Angie Maxwell - The Ongoing Burden of Southern History

THE ONGOING
BURDEN of
SOUTHERN
HISTORY

MAKING THE MODERN SOUTH

David Goldfield, Series Editor

Politics and Identity in the Twenty-First-Century South

Edited by
ANGIE MAXWELL, TODD SHIELDS,
and JEANNIE WHAYNE

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BATON ROUGE

Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2012 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
FIRST PRINTING

DESIGNER : Barbara Neely Bourgoyne
TYPEFACE : Adobe Garamond Pro
PRINTER : McNaughton & Gunn, Inc.
BINDER : Acme Bookbinding, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The ongoing burden of southern history : politics and identity in the twenty-first-century South / edited by Angie Maxwell, Todd Shields, [and] Jeannie Whayne.
p. cm. (Making the modern South)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-4756-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8071-4757-3 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8071-4758-0 (epub) ISBN 978-0-8071-4759-7 (mobi) 1. Southern StatesPolitics and government21st century. 2. Southern StatesSocial conditions21st century. 3. Southern StatesCivilization21st century. 4. Woodward, C. Vann (Comer Vann), 19081999. Burden of southern history. I. Maxwell, Angie, 1978 II. Shields, Todd, 1968 III. Whayne, Jeannie M.
F216.2.O54 2012
975'.044dc23

2012007907

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

PREFACE : Why Woodward Still Matters
Angie Maxwell, Todd Shields, and Jeannie Whayne

1 Therapist of the Public Mind: Woodward and the Most Burdensome Burden
James C. Cobb

2 Woodwards Southerner: History, Literature, and the Question of Identity
Leigh Anne Duck

3 A Lighter Burden? Southern Political Identity in the Shrinking South
Wayne Parent

4 The History of the Present
Robert C. McMath

5 Woodwards Losers: Disappearing Democrats in Southern Political History
Patrick G. Williams

6 The End of Woodwards Second Reconstruction? African American Political Participation in the South
Charles S. Bullock III

7 Woodwards New Intellectual Stream: The Enfranchisement of the Freed Slave Population
Hanes Walton Jr., Josephine A. V. Allen, Sherman C. Puckett, and Donald R. Deskins Jr.

The time is coming, if indeed it has not already arrived, when the Southerner will begin to ask himself whether there is really any longer very much point in calling himself a Southerner.

C. Vann Woodward, The Burden of Southern History (1968)

In the half century since the publication of Arkansas native C. Vann Woodwards landmark collection The Burden of Southern History (1960), academic debates regarding the existence, breadth, and impact of southern distinctiveness have remained constant and vigorous. In that single volume, Woodward defines white southern identity during a tumultuous period of regional history, tackling questions of equality, the legacy of Reconstruction, the heritage of Populism, and the place of the South within the nation. In an effort to assess the influence of Woodwards classic collection, an interdisciplinary group of noted southern studies scholars gathered at the University of Arkansas in April 2010 for the third installment of the Blair Legacy Conference series, cosponsored by the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society and the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute. This installment was titled C. Vann Woodward: Politics and Identity in the 21st-Century South. The series has previously considered the impact and legacy of Arkansas native President William Jefferson Clinton (The Clinton Riddle) and preeminent political scientist V. O. Key Jr. (Unlocking V. O. Key, Jr.: Southern Politics in the Twenty-First Century). Both of those volumes were published by the University of Arkansas Press.

At the most recent gathering, each contributor reconsidered the bold ideas put forth by Woodward fifty years earlier, highlighting both Woodwards limitations and his relevance in the modern South. Though cited and quoted extensively, Woodwards work is rarely deconstructed directly, particularly by those outside of his chosen field of history. Specifically, these chapters apply Woodwards ideas to southern politics, where identity and behavior remain clearly distinct and increasingly red. For it is here, in the political arena, where old habits seem to die hard in the South and where southern identity in the twenty-first century may still be operating at full steam. Chapter 1, by keynote scholar James C. Cobb, and the chapters put forth by Leigh Anne Duck, Wayne Parent, Robert C. McMath, Patrick G. Williams, Charles S. Bullock III, and Hanes Walton Jr. and coauthors demonstrate the ongoing complexity of Woodwards original Burden. In short, Woodward still matters. And this collection demonstrates why.

In November 1908, Comer Vann Woodward was born in the eastern Arkansas town of Vanndale, which was named for his mothers family. He attended high school in Morrilton, Arkansas, less than twenty miles from Petit Jean Mountain, where Winthrop Rockefeller later established his remarkable farm and institute. Woodward completed his college degree in philosophy at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where his uncle and namesake was both a sociology professor and the dean of students. After graduation, he accepted a job teaching English at the nearby Georgia Institute of Technology. In Atlanta, his association with Will Alexander, head of the Congress of Interracial Cooperation, further developed his sense of social justice, which eventually led him to aid in the defense of Communist Angelo Herndon, who had been arrested for protesting the conviction of the Scottsboro nine.

After losing his teaching position, Woodward worked for President Franklin Delano Roosevelts Works Progress Administration, and during this period his passion was sparked for the interplay between race, class, and demagoguery in the South. Specifically, Woodward began writing a biography of Tom Watson, a Georgia Populist and white supremacist who became a U.S. senator and a vice-presidential candidate. With a research grant and access to Watson family archives, Woodward pursued a Ph.D. in history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The dissertation manuscript became Woodwards first book, Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel, published by Macmillan in 1938.

Woodwards first job out of graduate school was at the University of Florida, where he began work on the book Origins of the New South, 18771913, part of the History of the South series published by Louisiana State University Press. His writing was delayed by his service in the Office of Naval Intelligence during World War II, after which he resumed his academic career at Johns Hopkins University. His reputation as an expert in southern studies made him a popular voice in the civil rights movement, from its early years onward. For example, he served as a consultant for Thurgood Marshall during the Brown v. Board of Education trial. Origins was followed by Woodwards groundbreaking treatment of segregation,