TAKE A LOOK AT THE SOUTH

My wife and I just returned from a trip to visit my brother, Wayne, in Georgia. Our next stop was Natchez, Mississippi. We passed through sights in Alabama that brought back remembrances of the Civil Rights movement of Montgomery and Birmingham. In Mississippi saw signs honoring Medger Evers. Sometimes some of us grow to believe that those places in the Deep South are still the same. It doesn’t take much observation to notice that there are changes. Just as it is here, maybe not enough, but there is progress. Need we remember the Governor George Wallace who fought to keep Alabama schools segregated only later to become a more responsive governor, who appointed minorities to positions of great responsibility and saw that integration was accomplished. In Natchez, the place of antebellum homes along the Mississippi River, mixed race neighborhoods are being seen. We understand that these are very real signs of progress in solving racial differences in the South.

The South is a very special region of the USA and a very diverse region! Some of the most talented writers of American fiction and non-fiction had their roots in the South. Maybe this has happened because we are a people who love our region and our land. We welcome those who move here with open arms when we are confident that we are no longer the butt of their jokes and that we have much to offer them. Yes, our climate is not always the most preferred. Here in the ‘Ole North State’ complain about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter. We know that our weather will change if we stand here long enough.

Even with modest changes in racial tensions. The South is a changed place. There are still farms and an agrarian society in parts of the South. However, our urban areas are large and sprawling. Population is in an obvious increase. The instances of automobiles are difficult to imagine. Take a ride of the beltway around Atlanta during the rush periods of the day. This stretch of freeway become a parking long very quickly and is practically impassable. Our cities are cities of distinction that offer a quality of life that is unsurpassed in the country. Theatre, opera, the visual arts are ever-present. Our writers are still churning out there work. James Lee Burke, John Grissham, Fanny Flagg, Lee Smith, Pat Conroy, are some of our finest.

I might suggest to us native-born Southerners that we get out and look at our South again and that you who have moved in look at our personable, picturesque region.