BY: Maya Spencer
"The South is not a lost cause." I've had that sticker in an online shopping cart for about two years now, ever since I saw the embroidered patch version on a TikTok from an artist I can't remember now but who still had a profound impact on the way I see my home. These dear southern roots of mine run deep – far deeper than whatever I can make out from 1865 and after, no thanks to the half-assed organizational skills of the slave owners who probably, indeed, gave me my English last name. There are several generations of other mixed-race Spencers (and others) before me that prove that at the end of the day, life prevails — even in misery, even in injustice, but especially in love. We were here, and so, however romantic the notion may be, the world was a little less divided than those Fathers of America may have wanted it to be, less divided than we imagine the South is now.
In the eyes of seemingly everyone who lives outside of it, the South is the poor, hateful, undereducated, and unrefined black sheep of America. It's too country, too provincial, and too entrenched in its identity that it cannot see all the ways it's so far behind the rest of the US. It's a phenomenon that's difficult to represent in statistics but prevalent in the lives of Southern writers, specifically students of higher education. Student news articles from universities like Appalachian State and Notre Dame detail experiences of ostracization and the all too familiar confusion from other students about our Southern Culture, the way we speak, and how surprisingly smart we are. Ben Martin, the author of that Notre Dame article, sent out a poll to Non-Southern Notre Dame students to use one word to define the South. The possibilities were endless, but somehow, a majority of the responses focused on the social or political aspects of the region, notably using the words "white," "conservative," and "racist." Sure, there were a few opinions that underscored the "misunderstood" nature of the South, but the vast majority centered their opinions solely on the stereotypical Southern composition. No responses had an overwhelmingly positive connotation. (Martin).
While the casual nature of this polling and writing doesn't support any statistical standing, it highlights a sentiment shared by most Southerners about our perceived place in comparison with the rest of America. And Notre Dame isn't unlike our Elon University, where the majority of our students (67%) hail from outside of the South, and a significant chunk come from the Northeast. Despite the many years of distance between the Civil War and now, the friction between the former Confederate states and the northern states has continued to reverberate in unavoidable ways, like the snowballing effects of Reconstruction into redlining or the Great Migration. It's also seeped into our interpersonal relationships in microaggressions played off as jokes and debates that feel like condemnations. Even when talking to a friend from New Hampshire about this essay, a certain preconception about Southerners being lazy or disinterested in progressive action creates a misconception. "It's just all the politics," he says. "People need to get up and do something, fucking start putting the time into making change." He looks at me as if we're on the same page. We're not.
The South has become a kind of scapegoat for what is really the common experience of rural America with issues pertaining to poverty and discrimination. When it comes to these problems, like any other region, local governments and organizations continue to get the community together to be heard. Was it not here in North Carolina that sit-in protests were born, just down the road in Greensboro? Was it not Warren County's protests against the Ward Transformer Company that sparked the Environmental Justice movement as we know it today? And even on a smaller scale, my alma mater, Enloe High School, hosts an annual Charity Ball raising $100,000+ each year for different organizations within the Triangle. People here have long been putting in the work to make a difference in this country.
Soul, country, and American gospel music all hail from the South. These genres are dripping with polemics and calls for justice and have indeed been used for that very purpose in the form of protest songs throughout the history of America, but especially in the late 50s through the 70s. Nina Simone, Sam Cooke, and Phil Ochs are all names that will grace any top-something list of protest songs from this period. Even without a specific movement to tie any one song to, these genres were born out of southern pride and anguish, from the bones of spirituals and banjos and ballads and histories of America that date back all the way to the colonies. It's the music of America, the music of change. Melanie DeMore is a protest singer whose life work is to research and reignite that tradition of artistic expression. On this music, she says: All of those kinds of things people would make, again, songs as medicine. What are the stories that they're telling us that feed us and keep us on the road and help us to understand that no matter what, that we are free. That's the thing that's so great about those songs and spiritual songs. And again, the sorrow songs and the jubilee songs, the songs that express the sorrow and the pain that we were going through, that we are going through. These songs are not just songs that meant something way back then." (DeMore)
All this is to say that the South has always been vocal and dedicated to change, as evidenced by this one mode of expression, an art nevertheless tied to all the movements and politically focused conversations that have been taking place in the South. So why does this part of Southern culture still seem to escape our perceived identity? Unsurprisingly, our country's misunderstanding of racism plays a factor. In an effort to seem "not racist," people have a tendency to continuously point out obvious discrimination, condemn it, and then refuse to let anything overshadow that horrible, terrible thing America has done, so we, the people this thing was done to, will know just how horrible and terrible our non-racist peers think that horrible, terrible thing we endured was. So when people hear about the Civil Rights movement, they see a Racist South, not an incredibly diverse and empowered sector of America. Alternatively, if a movement made by Black Americans, like what happened in Warren County, isn't specifically about racism alone (too messy for them), it's forgotten that this group of people from this place even led it in the first place. Black figures who aren't remembered for their Blackness alone are often forgotten in the Grand March of America. But their impact is nevertheless present.
Unlike Fukuyama's idea of a demand for dignity in which "societies divide themselves into smaller and smaller groups by their particular 'lived experience' of victimization," the South's plea is that we are not done the disrespect of being victimized. Helplessness is simply not in our spirit. Historically marginalized communities in America, like the Indigenous population and Black Americans, have occupied the South and been integral to its growth since the creation of the colonies. Cities like Greensboro, Memphis, and New Orleans, with major black populations, are also major cultural and economic epicenters in the US. These places have value. The reputation of the South's rurality has lent itself to a heap of classism despite the steady drip of new people into the South in recent years. The US census will testify that its Southern cities are leading population growth in the US, and while small towns everywhere else are experiencing population decline, our little Southern towns continue to grow.
We must do away with the modern resentment and judgment of the South, which is as prevalent in the conservative mindset of the North as it is viscous in liberal and leftist culture. I brought up my lineage in the first part of this essay to make clear that the long history of the South is not digestible nor pleasant, but neither is it wholly divided. These communities did not live peacefully, and the white man who turned the lush vegetation and land of the South into agriculturally significant mass graves will not be given the dignity of some imagined memory of happy coexistence. But, these entangled communities shape a narrative not just of inequality, injustice, and disillusionment but also of the ferocity of those who fought and keep fighting to overcome it. The South is the story of some people who could somehow love each other despite generations of humiliation and oppression. It's the unlikely story of my father befriending the KKK members who owned the barber shop on his street and the incredibly likely story of the existence of a vast population of color and multiracial origins, even with the fist of white supremacy trying their best to squash us out. James Baldwin said, "I am not a war between America," and the South isn't either. Its turmoil is the making of America— America's greatest sins and greatest saviors.
Sources:
Ben Martin’s “The South is not a lost cause. I am not a lost cause.”
Melanie DeMore’s About Spirituals and Civil Rights Songs
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