the coastal and other settlements, early workers lived closely together in a multiracial society. Europeans married and made unions with Africans and Native Americans. The colonies gradually passed laws that hardened early conditions of indenture into lifelong racial slavery attached to African descent. Africans contributed to the economy of rice and indigo cultivation with their skilled knowledge, technology and labor, as well as to all the commodity crops; and to every aspect of culture (food, music, stories and religion).

Rice cultivation in South Carolina became another major commodity crop. Some historians have argued that slaves from the lowlands of western Africa, where rice was a basic crop, provided key skills, knowledge and technology for irrigation and construction of earthworks to support rice cultivation. The early methods and tools used in South Carolina were congruent with those in Africa. British immigrants would have had little or no familiarity with the complex process of growing rice in fields flooded by irrigation works. Africans were instrumental in the development of major earthworks for cultivating these commodities, as well as in the knowledge of technology and techniques for processing. The earthworks included extensive, elaborate systems of dams and irrigation for rice.

In the mid- to late-18th century, large groups of Ulster-Scots (later called the Scotch-Irish) and people from the Anglo-Scottish border region immigrated and settled in the back country of Appalachia and the Piedmont. They were the largest group of non-English immigrants from the British Isles before the American Revolution. In a census taken in 2000 of Americans and their self-reported ancestries, areas where people reported 'American' ancestry were the places where, historically, many Scotch-Irish, Scottish, and English Borderer Protestants settled in America, and especially the Appalachian region. The population with some Scots and Scotch-Irish ancestry may number 47 million, as most people have multiple heritages, some of which they may not know.

The early colonists, especially the Scotch-Irish in the back-country, engaged in warfare, trade, and cultural exchanges. Those living in the backcountry were more likely to join with Creek Indians, Cherokee, and Choctaws and other regional native groups.

The oldest university in the South, The College of William & Mary, was founded in 1693 in Virginia; it pioneered in the teaching of political economy and educated future U.S. Presidents Jefferson, Monroe and Tyler, all from Virginia. Indeed, the entire region dominated politics in the First Party System era: for example, four of the first five Presidents— Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe — were from Virginia. The two oldest public universities are also in the South: the University of North Carolina (1795) and the University of Georgia (1785).

American Revolution

The American Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the South. Tens of thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom, catalyzed by the British governor Dunmore of Virginia's promise of freedom for service. Many others simply escaped. Estimates are that five thousand slaves escaped from the Chesapeake Bay area, and thirteen thousand from South Carolina reached the British. "The extent of the loss to the slave owners in the lower South is indicated by the sharp decline between 1770 and 1790 in the proportion of population made up of black people (almost all of whom were slaves): from 60.5 percent to 43.8 percent in South Carolina and from 45.2 percent to 36.1 percent in Georgia."

In addition, some slaveholders were inspired to free their slaves after the Revolution. They were moved by the principles of the Revolution, and Quaker and Methodist preachers worked to encourage slaveholders to free their slaves. Planters often freed slaves by their wills. In the upper South, more than 10 percent of all blacks were free by 1810, a significant expansion from pre-war proportions of less than 1 percent free.

Antebellum years

Cotton became dominant in the lower South after 1800. After the invention of the cotton gin, short staple cotton could be grown more widely. This led to an explosion of cotton cultivation, especially in the frontier uplands of Georgia, Alabama and other parts of the Deep South, as well as riverfront areas of the Mississippi Delta. Migrants poured into those areas in the early decades of the 19th century, when county population figures rose and fell as swells of people kept moving west. The expansion of cotton cultivation required more slave labor, and the institution became even more deeply an integral part of the South's economy.

With the opening up of frontier lands after the government forced most Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi, there was a major migration of both whites and blacks to those territories. From the 1820s through the 1850s, more than one million enslaved African Americans were transported to the Deep South in forced migration, two-thirds of them by slave traders and the others by masters who moved there. Planters in the Upper South sold slaves excess to their needs as they shifted from tobacco to mixed agriculture. Many enslaved families were broken up, as planters preferred mostly strong males for field work.

Two major political issues that festered in the first half of the 19th century caused political alignment along sectional lines, strengthened the identities of North and South as distinct regions with certain strongly opposed interests, and fed the arguments over states' rights that culminated in secession and the Civil War. One of these issues concerned the protective tariffs enacted to assist the growth of the manufacturing sector, primarily in the North. In 1832, in resistance to federal legislation increasing tariffs, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification, a procedure in which a state would in effect repeal a Federal law. Soon a naval flotilla was sent to Charleston harbor, and the threat of landing ground troops was used to compel the collection of tariffs. A compromise was reached by which the tariffs would be gradually reduced, but the underlying argument over states' rights continued to escalate in the following decades.

The second issue concerned slavery, primarily the question of whether slavery would be permitted in newly admitted states. The issue was initially finessed by political compromises designed to balance the number of "free" and "slave" states. The issue resurfaced in more virulent form, however, around the time of the Mexican–American War, which raised the stakes by adding new territories primarily on the Southern side of the imaginary geographic divide. Congress opposed allowing slavery in these territories.

Before the Civil War, the number of immigrants arriving at Southern ports began to increase, although the North continued to receive the most immigrants. Numerous Irish immigrants flooded New Orleans, so much so that one of the sections of the city became known as the Irish Channel. Germans also went to New Orleans and its environs, resulting in a large area north of the city (along the Mississippi) becoming known as the German Coast; however, still greater numbers immigrated to Texas (especially after 1848), where many bought land and were farmers. Many more German immigrants arrived in Texas after the Civil War, where they created the brewing industry in Houston and elsewhere, became grocers in numerous cities, and also established wide areas of farming.

Tennessee was the last state to secede from the union, and it was the first to rejoin after the war.

Civil War

By 1856, the South was losing political power to the more populated North and was locked in a series of constitutional and political battles with the North regarding states' rights and the status of slavery in the territories. President James K. Polk imposed a low-tariff regime on the country (Walker Tariff of 1846), which angered Pennsylvania industrialists, and blocked proposed federal funding of national roads and port improvements. Once the North came to power in 1861, many Southerners felt it was time to secede from the union.

Confederate dead of General Ewell's Corps who attacked the Union lines at the Battle of Spotsylvania, May 19, 1864.

Seven cotton states decided on secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (often known as the pre-Sumter Seven). They formed the Confederate States of America. In early 1861, they were joined by four more states immediately following the firing on Fort Sumter (splinter governments from two more states, Missouri and Kentucky, had governments-in-exile that were represented in Congress.) The United States government refused to recognize the seceding states and operated Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. Unable to claim true independence if a foreign fort dominated its most visible harbor, the Confederacy attacked and captured Ft. Sumter in April 1861. Immediately there was an unstoppable cry for war, North and South; only Kentucky tried to stay out of it.

In the four years of war 1861-65 the South was the primary battleground, with all but two of the major battles taking place on Southern soil. Union forces relentlessly squeezed the new nation, capturing the border states in 1861, the Tennessee River and New Orleans in 1863, and the Mississippi River in 1863. In the East, however, the rebel army under Robert E. Lee held off attack after attack in its defense of the national capital at Richmond. But when Lee tried to move north, he was repulsed (and nearly captured) at Antietam (1862) and Gettysburg (1863).

The Confederacy had the resources for a short war, but was unable to finance or supply a longer war. It reversed the traditional low-tariff policy of the South by imposing a new 15% tax on all imports from the North. The Union blockade stopped most commerce from entering the South, and smugglers avoided the tax, so the Confederate tariff produced too little revenue top finance the war. Inflated currency was the solution, but that created distrust of the Richmond government. Because of low investment in railroads, the Southern transportation system depended primarily on river and coastal traffic by boat; both were shut down by the Union Navy. The small railroad system virtually collapsed, so that by 1864 internal travel was so difficult that the Confederate economy was crippled.

The Confederate cause was hopeless by the time Atlanta fell and William T. Sherman marched through Georgia in 1864, but the rebels fought on, refusing to give up their independence. The South far suffered much more than the North overall, as the Union strategy of attrition warfare meant that Lee could not replace his causalties, and the total war waged by Sherman and many other Union armies devastated the infrastructure and caused widespread poverty and distress. The Confederacy suffered military losses of 95,000 men killed in action and 165,000 who died of disease, for a total of 260,000, out of a total white Southern population at the time of around 5.5 million. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and about 18% in the South. Northern military casualties exceeded Southern casualties in absolute numbers, but were two-thirds smaller in terms of proportion of the population affected.

Reconstruction and Jim Crow

Main articles: Reconstruction era of the United States, Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era (United States), and Voting rights in the United States

After the Civil War the South was devastated in terms of population, infrastructure and economy. Because of states' reluctance to grant voting rights to freedmen, Congress instituted Reconstruction governments. It established military districts and governors to rule over the South until new governments could be established. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy were temporarily disfranchised. Rebuilding was difficult as people grappled with the effects of a new labor economy of a free market in the midst of a widespread agricultural depression. In addition, what limited infrastructure the South had was mostly destroyed by the war. At the same time, the North was rapidly industrializing.

There were thousands of people on the move, as African Americans tried to reunite families separated by slaves sales, and sometimes migrated for better opportunities in towns or other states. Other freedpeople moved from plantation areas to cities or towns for a chance to get different jobs and out from under white control. At the same time, whites returned from refuges to reclaim plantations or town dwellings. In some areas, many whites returned to the land to farm for a while. Some freedpeople left the South altogether for states such as Ohio and Indiana, and later, Kansas. Thousands of others joined the migration to new opportunities in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta bottomlands and Texas.

With 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 African American males), African Americans in the South were made free citizens and were given the right to vote. Under Federal protection, white and black Republicans formed constitutional conventions and state governments. Among their accomplishments was creating the first public education systems in Southern states, and providing for welfare through orphanages, hospitals and similar institutions.

Northerners came south to participate in politics and business. Some were representatives of the Freedmen's Bureau and other agencies of Reconstruction; some were humanitarians with the intent to help black people. Also, as is often the case in volatile environments, some were adventurers who hoped to benefit themselves by questionable methods. They were all condemned with the pejorative term of carpetbagger. Some Southerners also took advantage of the disrupted environment and made money off various schemes, including bonds and financing for railroads.

Secret vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan—an organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy—had arisen quickly after the war's end and used lynching, physical attacks, house burnings and other forms of intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights. Although the Klan was defeated by prosecution by the Federal government in the early 1870s, other groups persisted. By the mid- to late-1870s, elite white Southerners created increasing resistance to the altered social structure. Paramilitary organizations such as the White League in Louisiana (1874), the Red Shirts in Mississippi (1875) and rifle clubs, all "White Line" organizations, used organized violence against Republicans, blacks and whites, to turn Republicans out of office, repress and bar black voting, and restore Democrats to power. In 1876 white Democrats regained power in most of the state legislatures. They began to pass laws designed to strip African Americans and poor whites from the voter registration rolls. The success of late-19th century interracial coalitions in several states inspired a reaction among some white Democrats, who worked harder to prevent both groups from voting.

Despite discrimination, many blacks became property owners in areas that were still developing. For instance, 90% of the Mississippi's bottomlands were still frontier and undeveloped after the war. By the end of the century, two-thirds of the farmers in Mississippi's Delta bottomlands were black. They had cleared the land themselves and often made money in early years by selling off timber. Tens of thousands of migrants went to the Delta, both to work as laborers to clear timber for lumber companies, and many to develop their own farms.

Nearly all Southerners, black and white, suffered as a result of the Civil War. Within a few years cotton production and harvest was back to pre-war levels, but low prices through much of the 19th century hampered recovery. They encouraged immigration by Chinese and Italian laborers into the Mississippi Delta. While the first Chinese entered as indentured laborers from Cuba, the majority came in the early-20th century. Neither group stayed long at rural farm labor. The Chinese became merchants and established stores in small towns throughout the Delta, establishing a place between white and black.

Migrations continued in the late-19th and early 20th-centuries among both blacks and whites. In the last two decades oth the 19th century about 141,000 blacks left the South, and more after 1900, totaling a loss of 537,000. After that the movement increased in what became known as the Great Migration from 1910–1940, and the Second Great Migration through 1970. ven more whites left the South, some going to California for opportunities and others heading to Northern industrial cities after 1900. Between 1880 and 1910, the loss of whites totaled 1,243,000. Five million more left between 1940 and 1970.

From 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments which had provisions for voter registration, such as poll taxes, residency requirements and literacy tests, which were hard for many poor to meet. Most African Americans, Mexican Americans and tens of thousands of poor whites were disfranchised, losing the vote for decades. In some states grandfather clauses were temporarily used to exempt white illiterates from literacy tests. The numbers of voters dropped drastically throughout the South as a result. This can be seen on the feature "Turnout in Presidential and Midterm Elections" at the University of Texas Politics: Barriers to Voting. Alabama, which had established universal white suffrage in 1819 when it became a state, also substantially reduced voting by poor whites. Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to segregate public facilities and services, including transportation.

While African Americans, poor whites and civil rights groups started litigation against such provisions in the early-20th century, for decades Supreme Court decisions overturning such provisions were rapidly followed by new state laws with new devices to restrict voting. Most blacks in the South could not vote until 1965, after passage of the Voting Rights Act and Federal enforcement to ensure people could register. Not until the late 1960s did all American citizens regain protected civil rights by passage of legislation following the leadership of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Late 19th and 20th century—industrialization and Great Migration

Main article: Great Migration (African American)

At the end of the 19th century, white Democrats in the South had created state constitutions that were hostile to industry and business development. Banking was limited, as was access to credit. States persisted in agricultural economies. As in Alabama, rural minorities held control in many state legislatures long after population had shifted to industrializing cities, and the legislators resisted business and modernizing interests. For instance, Alabama refused to redistrict from 1901 to 1972, long after major population and economic shifts to cities. For decades Birmingham generated the majority of revenue for the state, for instance, but received little back in services or infrastructure.

In the late 19th century, Texas rapidly expanded its railroad network, creating a network of cities connected on a radial plan and linked to the port of Galveston. It was the first state in which urban and economic development proceeded independently of rivers, the primary transportation network of the past. A reflection of increasing industry were strikes and labor unrest: "in 1885 Texas ranked ninth among forty states in number of workers involved in strikes (4,000); for the six-year period it ranked fifteenth. Seventy-five of the 100 strikes, chiefly interstate strikes of telegraphers and railway workers, occurred in the year 1886."

In 1890 Dallas was the largest city in Texas. By 1900 it had a population of more than 42,000, which more than doubled to over 92,000 a decade later. Dallas was the harnessmaking capital of the world and center of other manufacturing. As an example of its ambitions, in 1907 Dallas built the Praetorian Building, 15 stories tall and the first skyscraper west of the Mississippi. Others soon followed. Texas was transformed by a railroad network linking five important cities, among them Houston with its nearby port at Galveston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso. Each exceeded 50,000 in population by 1920, with the major cities having three times that population.

Business interests were ignored by the Bourbon class. Nonetheless, major new industries started developing in cities such as Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; and Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, Texas. Growth began occurring at a geometric rate. Birmingham became a major steel producer and mining town, with major population growth in the early decades of the 20th century.

The first major oil well in the South was drilled at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas, on the morning of January 10, 1901. Other oil fields were later discovered nearby in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and under the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting "Oil Boom" permanently transformed the economy of the West/South Central states and led to the most significant economic expansion after the Civil War.

In the early 20th century, invasion of the boll weevil devastated cotton crops in states of the South. This was an additional catalyst to African Americans' decisions to leave the South. From 1910 to 1940, and then from the 1940s to 1970, more than 6.5 million African Americans left the South in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern cities, making multiple acts of resistance against persistent lynching and violence, segregation, poor education, and inability to vote. Their movements transformed many cities, creating new cultures and music in the North. Many African Americans, like other groups, became industrial workers; others started their own businesses within the communities. Southern whites also migrated to industrial cities, especially Chicago and Detroit, where they took jobs in the booming new auto industry.

Later the southern economy was dealt additional blows by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the economy suffered significant reversals and millions were left unemployed. Beginning in 1934 and lasting until 1939, an ecological disaster of severe wind and drought caused an exodus from Texas and Arkansas, the Oklahoma Panhandle region and the surrounding plains, in which over 500,000 Americans were homeless, hungry and jobless. Thousands left the region forever to seek economic opportunities along the West Coast.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt noted the South as the "number one priority" in terms of need of assistance during the Great Depression. His administration created programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 to provide rural electrification and stimulate development. Locked into low productivity agriculture, the region's growth was slowed by limited industrial development, low levels of entrepreneurship, and the lack of capital investment.

World War II marked a time of change in the South as new industries and military bases were developed by the Federal government, providing badly needed capital and infrastructure in many regions. People from all parts of the US came to the South for military training and work in the region's many bases and new industries. Farming shifted from cotton and tobacco to include soybeans, corn, and other foods.

This growth increased in the 1960s and greatly accelerated into the 1980s and 1990s. Large urban areas with over 4 million people rose in Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Rapid expansion in industries such as autos, telecommunications, textiles, technology, banking, and aviation gave some states in the South an industrial strength to rival large states elsewhere in the country. By the 2000 census, The South (along with the West) was leading the nation in population growth. However, with this growth has come long commute times and serious air pollution problems in cities such as Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Austin, Charlotte, and others which have relied on sprawling development and highway networks.

Growth and poverty

The South's early cash crops of tobacco, indigo and rice created enormous wealth for many planters in the coastal areas. While city development was limited, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah and others developed a sophisticated society. The wealthiest planters sent their sons to college in England and later to the best schools in the South, and sometimes the North. They imported furniture and furnishings from Europe, as well as employing the best colonial craftsmen. For many it was a mostly rural society, but by the 19th century, some families moved back and forth between plantations and town houses. The planter class controlled the state legislatures and kept taxes low. Their wealth went mostly for private purposes. They invested in no system of public education and little infrastructure.

In the antebellum years, by 1840 New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the country and the third largest in population, based on the growth of international trade associated with products being shipped to and from the interior of the country down the Mississippi River. It had the largest slave market in the country, as traders brought slaves to New Orleans by ship and overland to sell to planters across the Deep South. The city was a cosmopolitan port with a variety of jobs that attracted more immigrants than did other areas of the South. Because of lack of investment, construction of railroads to span the region lagged behind that in the North. People relied most heavily on river traffic for getting their crops to market and for transportation.

In Mississippi before the war, for instance, most plantations were developed along the Mississippi and other navigable rivers. The bottomlands were not developed until after the war, when the chance to buy land attracted tens of thousands of migrants, both black and white. By the end of the century, two-thirds of farm owners in the Delta bottomlands were black. The long agricultural depression meant that many had to take on too much debt—together with disfranchisement and lack of access to credit, by 1910 many had lost their property and by 1920, most blacks in the Delta were sharecroppers or landless workers. More than two generations of free African Americans had lost their stake in property.

After the Civil War, nearly the entire economic infrastructure of the region was in ruins. As agriculture had been the foundation of the Southern economy, disruption of slavery by the Civil War meant that planters had to learn to deal with free labor, a challenge as freedmen wanted most to take care of their own crops and land. Additionally, since there were few industrial businesses located in the south, there were not many other possible sources of income. Textile mills in the Piedmont of Georgia rebuilt rapidly, but it was not until the 20th century that the region dominated the industry. Some areas rapidly rebuilt—Atlanta, for example—through railroads.

After World War II, with the development of the Interstate Highway System, household air conditioning and later, passage of civil rights bills, the South was successful in attracting industry and business from other parts of the country. Industry from the Rust Belt region of the Northeast and the Great Lakes moved into the region because of lower labor costs and less unionization. Poverty rates and unemployment declined as a result of new job growth. Federal programs such as the Appalachian Regional Commission also contributed to economic growth.

While the Southern United States has advanced considerably since World War II, significant poverty still persists in the more isolated and rural areas. Areas like the Black Belt, the eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia areas in Appalachia, the Mexican border area along the Rio Grande in Texas, and the Deltas of Mississippi and Arkansas suffer the most poverty in the South today.

Economy

In the last two generations, the South has changed dramatically. In recent decades it has seen a boom in its service economy, manufacturing base, high technology industries, and the financial sector. Examples of this include the surge in tourism in Florida and along the Gulf Coast; numerous new automobile production plants such as Mercedes-Benz in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama; the BMW production plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina; the GM manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee; and the Nissan North American headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee; the two largest research parks in the country: Research Triangle Park in North Carolina (the world's largest) and the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama (the world's fourth largest); and the corporate headquarters of major banking corporations Bank of America and Wachovia in Charlotte; Regions Financial Corporation, AmSouth Bancorporation, and BBVA Compass in Birmingham; SunTrust Banks and the district headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and BB&T in Winston-Salem; and several Atlanta-based corporate headquarters and cable television networks, such as CNN, TBS, TNT, Turner South, Cartoon Network, and The Weather Channel. This economic expansion has enabled parts of the South to boast of some of the lowest unemployment rates in the United States.

Culture

Main article: Culture of the Southern United States

The predominant culture of the South has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists in the 17th century, large groups of Scots and Ulster-Scots (later called the Scotch-Irish) who settled in Appalachia and the Piedmont in the 18th century, and the many African slaves who were part of the Southern economy. African-American descendants of the slaves brought into the South comprise the United States' second-largest racial minority, accounting for 12.1 percent of the total population according to the 2000 census. Despite Jim Crow era outflow to the North (see Great Migration (African American)) the majority of the black population remains concentrated in the southern states, and have heavily contributed to the cultural blend (the charismatic brand of Christianity, foods, art, music [see "Spiritual (music)", blues, jazz and rock and roll]) that characterize Southern culture today.

Politics

Main article: Politics of the Southern United States

In the first decades after Reconstruction, when white Democrats regained power in the state legislatures, they began to make voter registration more complicated, to reduce black voting. With a combination of intimidation, fraud and violence by paramilitary groups, they turned Republicans out of office and suppressed black voting. From 1890 to 1908, ten of eleven states ratified new constitutions or amendments that effectively disfranchised most black voters and many poor white voters. This disfranchisement persisted for six decades into the 20th century, depriving blacks and poor whites of all political representation. Because they could not vote, they could not sit on juries. They had no one to represent their interests, resulting in state legislatures consistently underfunding programs and services, such as schools, for blacks and poor whites.

As the Supreme Court began to find such disfranchisement provisions unconstitutional, southern legislatures quickly passed other measures to keep blacks disfranchised, even after suffrage was extended more widely to poor whites. Because white Democrats controlled all the seats apportioned to their states, they had outsize power in Congress and filibustered or defeated efforts by others to pass legislation against lynching, for example. The region became known as the Solid South. The Republicans controlled parts of the Appalachian Mountains and competed for power in the Border States. From the late 1870s to the 1960s, it was rare for a state or national Southern politician to be Republican.

Increasing support for civil rights legislation by the national Democratic Party beginning in the 1940s caused conservative Southern Democrats to take notice. Until the passage of the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s, conservative Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats") argued that only they could defend the region from the onslaught of northern liberals and the civil rights movement. In response to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954, southern legislators developed the Southern Manifesto. It was issued in March 1956, by 101 southern congressmen (19 senators, 82 House members of which 99 were Southern Democrats and 2 were Republicans). It denounced the Brown decisions as a "clear abuse of judicial power [that] climaxes a trend in the federal judiciary undertaking to legislate in derogation of the authority of Congress and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the states and the people." The manifesto lauded "those states which have declared the intention to resist enforced integration by any lawful means." It was signed by all southern senators except Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, and Tennessee senators Albert Gore, Sr. and Estes Kefauver. Virginia closed schools in Warren County, Prince Edward County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk rather than integrate, but no other state followed suit. Democratic governors Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Ross Barnett of Mississippi, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, especially, George Wallace of Alabama resisted integration and appealed to a blue-collar electorate.

The Democratic Party's national support of civil rights issues culminated when Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some Republicans began to develop their Southern strategy to attract conservative white Southerners. Southern Democrats took notice that 1964 Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act. In the presidential election of 1964, Goldwater's only electoral victories outside his home state of Arizona were in the states of the Deep South.

The transition to a Republican stronghold in the South took decades. First, the states started voting Republican in presidential elections, except for favorite sons Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.Then the states began electing Republican senators and finally governors. Georgia was the last state to do so, with Sonny Perdue taking the governorship in 2002. In addition to the middle class and business base, Republicans cultivated the religious right and attracted strong majorities from the evangelical Christian vote, which had not been a distinct political demographic prior to 1980.

The region's resistance to giving African Americans basic citizens' rights of voting and integration in public places broke out in renewed violence and murders during the 1960s, and major resistance to desegregation extending into the 1970s.

The political realignment of conservatives aligning with the Republicans has created partisan reasons for challenging voter registration and elections. African Americans in the South mostly have strongly supported Democratic Party candidates, since this is the party that helped secure their active citizenship.

Presidential history

The South has produced the first winning presidential candidates for all but two major political parties in the history of the United States. The following is a list of presidents who represent their party's first candidate to reach the country's highest office:

• Democratic-Republicans: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, in 1800.
• Democrats: Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, in 1828.
• Whigs: William Henry Harrison, of Virginia, in 1840.

The exceptions are the Federalist Party which claimed its first (and only) presidential victory with John Adams of Massachusetts in 1796, and the Republican Party whose first victory was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

(Note: The first President, George Washington, of Virginia, was unaffiliated with any political party.)

Additionally, the South produced most of the U.S. Presidents prior to the Civil War. Memories of the war made it impossible for a Southerner to become President unless he either moved North (like Woodrow Wilson) or was a vice president who moved up (like Lyndon B. Johnson). In 1976, Jimmy Carter defied this trend and became the first Southerner to break the pattern since Zachary Taylor in 1848.

Two recent American Presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were residents of southern states when elected president. Clinton was Governor of Arkansas when elected. Clinton moved to New York City following the end of his administration (1993-2001). George W. Bush was Governor of Texas when elected.

George H. W. Bush was once a resident of Texas and as represented a portion of Texas in the United States House of Representatives. He is a native of Massachusetts, but moved to the Permian Basin of West Texas after World War II. However, George H.W. Bush was a resident of Maine, since the 1970s, when elected American President in 1988, throughout his administration, 1989-93, and since. His state of origin as American President was his state of residence when elected: Officially Maine.

Other politicians and political movements

The South has produced numerous other well-known politicians and political movements.

In 1948, a group of Democratic congressmen, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, split from the Democrats in reaction to an anti-segregation speech given by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. They founded the States Rights Democratic or Dixiecrat Party. During that year's Presidential election, the party ran Thurmond as its candidate, but he was unsuccessful.

In the 1968 Presidential election, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace ran for President on the American Independent Party ticket. Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to that of Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. Nixon's Southern Strategy of gaining electoral votes downplayed race issues and focused on culturally conservative values, such as family issues, patriotism, and cultural issues that appealed to Southern Baptists.

In 1994, another Southern politician, Newt Gingrich, ushered in 12 years of GOP control of the House. Gingrich became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1995, but was forced to resign. Tom DeLay was the most powerful Republican leader in Congress until he was indicted under criminal charges in 2005. Most recent Republican Senate leaders are from the South, including Howard Baker of Tennessee, Trent Lott of Mississippi, Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Race relations

Main article: Racism in the United States

Native Americans

Native Americans, had lived in the south for nearly 12,000 years. They were defeated by settlers in a series of wars ending in the War of 1812 and the Seminole War, and most were removed west to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

Civil rights

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, blacks left the racism and lack of opportunities in the South and settled in northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, where they found work in factories and other sectors of the economy. (Katzman, 1996) However, Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the north. 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 Civil Rights Movement. While the movement existed in all parts of the United States, its focus was against disfranchisement and 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 assassination 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". Most of the civil rights landmarks can be found around the South. The Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site in Atlanta includes a museum that chronicles the American Civil Rights Movement as well as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s boyhood home on Auburn Avenue. Additionally, Ebenezer Baptist Church is located in the Sweet Auburn district as is the King Center, location of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King's gravesites.

As a result of the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow laws across the South were dropped. A second migration appears to be underway, with African Americans from the North moving to the South in record numbers. While race relations are still a contentious issue in the South, the region surpasses the rest of the country in many areas of integration and racial equality. According to 2003 report by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Virginia Beach, Charlotte, Nashville-Davidson, and Jacksonville were the four most integrated of the nation's fifty largest cities, with Memphis at number six. Southern states tend to have a low disparity in incarceration rates between blacks and whites relative to the rest of the country.

Symbolism

The "Confederate Flag", This pattern is the one most often thought of as the "Confederate Flag" today. However, it was actually the Battle Flag of the Army of Tennessee, and as the Confederate Naval Jack.

The battle flag and naval jack of the Confederacy has become a highly controversial image throughout the United States because of its use as a symbol of defiance by many in the South who opposed the Civil Rights Movement. Although it and other reminders of the Old South can be found on automobile bumper stickers, on tee shirts, and flown from homes, restrictions (notably on public buildings) have been imposed. As a result, groups such as the League of the South continue to promote secession from the United States, citing a desire to protect and defend the heritage of the South. On the other side of this issue are groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which believe that the League of the South is a hate group. However, many Southerners use the flag to identify themselves with the South, states' rights and Southern tradition.

Other symbols of the Antebellum South include the Bonnie Blue Flag, magnolia trees, and the song "Dixie".

Largest cities

Rank	City	State(s) and/or Territory	July 1, 2008 Population Estimate
1	Houston	Texas	2,242,193
2	San Antonio	Texas	1,351,305
3	Dallas	Texas	1,279,910
4	Jacksonville	Florida	807,815
5	Austin	Texas	757,688
6	Fort Worth	Texas	703,073
7	Charlotte	North Carolina	687,456
8	Memphis	Tennessee	671,588
9	El Paso	Texas	613,190
10	Nashville*	Tennessee	596,462

*Counts only the balance of the city.

Major metropolitan areas

Rank	Metropolitan Statistical Area	State(s) and/or Territory	July 1, 2008 Population Estimate
1	Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington	TX	6,300,006
2	Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown	TX	5,728,143
3	Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach	FL	5,414,772
4	Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Marietta	GA	5,376,285
5	Washington–Arlington–Alexandria	DC–VA–MD–WV	5,358,130
6	Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater	FL	2,733,761
7	Baltimore–Towson	MD	2,667,117
8	Orlando-Kissimmee	FL	2,054,574
9	San Antonio	TX	2,031,445
10	Charlotte–Gastonia–Concord	NC–SC	1,701,799
11	Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News	VA–NC	1,658,292
12	Austin–Round Rock	TX	1,652,602
13	Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin	TN	1,550,733
14	Jacksonville	FL	1,313,228
15	Memphis	TN–MS–AR	1,285,732
16	Louisville–Jefferson County	KY–IN	1,244,696
17	Richmond	VA	1,225,626
18	Oklahoma City	OK	1,206,142
19	New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner	LA	1,134,029
20	Birmingham–Hoover	AL	1,117,608
21	Raleigh–Cary	NC	1,088,765
22	Tulsa	OK	916,079
23	Baton Rouge	LA	774,327
24	El Paso	TX	742,062
25	Columbia	SC	728,063

See also

Bible Belt Black Belt (U.S. region) Confederate States of America Cuisine of the Southern United States Deep South Dixie

New South Old South Southern American English Southern art Southern hospitality Southern literature

References

• Cash, Wilbur J. The Mind of the South (1941),
• Richard N. Current; et al. (1987). American History: A Survey 7th ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-31549-9. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
• Flynt, J. Wayne Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites (1979). deals with 20th century.
• David M. Katzman. "Black Migration". The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Company.
• James Grossman (1996). "Chicago and the 'Great Migration'". Illinois History Teacher. 3 (2).
• Grady McWhiney. In Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South (1988)
• Mary Odem "Global Lives, Local Struggles: Latin American Immigrants in Atlanta'" Southern Spaces 2006
• John O. Allen and Clayton E. Jewett (2004). Slavery in the South: A State-by-State History. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32019-5.
• Rayford Logan (1997). The Betrayal of the Negro from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80758-0.
• William B. Hesseltine (1936). A History of the South, 1607-1936. Prentice-Hall.
• George Sanchez "Latinos, the American South, and the Future of U.S. Race Relations" Southern Spaces 2007
• Robert W. Twyman. and David C. Roller, ed., ed. (1979). Encyclopedia of Southern History. LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-0575-9. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
• Winders, Jamie. "Latino Migration and Nashville, Tennessee," Southern Spaces 2004.
• Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, ed., ed. (1989). Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1823-2. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

Further reading

• Edward L. Ayers (1993). The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508548-5.
• Monroe Lee Billington (1975). The Political South in the 20th Century. Scribner. ISBN 0-684-13983-9.
• Earl Black and Merle Black (2002). The Rise of Southern Republicans. Belknap press. ISBN 0-674-01248-8.
• W. J. Cash (1935). The Mind of the South. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-73647-6.
• Pete Daniel (2000). Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4848-4.
• Edwards, Laura F. “Southern History as U.S. History,” Journal of Southern History, 75 (Aug. 2009), 533–64.
• Michael Kreyling (1998). Inventing Southern Literature. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-045-1.
• Heather A. Haveman (2004). "Antebellum literary culture and the evolution of American magazines" (—^{Scholar search}). Poetics. 32: 5–28. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2003.12.002. {{cite journal}}: External link in |format= (help); Unknown parameter |doi_brokendate= ignored (|doi-broken-date= suggested) (help)
• Eugene D. Genovese (1976). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-394-71652-3.
• Morris, Christopher, “A More Southern Environmental History”, Journal of Southern History, 75 (Aug. 2009), 581–98.
• Howard N. Rabinowitz (1976). "From Exclusion to Segregation: Southern Race Relations, 1865–1890". Journal of American History. 43: 325–50. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Nicol C. Rae (1994). Southern Democrats. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508709-7.
• Jeffrey A. Raffel (1998). Historical Dictionary of School Segregation and Desegregation: The American Experience. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29502-6.
• * Virts, Nancy, “Change in the Plantation System: American South, 1910–1945,” Explorations in Economic History, 43 (Jan. 2006), 153–76.
• C. Vann Woodward (1955). The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514690-5.
• Gavin Wright (1996). Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. LSU Press. ISBN 0-8071-2098-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |yeare= ignored (help)

External links

• DocSouth: Documenting the American South—numerous online text, image, and audio collections
• Center for the Study of the American South—an academic center devoted to the study of southern history, literature, and culture as well as ongoing social, political, and economic issues