Why the South?
Jean Hardisty's Appeal for Highlander
June 2, 2006
Because I live in the Boston area, people often ask me why I'm involved in the South, including serving on the board of The Highlander Center. I am writing to answer that question and, based on that answer, to ask your generous financial support of Highlander.
I spent my formative teenage years living with my parents on a farm in Maryland, and that experience shaped me culturally. But all you have to do is show the slightest interest in hearing more and I'll tell you the political reasons I feel the South is a crucially important focus of progressive work.
The most widely shared view of the South emphasizes its history of racial oppression and anti-union "right-to-work" politics. According to this analysis, it's the part of the country where you can pay workers less, extract coal, lumber and minerals without bothersome opposition, and count on conservative voters to support ultra-conservative positions on social issues such as abortion and gay unions. The military is a huge employer, and sweatshops and low-wage poultry factories blight everyday working life. Despite the careful creation of the metaphor of the "New South," southern states still lead in indices of poverty, poor educational opportunities, and substandard housing.
But the South is also a place where a rich heritage of struggle, solidarity, culture, and courage make it a part of the country particularly worth fighting for. First, the South doesn't have a monopoly on racism. Institutional racism pervades the country as a whole, and segregation is as pronounced, if not more pronounced, in the North as in the South. White supremacy, certainly present throughout the South, is also enshrined in every city in the country. And, despite migration, the South remains the region with the largest percentage of Black population in the country. With its history of enslavement, this community has known extreme oppression, as have Native American communities in the South, and both have fought tenaciously against this oppression. The practice of resistance does not have to be constructed in the South - it is of the South.
Today, African American and Native American "minorities" have been joined by immigrant laborers who have come to the South for low-wage jobs in factories and agriculture. The ultra-conservative Right has created resentment against enemies from above (Washington politicians, especially liberals) and enemies from below ("lazy welfare cheats") to turn Southern whites into conservative voters. Because the South is still in the grip of the same white power structure that has ruled it since the 1950s, nationalism and militarism are politically and culturally embedded in the region, and scapegoating the "other" (especially immigrants and gays) who have "ruined it" for everyone else is still a common practice.
The Democratic Party and much of the progressive movement seem to have written off the South as a hopeless cause. As a result, the South is stunningly under-resourced by liberal foundations, large individual donors, and corporate giving plans. With a few notable exceptions, the South is simply off the radar of national progressive politics.
This neglect of the South costs the progressive movement deeply. Just as the South is the American exemplar of racist oppression and labor and resource exploitation, it is also the cradle of resistance and survival. As we progressives become more and more disinterested in history and prone to quick fixes, we get what we deserve. We fail to learn lessons from past experiences and we overlook resources right under our noses. In the South today, progressive activists face all the challenges and contradictions that soon will be faced by activists across the country - attacks on unions, a "kinder, gentler" racism, right-wing populism that legitimizes institutional power, the increasing decimation of the middle class as the gap between rich and poor becomes a chasm. The South is a bellwether of these conditions and they are headed for the rest of the country.
If only we realized these facts, we would see how shortsighted it is to fail to address the conditions in the South that make it such an exploited and exploiting region. And, even more important, we will fail to learn from the Southern progressives how to resist when the odds are so stacked against you. The South is not just an area that serves as a template for how right-wing political and economic forces will come to dominate in other parts of the country. It is a goldmine of ideas, wisdom, strategies and tactics of resistance. The progressive movement neglects this resource at its own peril. As a northern progressive, I am acutely aware of how much I have to learn from Southern activists.
The Highlander Center is emblematic of the story of the South. Its long history is one of learning from local people how to resist oppression from the bottom up. There is no more honest form of resistance. And there is no more effective form of resistance.
I implore my progressive sisters and brothers to look to the South. To the extent that we are able to see it, we have global lessons to be learned within our own borders. I hope you will see the importance of supporting progressive organizing in the South by contributing to Highlander today.
With warm regards,
Jean Hardisty
Highlander Board of Directors
Jean Hardisty is the Founder and President Emerita of Political Research Associates (PRA), a Boston-based research center that analyzes right wing, authoritarian, and anti-democratic trends and publishes educational materials for the general public. For more about Jean, see her Web site: www.jeanhardisty.com.
For further reflections by Jean on the importance of the South for progressive organizing, see "Why the South?," an interview that appeared in Fair Play, the newsletter of United for a Fair Economy (Spring, 2006).
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