Transcripts For CSPAN3 Author 20240706 : comparemela.com

Books from the exhibit by parnassus books, where a portion of the proceeds go to benefit the festival directly. Just a bit of an introduction for each of our and then a little explanation as to what were doing. Charles Reagan Wilson is the southern way of life, meaning and culture and civilization in American South is substantial volume. The traces of the south, the colonial period to the start, the 21st century, certainly in the making for decades, wilsons book examines the regional consciousness of the south through. Three concepts southern civilization nation the southern way of life and Southern Living each is thoroughly historic sized its cultural moment. Southern civilization runs from the colonial period to world war one, the southern way of runs from the 1920s to 1960s, and Southern Living runs from the 1970s to the 21st century. A unifying theme through his book is the study of race and, religion and their continuing and changing role in the various imaginary and constructed of the southern way of life his work as professor of history and southern studies, the university of mississippi on encyclopedia of southern culture is well known, and his current book, well received by the scholarly community, will benefit a variety of readers. Those interested in the nashville area, in particular will find his comments on the at vanderbilt insightful and i wanted to read two sentences that of talk about this phrase a southern white the concept of a southern clothed in political and rhetoric and the passion of ethnicity came to have a life of its own in the 19th and 20th century south. It far more than an idea. It came to be virtually synonymous with the civil religion. The the regions Cultural Values to intense evangelical religious faith and produced a structure of institutions, rituals, myths, beliefs, ideology and identities which encouraged white southerners to invest in meaning in the southern, unquote. Dr. Fitzhugh brundage is the william distinguished professor history at the university of north at chapel hill. Hes the author of several books, as well as the editor of a new history of the American South, both books by the university of North Carolina press, a book with an introduction and 15 chapters by diverse scholars both inside and outside the south. It provides a historical that examines the experiences of all people in the south. Most intriguing to this reader was a chapter that begins southern history before six. The on various historical and anthropological models. Brundage writes quote our focus on this volume, in other words, is not on identifying a litany of characteristics that can be assigned to the south, but rather on exploring the clustered interactions between people and institutions that gave historical salience to concept of the south. These interactions took place within local communities between neighbor and more distinct communities and across country, state and national boundaries. Me, county, state and national boundaries. Further, brundage notes that the interact and interactive behavior considers, quote, the pursuit power in all its manifestations over family, land, Civic Affairs thought collective memory, quote the book covers the period before the American Revolution, the long century and the 20th century. In our session, each author will speak about his book for roughly 15 minutes. With the last 15 for questions and answers from and the audience and when you have questions, if you will go to the microphone. So you can be recorded and be for the cspan audience. Thank you. We should have a twinkle, twinkle one car. Since this is who would like to go first . Charles, you go first. Okay. All right. Well, im very pleased to be here and nashville is my hometown, so its good to be returning. I should also mention that being in nashville, the term, southern way of life was first used extensively. By 12 writers at vanderbilt university, all the vanderbilt agrarian. So they a book in 1930 called ill take my stand, in which they argued that the southern way of life was was about agrarian ism. That was the souths tradition. And they felt besieged because they felt the south was changing with coming in industrialization, commercialism and so and what they called the american way of life. So 90 years or so later, i write book about the of that term and concept of southern way of life. Now. As you heard, i argue that the that the southern consciousness, the southern identity and i know not only what southerners thought about the south, but about what non southerners about the south that. All of that went through three periods over, beginning with the colonial period up to the 21st century when the people who came, the first concept was so southern civilization. When people came at that point in the colonial period from western europe, in western africa, they came the europeans came with ideas of civilization. Europeans coming out of the enlightenment at that moment. And so they tried to adapt those ideas of civilization to a slave society. They had become an agrarian indeed an Agrarian Society with slavery, a key component. So they tried to meld civilization with slavery, with the slave society. So that effort put them in conflict with the north and they themselves, in terms of the southern identity in the antebellum period, partly in terms of differences from the north, but they also defined their southern identity internally because they prepared and dominated native americans, the indigenous people, white southerners became southerners by excluding the native americans, and they also became white southerners by their dominance of africanamericans under the institution of slavery. Now that southern civilization came in conflict, conflict with civilization that the American Civilization that dates to the American Revolution of ideals, freedom and independence, the declaration of independence its all of this. So culminated in the civil war which was a loss for southern civilization. But they southerners white southerners reimagined that civilization the late 19th century around. Their belief that racial dominance was the essence of the southern way of the southern civilized nation. And so they enacted that into into this into segregation laws creating a kind of apartheid like society of political disenfranchisement violence all of that became the essence of this southern civilization but with other aspects as well. You know, the southern civilization even in the early century, included things like, religion as well. Evangelical. Well, that idea of a southern civilization, the first concept that helped birth the idea of a distinctive southern identity that went into decline after world war one idea of civilization in general went into decline the concept after world war one because of the horrors of world one. Could europeans really be civilized given what happened in world war one . So you have a decline in the of that term in the south. What took place was the second concept, the southern way of life. Now, as i said, vanderbilt aquarians were the first ones to use that term in an extensive way, and they defined it as agrarian ism. But other people defined, the southern way of life is as a hospitable, as a leisurely society. When business grew. A businessman started talking about are the basis of the southern way of life. Well, if you study the writings, the speeches, the rhetoric of labor, union organizers, they want to relate their activities to the south as well. Theyre good southerners. Theyre good southerners. But that idea the vanderbilt agrarian introduced the idea of the southern way of life, made it embedded in the intellectual discussion of the south. That continued really until the 1950s. If you had to a date when. This conceptual change happened, it was brown versus board of education. The case that the Supreme Court declared schools should be segregated. That touched off a furious among white southerners of massive, massive resistance. The White Citizens Council that was birthed in indianola, mississippi, in the delta. It began producing right after brown decision huge amount of material, talking about the precious southern way of life, the sacred southern way of life. You have to defend this to the death so that the up the ante in the discussion of this term southern river. So when i grew up in the fifties and sixties thats it meant to me southern way of life. I thought about sports. I wasnt thinking about it at that point. But if i had, it would have meant the segregated. So the Civil Rights Movement represented critique of that and the book deals with africanamerican critiques of all of these versions of the southern of life. I deal with intellectuals like w. E. B. Dubois, with booker t washington, with richard wright, with zora neale hurston, some of my favorite characters in southern history and southern literature, and the critique that they made of this whole southern way of life racially subversion. So the Civil Rights Movement is a very important chapter where it really brings to a head and leads to the end of the segregation laws and and. Voting rights coming. So the use of the term southern way of life drastically declines after that, after the mid sixties. So at one point when i was working on this book over endless, i thought, well, maybe thats the end of the story. But then i got poking around how, can Something Like that just vanish . And so what i, what i discovered, and this is going to the library and just looking at the shelves of magazines and books. And so i came Southern Living magazine the bound copies and you know how it dates from 1966 first issue the year after the Voting Rights act you can see that years shifting in the south if they actually that way but so suddenly the magazine the third concept the third concept about the south and that is Southern Living. So my argument is that this belief in the southern Southern Regional consciousness by the late 1960s it was beginning to move to the suburbs and it was becoming middle class and it was becoming more prosperous. No longer did you have in the popular literature about the south so much about people in in overalls and with mules, you find people like in Southern Living magazine who were sitting around their patio was, you know, cooking hamburgers and in some ways becoming very much more americanized. But its still Southern Living magazines, not american living, its southern and so embedded in that Southern Living magazine, its the magazine is constantly telling how you are a southerner. Southerners always liked to eat pimento cheese. Heres how southerners make biscuits. So its reinforcing that idea that there is a southern identity. Now theyre backing away from race. Race is no longer a part of this. In fact, early on there is its its kind of a whites only magazine. But by the 21st century, its its its changed and its become very much a biracial, multiracial society, a magazine so thats thats my and im running out of time. Let me just say one more thing, and that is about the multi cultural south. Thats the 21st century south and that new to the project it was originally i was not going to have that chapter, but i got thinking about it and reading more about the the popular literature and other that come out of the south. Now i realized that this is a new stage and. I called it the multicultural south and what it reflects is the diversity of the south. Now, the south has always had diversity. If you look at it. I mean, theres is this belief that used to be that the deep the concept of desire was a timeless, unchanging kind of monolithic thing. Well in fact, it was never that it was never that there was always contestation and conflict and change and but now its even more so in the 21st century. I ask my friend, the esteemed sociology shawn shelton, read about ten years ago what he thought was to talk about the future of the south. And he said almost ideal. And theres this blending of cultures, i think. And one of my favorite books to talk about this is sandra gutierrezs cookbook, the southern latino table. And she she talks about she grew up in hes born in North Carolina to parents americ american and guatemala and parents. She lived in guatemala a child. But back in North Carolina and she talks about know this blending of foodways and that she discovered the southern bell in her soul as a latina. So shes a Southern Belle latina so thats the new the new south. I think that which is where headed now. You know, theres a lot of pushback in that politically. We know the age we live in is a very frazzled, fragmented stage. And a lot of that is which pushback from this recognition of diversity. But i think this is this is the reality of Southern Society politics is lagging behind Southern Society has changed you know and so to me thats one of the most energizing chapters two to think about whats in the 21st century in that long history, going back to the colonial period i think you thank. Well, first id like to thank you all for being on a truly gorgeous afternoon. And its a to something your love of books that youre here not out there but i appreciate i like to think that the volume that i edited and contributed to comp supplements what charles done in his magnificent book its a different book not only in the fact it has multiple authors but it has different ambitions, if you will. And thought id take a little bit of time here, explain the ambitions and then the perspective, if you will. The ambition of the book was to try to synthesize in as cohesive a narrative as possible, as much of what what we the creators of the volume, think are the most interesting insights weve learned about the south over, the southern history over the last, say, 30 or 40 years and to give you a flavor of just i can speak to this in very personal terms. When i went away to graduate school and its not that long ago, but on the other hand, it is long ago, but in any case, when i went away to graduate school, the number of books on my so called comprehensive list, the delta with southern women was extremely thin. There were really a handful of books published in the 1970s that were classic works that you read since then you you could do and you could do an entire comprehensive exam on the history of southern women, the history of native american women, the history of black, the history of various categories groups of women across time. So theres been an explosion of scholarship on women and gender in the south, some of it the very finest work thats been published in the last 40 years. The scholars ship on africanamericans in the south is likewise exploded and one of the most lively areas of study in american history, and not just southern history, the study of the long civil rights struggle, the long struggle for, racial equality in the 20th and across the 20th century and extend it back even further, of course, weve had an explosion of scholarship. Native americans in the American South. Again, when i was in graduate school, i actually went to graduate school to do colonial. Almost all of colonial history i read was related to new england, although when i was in graduate school there was the expansion scholarship on the chesapeake region. That was the hot new stuff in the last 25 years. Id say much of the hottest new scholarship on on the colonial era is on the deep, what we would call the deep south now and on areas of the south that were barely by quote unquote, european until the late, maybe even the early 19th century. And so i could go on and on about the areas which theres just been an explosion of. And so our goal, our hope was to try to pull that and write a narrative as seamless a narrative as with 15 authors, and to try to identify some overarching organizing themes in the history of the region. And some of those themes with with threads that charles has identified. But in other ways, its different work because our goal to write a history of the region as opposed to the history of the identity of the people who live in the region. Se i and one of the challenges, of course, we faced and we were talking this a little beforehand is lets run into the challenge of what is the south, where are the boundaries of the south. I just have to tell you about, a recent conversation im trying to remember actually where this was i trying to remember where i was. I right now i remember where i was in any case, i was at a some sort of a public event and. There was a lady in the audience asked me about, you know, with North Carolina in the south, and that was a new one for me. I had never asked whether North Carolina was part of the before, but then i realized was a northerner who most familiar with charlotte and the Research Triangle in North Carolina. And if thats what you know of North Carolina, you could very easily think you were in the middle atlantic or anywhere else. But i tried to tell her, you know, if you go to greenville north, carolina or fayetteville, North Carolina, where you go most anywhere west asheville, youll be in a place you might recognize as what you your preconceptions of the south may be met. But that gets me to to the point about we were talking about was delaware of the south and one of the larger challenges but also organizing concepts of our book is that south always stands in relation to somewhere else. Its its not as though there is because there is no obvious geographical boundary to the of the south or the west of the south. Itd be one thing if somehow in the imagination the south stopped at the mississippi river, that would be very. But it doesnt there are plenty of people argue that oklahoma really deserves in the discussion of the south and maybe missouri. And what do you do with Reagan Wilson<\/a> is the southern way of life, meaning and culture and civilization in American South<\/a> is substantial volume. The traces of the south, the colonial period to the start, the 21st century, certainly in the making for decades, wilsons book examines the regional consciousness of the south through. Three concepts southern civilization nation the southern way of life and Southern Living<\/a> each is thoroughly historic sized its cultural moment. Southern civilization runs from the colonial period to world war one, the southern way of runs from the 1920s to 1960s, and Southern Living<\/a> runs from the 1970s to the 21st century. A unifying theme through his book is the study of race and, religion and their continuing and changing role in the various imaginary and constructed of the southern way of life his work as professor of history and southern studies, the university of mississippi on encyclopedia of southern culture is well known, and his current book, well received by the scholarly community, will benefit a variety of readers. Those interested in the nashville area, in particular will find his comments on the at vanderbilt insightful and i wanted to read two sentences that of talk about this phrase a southern white the concept of a southern clothed in political and rhetoric and the passion of ethnicity came to have a life of its own in the 19th and 20th century south. It far more than an idea. It came to be virtually synonymous with the civil religion. The the regions Cultural Values<\/a> to intense evangelical religious faith and produced a structure of institutions, rituals, myths, beliefs, ideology and identities which encouraged white southerners to invest in meaning in the southern, unquote. Dr. Fitzhugh brundage is the william distinguished professor history at the university of north at chapel hill. Hes the author of several books, as well as the editor of a new history of the American South<\/a>, both books by the university of North Carolina<\/a> press, a book with an introduction and 15 chapters by diverse scholars both inside and outside the south. It provides a historical that examines the experiences of all people in the south. Most intriguing to this reader was a chapter that begins southern history before six. The on various historical and anthropological models. Brundage writes quote our focus on this volume, in other words, is not on identifying a litany of characteristics that can be assigned to the south, but rather on exploring the clustered interactions between people and institutions that gave historical salience to concept of the south. These interactions took place within local communities between neighbor and more distinct communities and across country, state and national boundaries. Me, county, state and national boundaries. Further, brundage notes that the interact and interactive behavior considers, quote, the pursuit power in all its manifestations over family, land, Civic Affairs<\/a> thought collective memory, quote the book covers the period before the American Revolution<\/a>, the long century and the 20th century. In our session, each author will speak about his book for roughly 15 minutes. With the last 15 for questions and answers from and the audience and when you have questions, if you will go to the microphone. So you can be recorded and be for the cspan audience. Thank you. We should have a twinkle, twinkle one car. Since this is who would like to go first . Charles, you go first. Okay. All right. Well, im very pleased to be here and nashville is my hometown, so its good to be returning. I should also mention that being in nashville, the term, southern way of life was first used extensively. By 12 writers at vanderbilt university, all the vanderbilt agrarian. So they a book in 1930 called ill take my stand, in which they argued that the southern way of life was was about agrarian ism. That was the souths tradition. And they felt besieged because they felt the south was changing with coming in industrialization, commercialism and so and what they called the american way of life. So 90 years or so later, i write book about the of that term and concept of southern way of life. Now. As you heard, i argue that the that the southern consciousness, the southern identity and i know not only what southerners thought about the south, but about what non southerners about the south that. All of that went through three periods over, beginning with the colonial period up to the 21st century when the people who came, the first concept was so southern civilization. When people came at that point in the colonial period from western europe, in western africa, they came the europeans came with ideas of civilization. Europeans coming out of the enlightenment at that moment. And so they tried to adapt those ideas of civilization to a slave society. They had become an agrarian indeed an Agrarian Society<\/a> with slavery, a key component. So they tried to meld civilization with slavery, with the slave society. So that effort put them in conflict with the north and they themselves, in terms of the southern identity in the antebellum period, partly in terms of differences from the north, but they also defined their southern identity internally because they prepared and dominated native americans, the indigenous people, white southerners became southerners by excluding the native americans, and they also became white southerners by their dominance of africanamericans under the institution of slavery. Now that southern civilization came in conflict, conflict with civilization that the American Civilization<\/a> that dates to the American Revolution<\/a> of ideals, freedom and independence, the declaration of independence its all of this. So culminated in the civil war which was a loss for southern civilization. But they southerners white southerners reimagined that civilization the late 19th century around. Their belief that racial dominance was the essence of the southern way of the southern civilized nation. And so they enacted that into into this into segregation laws creating a kind of apartheid like society of political disenfranchisement violence all of that became the essence of this southern civilization but with other aspects as well. You know, the southern civilization even in the early century, included things like, religion as well. Evangelical. Well, that idea of a southern civilization, the first concept that helped birth the idea of a distinctive southern identity that went into decline after world war one idea of civilization in general went into decline the concept after world war one because of the horrors of world one. Could europeans really be civilized given what happened in world war one . So you have a decline in the of that term in the south. What took place was the second concept, the southern way of life. Now, as i said, vanderbilt aquarians were the first ones to use that term in an extensive way, and they defined it as agrarian ism. But other people defined, the southern way of life is as a hospitable, as a leisurely society. When business grew. A businessman started talking about are the basis of the southern way of life. Well, if you study the writings, the speeches, the rhetoric of labor, union organizers, they want to relate their activities to the south as well. Theyre good southerners. Theyre good southerners. But that idea the vanderbilt agrarian introduced the idea of the southern way of life, made it embedded in the intellectual discussion of the south. That continued really until the 1950s. If you had to a date when. This conceptual change happened, it was brown versus board of education. The case that the Supreme Court<\/a> declared schools should be segregated. That touched off a furious among white southerners of massive, massive resistance. The White Citizens Council<\/a> that was birthed in indianola, mississippi, in the delta. It began producing right after brown decision huge amount of material, talking about the precious southern way of life, the sacred southern way of life. You have to defend this to the death so that the up the ante in the discussion of this term southern river. So when i grew up in the fifties and sixties thats it meant to me southern way of life. I thought about sports. I wasnt thinking about it at that point. But if i had, it would have meant the segregated. So the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> represented critique of that and the book deals with africanamerican critiques of all of these versions of the southern of life. I deal with intellectuals like w. E. B. Dubois, with booker t washington, with richard wright, with zora neale hurston, some of my favorite characters in southern history and southern literature, and the critique that they made of this whole southern way of life racially subversion. So the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> is a very important chapter where it really brings to a head and leads to the end of the segregation laws and and. Voting rights coming. So the use of the term southern way of life drastically declines after that, after the mid sixties. So at one point when i was working on this book over endless, i thought, well, maybe thats the end of the story. But then i got poking around how, can Something Like<\/a> that just vanish . And so what i, what i discovered, and this is going to the library and just looking at the shelves of magazines and books. And so i came Southern Living<\/a> magazine the bound copies and you know how it dates from 1966 first issue the year after the Voting Rights<\/a> act you can see that years shifting in the south if they actually that way but so suddenly the magazine the third concept the third concept about the south and that is Southern Living<\/a>. So my argument is that this belief in the southern Southern Regional<\/a> consciousness by the late 1960s it was beginning to move to the suburbs and it was becoming middle class and it was becoming more prosperous. No longer did you have in the popular literature about the south so much about people in in overalls and with mules, you find people like in Southern Living<\/a> magazine who were sitting around their patio was, you know, cooking hamburgers and in some ways becoming very much more americanized. But its still Southern Living<\/a> magazines, not american living, its southern and so embedded in that Southern Living<\/a> magazine, its the magazine is constantly telling how you are a southerner. Southerners always liked to eat pimento cheese. Heres how southerners make biscuits. So its reinforcing that idea that there is a southern identity. Now theyre backing away from race. Race is no longer a part of this. In fact, early on there is its its kind of a whites only magazine. But by the 21st century, its its its changed and its become very much a biracial, multiracial society, a magazine so thats thats my and im running out of time. Let me just say one more thing, and that is about the multi cultural south. Thats the 21st century south and that new to the project it was originally i was not going to have that chapter, but i got thinking about it and reading more about the the popular literature and other that come out of the south. Now i realized that this is a new stage and. I called it the multicultural south and what it reflects is the diversity of the south. Now, the south has always had diversity. If you look at it. I mean, theres is this belief that used to be that the deep the concept of desire was a timeless, unchanging kind of monolithic thing. Well in fact, it was never that it was never that there was always contestation and conflict and change and but now its even more so in the 21st century. I ask my friend, the esteemed sociology shawn shelton, read about ten years ago what he thought was to talk about the future of the south. And he said almost ideal. And theres this blending of cultures, i think. And one of my favorite books to talk about this is sandra gutierrezs cookbook, the southern latino table. And she she talks about she grew up in hes born in North Carolina<\/a> to parents americ american and guatemala and parents. She lived in guatemala a child. But back in North Carolina<\/a> and she talks about know this blending of foodways and that she discovered the southern bell in her soul as a latina. So shes a Southern Belle<\/a> latina so thats the new the new south. I think that which is where headed now. You know, theres a lot of pushback in that politically. We know the age we live in is a very frazzled, fragmented stage. And a lot of that is which pushback from this recognition of diversity. But i think this is this is the reality of Southern Society<\/a> politics is lagging behind Southern Society<\/a> has changed you know and so to me thats one of the most energizing chapters two to think about whats in the 21st century in that long history, going back to the colonial period i think you thank. Well, first id like to thank you all for being on a truly gorgeous afternoon. And its a to something your love of books that youre here not out there but i appreciate i like to think that the volume that i edited and contributed to comp supplements what charles done in his magnificent book its a different book not only in the fact it has multiple authors but it has different ambitions, if you will. And thought id take a little bit of time here, explain the ambitions and then the perspective, if you will. The ambition of the book was to try to synthesize in as cohesive a narrative as possible, as much of what what we the creators of the volume, think are the most interesting insights weve learned about the south over, the southern history over the last, say, 30 or 40 years and to give you a flavor of just i can speak to this in very personal terms. When i went away to graduate school and its not that long ago, but on the other hand, it is long ago, but in any case, when i went away to graduate school, the number of books on my so called comprehensive list, the delta with southern women was extremely thin. There were really a handful of books published in the 1970s that were classic works that you read since then you you could do and you could do an entire comprehensive exam on the history of southern women, the history of native american women, the history of black, the history of various categories groups of women across time. So theres been an explosion of scholarship on women and gender in the south, some of it the very finest work thats been published in the last 40 years. The scholars ship on africanamericans in the south is likewise exploded and one of the most lively areas of study in american history, and not just southern history, the study of the long civil rights struggle, the long struggle for, racial equality in the 20th and across the 20th century and extend it back even further, of course, weve had an explosion of scholarship. Native americans in the American South<\/a>. Again, when i was in graduate school, i actually went to graduate school to do colonial. Almost all of colonial history i read was related to new england, although when i was in graduate school there was the expansion scholarship on the chesapeake region. That was the hot new stuff in the last 25 years. Id say much of the hottest new scholarship on on the colonial era is on the deep, what we would call the deep south now and on areas of the south that were barely by quote unquote, european until the late, maybe even the early 19th century. And so i could go on and on about the areas which theres just been an explosion of. And so our goal, our hope was to try to pull that and write a narrative as seamless a narrative as with 15 authors, and to try to identify some overarching organizing themes in the history of the region. And some of those themes with with threads that charles has identified. But in other ways, its different work because our goal to write a history of the region as opposed to the history of the identity of the people who live in the region. Se i and one of the challenges, of course, we faced and we were talking this a little beforehand is lets run into the challenge of what is the south, where are the boundaries of the south. I just have to tell you about, a recent conversation im trying to remember actually where this was i trying to remember where i was. I right now i remember where i was in any case, i was at a some sort of a public event and. There was a lady in the audience asked me about, you know, with North Carolina<\/a> in the south, and that was a new one for me. I had never asked whether North Carolina<\/a> was part of the before, but then i realized was a northerner who most familiar with charlotte and the Research Triangle<\/a> in North Carolina<\/a>. And if thats what you know of North Carolina<\/a>, you could very easily think you were in the middle atlantic or anywhere else. But i tried to tell her, you know, if you go to greenville north, carolina or fayetteville, North Carolina<\/a>, where you go most anywhere west asheville, youll be in a place you might recognize as what you your preconceptions of the south may be met. But that gets me to to the point about we were talking about was delaware of the south and one of the larger challenges but also organizing concepts of our book is that south always stands in relation to somewhere else. Its its not as though there is because there is no obvious geographical boundary to the of the south or the west of the south. Itd be one thing if somehow in the imagination the south stopped at the mississippi river, that would be very. But it doesnt there are plenty of people argue that oklahoma really deserves in the discussion of the south and maybe missouri. And what do you do with West Virginia<\/a> . West virginia was part of virginia. It seceded from virginia. So theyre the ones successfully carried out secession and they should arguably be part of the south. But thats where the way we solved. This ultimately was were going to write a book about, the south. We commonly think of as the south more or less the states that joined the confederacy or else sent a lot of people to fight on behalf of the confederacy. Yet recognizing we were doing that because. Thats how we think of the south and its useful for us to understand this region that we think of the south but wrecking thing that we were going to write a history the region that doesnt with jamestown and doesnt trace people migrating westward from jamestown thats not the story we tell were interested in this geographical space that in the present day we think of the south and to the extent that we can a book of this length with these authors talk about everybody who lived in that region not because they all think of themselves as southerners but because they all live in this region. We conventionally think of as the south. And the consequence of that is that different moment in time. The people who lived the region we call the south, so i call them the southerners for convenience. The people who southerners, even if they wouldnt have called themself that were often themselves to different places, we might assume. So in the colonial era, particularly along the atlantic seaboard, the euro americans were settling and moving west. Their frame of reference was the Atlantic World<\/a> and the caribbean and they didnt necessarily leave. They they didnt see themselves as ness surly southerners because of them were to the north of jamaica and barbados, which would have been their frames of reference or they would have been of haiti if they had migrated into louisiana or wherever the whatever the case may be. And in the 19th century, there are southerners, white southerners, you see them as being part of a conservative european civilization. And they would have seen their being some of the conserved who are fighting against modernizing cultures in western europe at the same time that they were fighting to defend the southern way of life life and in the 20th century there get a more complicated picture. The various parts of the south are moving in different what we call the south are moving in Different Directions<\/a> and towards different ends. And so when you at the 21st century south, if youre someone like me who grew up northern virginia, i always thought of myself a virginian, not a southerner. I just that didnt make sense to me because of their orientation. But the county that i live in is unrecognizable to me now. I grew up in Loudoun County<\/a> and Loudoun County<\/a> bears very little resemblance to what it did in my childhood just 40 years ago. And i think most in most democrat markers you wouldnt see it as necessarily part of the south but it had a Confederate Monument<\/a> in front of the courthouse until this past decade. On the other hand, im in the Research Triangle<\/a> now and i can go weeks without hearing a North Carolina<\/a> accent. But all i have to do is go to the North Carolina<\/a> fair, as i will do tomorrow taking my daughter and i will hear lots of carolina accents that otherwise, as i say, i could go weeks without. So the south of, North Carolina<\/a> or the North Carolina<\/a> of the south, 20 miles away from me within that Research Triangle<\/a> bubble. And so there is that divergence between the ive somebody describe it as were there together where somebody described as a slow growth south in fast growth south those divergence are are creating cultural experiences experiences are radically different. So weve tried to come up with a way of thinking about the that would make it so that you could read about the south without having to go through this academic throat clearing all the time about what is the south how do we define it so whether or not weve been successful or another question but it does finally get back a point that i think has raised and that is that the south one final point id make our interpretation is the south to me fascinating. And this book really drove this to me in my eyes. The south is fascinating because its the most region in the United States<\/a>. Its the region that has gone more traumatic profound, epic historical transformation than any other region. And so as somebody fascinated by historical change and how people deal with very challenging circumstances, nobody i defy you to find in america who have dealt with more than southerners have, and thats whether theyre southerners defined as native American South<\/a>erner, whether they be the lumbee indians of North Carolina<\/a>, whether they be black southerners whove gone enslavement. The moment of closing the potential for equality during reconstruction era, the jim crow era, the struggle for racial equality in the south, the possibilities the 1970s and 1983 segregation of many public the quasi resegregation public spaces. This these are the upheaval just extraordinary and then thinking more recently as charles mentioned of the new to the region many of them have undergone just extraordinary upheavals as well. I think for example of guatemala. And she went through of the most brutal civil wars of the half of the 20th century and, then migrated to places like siler city, North Carolina<\/a>, work in chicken factories. Thats a saga of endurance and perseverance that are meshes well with the story the south so ill leave it there and look forward your questions. Thank you. Ill ask the first question to get the questions rolling and then if youll go to the microphone, well, get some questions. What do you see as a unique challenge to writing the south. Well, i think there are two. One is where . Where is the south . And who are southerners . It fits. Who is talking about this . Well, but i think when i started working on this came it came out of my work on the encyclopedia of southern culture and when i was working on that, i did a column, the atlanta constitution, of how the mini souths, and that was in that i started learning. I worked on the encyclopedia because i was exposed to so many interdisciplinary writers perspectives, whatever. I was very much like what fitz talks about in graduate school. We had the same textbooks, you know, in the history books that about the south that had a certain periods, you know, a lot of not much in the final south, not much on the indians. Americans, probably two or three chapters on the civil war, you know, and and really story of the white south more than anything. And so i think, you know, wrestling with where the south is in the borders is something i didnt do a lot of in this book ive written about in other places. But thats, you know, the borderland where the and and places out of the south, you know, like little dixie out in even, you know, in Southern California<\/a> on bakersville. Its a very southern kind of culture, not but sort and focusing on concepts gave me a way to talk about the south, the way people in the past, to talk about and not just southerners incidentally but but non southerners theres much attention to to that. One of my favorite stories about that, incidentally, this is an aside is theres northerners whove had either a very positive optimistic romantic view of the south or very negative. See sort attitude. One of the latter is a recent called better off without Chuck Thompsons<\/a> book about the south. And its a hes northern journalist and its a utterly condemnatory study of south. And it talks about the poor problems of public education, public health, for sure. And i was on the program with him in atlanta and he went through this in atlanta. Audience was polite, you know, and and said in public education, you know, out. They didnt say anything, he said. And said football is really not that good. Well, there was an exposure to youve gone too far. So think i could talk what other people had thought south was you know and then in terms of southerners, the great to my book as all is i think this book is the recognition of diversity. You know not just now, not just now, but in the south and in past and so bringing into focus how all these different southerners had different identities in some ways but still were a them to a southern context and Southern Historical<\/a> experiences. I, i think charles spoken with typical eloquence. Yet finding a way to capture the diversity of the south is such a challenge and its you could do it kind of statistically by pointing out the trim variety of peoples, religions, life of people who live in the south at any given moment in time. But thats, of course dry as dust way of approaching it. So trying to figure out how capture that even if you cant capture it in all of its variety. You hinted to acknowledge it and, you know, i cant say that we have done that in this this book we had the challenges of weaving together 15 authors. This leads into direction. But i to just try to point out to my students i get talking about italian foodways and its always fun to get them going about italian and they tend to think of italian in new jersey and new york. And then i like to point out, well, you know, new orleans is a hotbed of italian foodways and the most arguably historically, most italianamerican food company, progresso, comes out of new orleans. So there are all those little ways in which you can surprise or you can tell people how it is that czechoslovakia, polish and german music gets fuzed with norteno music in northern well in the texas mexico borderlands. And you up with conjunto music so you can you can make these little how would i say, offer these nuggets to capture diversity. But its always been a challenge for me to find a crisp cogent way to remind people of a region where theyre empanadas in mississippi and again muffled as in in new orleans and. The whole range of diverse ways foodways and cultural ways in the region. Im getting hungry. Yeah. Questions. I can repeat for you. Are we microphone . Yep. Yeah someone if either you or both. You have any thoughts on how weve had this massive wave of immigration since really . Since, i guess. 1979 with the vietnamese crisis and so forth and people coming into the south which they did and wave of migration before. And i wonder if hearing thoughts how they are affecting or have a factor or will affect the polity of the south. I know virginia is very different than it once was and florida and georgia because in part due to immigration from elsewhere. I wonder what you what you have about that. Well yeah for first im going to address. How would i put this this is not so much politics and electoral politics, but it sort of speaks to cultural politics. Ive now been at the university, North Carolina<\/a>, for two decades. And in the two decades ive been there, the student attending the university of North Carolina<\/a> changed radically. I mean, its its just remarkable. It an overt by law. Its. 82 north carolinian by law. And it was an overwhelmingly white north carolinian campus 20 years ago. There is now a very south asian undergrad population reflecting the growth of the asian population, the south Asian Community<\/a> in kerry in the Research Triangle<\/a> and in charlotte. And there is now a very large hispanic undergraduate reflecting, of course, the enormous in the state. So i mention that because many of those students are first generation usc College Students<\/a> and, i if if theyre like most usc undergraduates, the large of them will stay in the state. And thats its just a remarkable transformation in the social politics of state. But getting back to your specific point about the electoral politics, i its going to be a at least a decade in, for example, North Carolina<\/a> and i think many other states because i dont know if youve just seen this, but the carolina legislatures, gerrymandering the state in a manner that they are everywhere. Well, exactly and so there will be three less democrats in the next congress from the state. So while North Carolina<\/a> may democratic and democratic attorney generals. Its going to be republican led its to be republican represent. It is in congress for the foreseeable future future. Another word which in other words, it doesnt mean that, for example, the new hispanic voters, the new south asian voters are necessarily to be democrats. But i just this gets to back to the point that i think charles is making the politic, the Political Institutions<\/a> are lagging behind the demographic changes or are being carefully or their machinations are ensuring that the politics lag the transformation and the demography of the state. Yeah, i agree, i think that the you know, the how the politics works over the long term. I dont know. I used to think that latinos become democrats, you know, and and but, you know, look at south florida, you know, the cubans there have tended to vote more republican, you know, over several generations. Some of the become embedded in just the fabric of american and southern life and become Business People<\/a> who like low taxes and no regulation and they vote republican so but so i think its unfair but in of i think i like the idea of the social fabric one thing that has occurred me you know you look at the law the memory of the confederacy that was embodied in south in so many ways, the confederate flag, the singing of dixie, the monuments. Well, what does all this mean to a latino from guatemala . It doesnt mean anything thats going to really shake up. I the mental workings of of of the south you know when people start voting or going to meetings to talk about all this theres going to be new perspectives. Thats to me one of the exciting things is just new. Itll blend with old and but the change, you know i agree the south has gone through these traumatic periods of change before and this wont be as bad as so much what weve gone through. Hi, lydia we willing to share some strategies . You use to succeed at publishing book while balancing your university duties . Oh, you. Im not teaching anymore. And so its all you need to do this. But started the book when i was teaching and so its a challenge for all of us who do research, i think. And but, you know, worked in my advantage sometimes if i had a assistant, often they help with research and you know, teaching graduate students especially now theyre so curious and they bring so many questions and i felt like i benefit from that so much in conceptualizing the book, thinking about the book and working off of them classes, introducing ideas and all of this. But its a challenge to find time to do research and i got that. But its this a challenge you personally are confronting a researcher to a professor this well are are i can speak directly to this because right i am i have a three year old daughter at home and covid. My wife and i did all the child care 24 seven. She never had childcare until six weeks ago and of course im teaching doing all the other things are only i can say is and ive lots say about this and you all wouldnt be interested it but time management and learning how to in the that you have available so learning how to write you have 45 minutes available and learning to write when you have 3 hours available, those require a difference sets in a way and ive just learned over time to how to be able to do both. When i was a grad student, if i didnt have a day that was free to write. I cant write. If i dont have 8 hours, whats point . Yeah, that that doesnt work anymore. Thank you. Sure. Yeah, i have a im im from the north and ive only in tennessee for a year and a half now. And one of the tenants that you were talking about with the southern way of life was a distrust of corporatization and industrialization. I wonder you have any insight about whats going on in tennessee right now, especially west tennessee, with fords battery plant displaced predominantly black farmers . If any insight about that is that something thats a a tenant now . Theres a a love of jobs coming from the north. Im from michigan and the big three loves leaving michigan and coming to south. Its could speak on that. Great question and an important question about whats happened in the south since vanderbilt aquarians wrote that book in 30 because the conservative ideology totally switched and that now industrialization is their southern way of life. Its all about the free market. Its not about, you know, the agrarian saw all their shortcomings which they had many including there. Theyre sort of whites only vision of the south and the meaning of blacks to often a terrible record on that but they articulated the idea there was some value in community and and family and values ideas and in fact my generation of liberal students in the sixties couldnt understand not a conservative version. But a liberal sort of version where you have roots you have appreciate these qualities. But the conservatives now have gone totally over and its not anymore about how Healthy Society<\/a> is. I think its about how much can we make. Thats all its about. And so its a dramatic change from conservatism in the south that that old conservative tradition is is not even talked about anymore. Well, i think youre asking about also points to the the the slow growth faster of south that i was talking about i just recently in alabama i went to auburn, alabama and drove the Nuclear Plant<\/a> there. What i dont know how new it is, but i havent driven past it on 85 mean i know when the last time i went out through there and that is a humongous plant and i was just thinking yeah so we have mercedes beamed w ford. Honda honda. Yeah ive run through the list virtually as you say eventually detroit will be somewhere in the south, its sort of scattered over the south and just struck by how you can drive on 85 essentially from charlotte out to that killer plant and youre driving through a kind of in dust drill. Its the most rust Industrial America<\/a> there, and its chemical in south carolina, automobile plants, you know, anyway. And and yeah, that landscape is really extraordinary to see and 50 miles into in the hinterland away from that 85 stretch you can see the slow growth south there you cant me off his question how do see do you have any insight how say like the new deal impacted the culture in the south because it sort of felt like for a long time that the south was kind of insulated some little bubble of developing while the resignation valves the northeast the west and to this kind industrial Transit System<\/a> and then when the new comes its now for the First Time Ever<\/a> the federal government investing huge amounts of money into defense spending, into oil production, manufacture and kind of getting mass labor. Now, people who were previously farm workers are now industrial workers. So how does how did the new deal of change the souths relationship with, the United States<\/a> with the federal government, you know, culturally, overall. Of id say two things pretty quickly and turn it over to charles one is theres wonderful really economic historian gaven wright who to me a very compelling argument that the new deal helps to break down a kind of insular southern labor market. And that is a result of. The new deal the south became both not only was the south, so to speak, invade by industrial, northern, industrial and military industrial jobs and factories. But simultaneously southern workers began and to be incorporated into the Larger National<\/a> labor market and the wage differential between the south and the rest of the country started to shrink. And thats generally a very good thing thing. Another point that just comes in one essay in this, the volume i edited peter colonies wonderful for economic historian considers the 20th century economic history of the south. And one of the last essays in the book and one of his points is not that the not that the history of the south preceded the trajectory of the south in the 20th century and into the 21st century. But it did narrow possibilities and as a consequence, the long history leading up to the 20th century. The south does have serious infrastructure issues and south has serious social capital. And that means even while the south could be, so to speak, brought into the nation, it was still going to end up being a place where things were assembled a place where things moved about, where they were relative of lee, primitive things are produced with. 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