front cover of Before Brown
Before Brown
Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South
Glenn Feldman
University of Alabama Press, 2004

Details the ferment in civil rights that took place across the South before the momentous Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954

This collection refutes the notion that the movement began with the Supreme Court decision, and suggests, rather, that the movement originated in the 1930s and earlier, spurred by the Great Depression and, later, World War II—events that would radically shape the course of politics in the South and the nation into the next century.

This work explores the growth of the movement through its various manifestations—the activities of politicians, civil rights leaders, religious figures, labor unionists, and grass-roots activists—throughout the 1940s and 1950s. It discusses the critical leadership roles played by women and offers a new perspective on the relationship between the NAACP and the Communist Party.

Before Brown shows clearly that, as the drive toward racial equality advanced and national political attitudes shifted, the validity of white supremacy came increasingly into question. Institutionalized racism in the South had always offered white citizens material advantages by preserving their economic superiority and making them feel part of a privileged class. When these rewards were threatened by the civil rights movement, a white backlash occurred.

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front cover of The Path to a Modern South
The Path to a Modern South
Northeast Texas between Reconstruction and the Great Depression
By Walter L. Buenger
University of Texas Press, 2001

The forces that turned Northeast Texas from a poverty-stricken region into a more economically prosperous area.

Winner, Texas State Historical Association Coral H. Tullis Memorial Award for best book on Texas history, 2001

Federal New Deal programs of the 1930s and World War II are often credited for transforming the South, including Texas, from a poverty-stricken region mired in Confederate mythology into a more modern and economically prosperous part of the United States. By contrast, this history of Northeast Texas, one of the most culturally southern areas of the state, offers persuasive evidence that political, economic, and social modernization began long before the 1930s and prepared Texans to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the New Deal and World War II.

Walter L. Buenger draws on extensive primary research to tell the story of change in Northeast Texas from 1887 to 1930. Moving beyond previous, more narrowly focused studies of the South, he traces and interconnects the significant changes that occurred in politics, race relations, business and the economy, and women's roles. He also reveals how altered memories of the past and the emergence of a stronger identification with Texas history affected all facets of life in Northeast Texas.

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front cover of Regenerating Dixie
Regenerating Dixie
Electric Energy and the Modern South
Casey P. Cater
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019
Regenerating Dixieis the first book that traces the electrification of the US South from the 1880s to the 1970s. It emphasizes that electricity was not solely the result of technological innovation or federal intervention. Instead, it was a multifaceted process that influenced, and was influenced by, environmental alterations, political machinations, business practices, and social matters. Although it generally hewed to national and global patterns, southern electrification charted a distinctive and instructive path and, despite orthodoxies to the contrary, stood at the cutting edge of electrification from the late 1800s onward. Its story speaks to the ways southern experiences with electrification reflected and influenced larger American models of energy development.

Inasmuch as the South has something to teach us about the history of American electrification, electrification also reveals things about the South’s past. The electric industry was no mere accessory to the “New South” agenda—the ongoing project of rehabilitating Dixie after the Civil War and Reconstruction. Electricity powered industrialism, consumerism, urban growth, and war. It moved people across town, changed land- and waterscapes, stoked racial conflict, sparked political fights, and lit homes and farms. Electricity underwrote people’s daily lives across a century of southern history.

But it was not simply imposed on the South. In fact, one Regenerating Dixie’s central lessons is that people have always mattered in energy history. The story of southern electrification is part of the broader struggle for democracy in the American past and includes a range of expected and unexpected actors and events. It also offers insights into our current predicaments with matters of energy and sustainability.
 
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front cover of The Second Great Emancipation
The Second Great Emancipation
The Mechanical Cotton Picker, Black Migration, and How They Shaped the Modern South
Donald Holley
University of Arkansas Press, 2000

In The Second Great Emancipation, Donald Holley uses statistical and narrative analysis to demonstrate that farm mechanization occurred in the Delta region of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi after the region’s population of farm laborers moved away for new opportunities. Rather than pushing labor off the land, Holley argues, the mechanical cotton picker enabled the continuation of cotton cultivation in the post-plantation era, opening the door for the civil rights movement, while ushering a period of prosperity into the South.

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front cover of Southern Journeys
Southern Journeys
Tourism, History, and Culture in the Modern South
Edited by Richard D. Starnes
University of Alabama Press, 2003

The first collection of its kind to examine tourism as a complicated and vital force in southern history, culture, and economics

Anyone who has seen Rock City, wandered the grounds of Graceland, hiked in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, or watched the mermaids swim at Weeki Wachee knows the southern United States offers visitors a rich variety of scenic, cultural, and leisure activities. Tourism has been, and is still, one of the most powerful economic forces in the modern South. It is a multibillion-dollar industry that creates jobs and generates revenue while drawing visitors from around the world to enjoy the region’s natural and man-made attractions.
 
This collection of 11 essays explores tourism as a defining force in southern history by focusing on particular influences and localities. Alecia Long examines sex as a fundamental component of tourism in New Orleans in the early 20th century, while Brooks Blevins describes how tourism served as a modernizing influence on the Arkansas Ozarks, even as the region promoted itself as a land of quaint, primitive hillbillies. Anne Whisnant chronicles the battle between North Carolina officials building the Blue Ridge Parkway and the owner of Little Switzerland, who fought for access and advertising along the scenic highway. One essay probes the racial politics behind the development of Hilton Head Island, while another looks at the growth of Florida's
panhandle into a “redneck Riviera,” catering principally to southerners, rather than northern tourists.
 
Southern Journeys is a pioneering work in southern history. It introduces a new window through which to view the region's distinctiveness. Scholars and students of environmental history, business history, labor history, and social history will all benefit from a consideration of the place of tourism in southern life.
 
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front cover of The Sporting World of the Modern South
The Sporting World of the Modern South
Edited by Patrick B. Miller
University of Illinois Press, 2002

Engaging a medley of perspectives and methodologies, these collected essays explore the sport-related symbols and events that have shaped southern regional identities since the Civil War. The authors range from the "backcountry" fighter stereotypes portrayed in modern professional wrestling to the significance of Crimson Tide coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant for white Alabamians while other essays tackle gender and race relations in intercollegiate athletics, the roles athletic competitions played in desegregating the South, and NASCAR's popularity in southern states. 

Pairing the action and anecdotes of good sportswriting with rock-solid scholarship, The Sporting World of the Modern South adds historical and anthropological perspectives to legends and lore from the gridiron to the racetrack.

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