The New Reconstruction: Moderatism and the South

At a street corner in down town Atlanta, Georgia, there stands a nineteenth century lamp post with a marker describing it as "The Eternal Flame of the Confederacy." A fluttering gas light which, according to local story, has burned continuously since the earliest weeks of the Civil War, it embodies "the spirit, the traditions, the way of life" that were the escutcheon of the Old South.

In more recent years that flame has affected a peculiar new incandescence which shall soon warm and perhaps light a larger part of the deeper South; that South with its de facto capital in Atlanta is now undergoing a New Reconstruction. It is beginning a time of development which, in the aspirations of one Southern mayor, may cause the South to "blossom out into one of the great areas of the world."

Whether or not that somehow farfetched ideal is ever achieved matters little to the region now. This New Reconstruction, unlike the older one, is itself a source of considerable self-satisfaction. Waged by the moderate business communities of the greater urban centers it offers a means to progress which the more-principle but less-monied Southern liberal forces have so far been unable to establish.

This progress comes with a peak in the South's industrial revolution which did not actually begin until World War II. The rapid transformation of the South's agrarian economy the technological progress which constantly improves the industrial effort, and the economic mobility of the whole nation, repeatedly multiplies the power and the determination of Southern business interests.

Of Civic Leadership

The economic powers in the Industrial Piedmont Cities of Charlotte, Greenville, and Greensboro, in the inland trade centers such as Nashville and Jackson, in the port cities of Savannah, Charleston, and New Orleans, in the heavy industry areas at Knoxville, Chattanooga, Birmingham, and Memphis and especially in Atlanta, are seizing control of the civic leadership. Their natural conservatism is tempered by the overwhelming drive for new progress: they constitute a force of moderatism.

They know that if the South is to rise again, it will not be with Confederate dollars. With a fervor which rivals Southern Baptism, they cultivate Northern investment. They are inordinately self-concious and are feverishly concerned about the "image of the South." Because ready capital has replaced the boll weevil as the South's most persistent problem, they are willing even to forsake sacred traditions to attract outside investment.

Social attitudes which had been carefully preserved in an ugly formaldehyde of ethnic thinking are beginning to dissolve. The inevitability of social change and the necessity of giving the Negro the rights he demands are points which these moderates, whether they would want it or not, are beginning to accept. They will no doubt continue to delay the toppling of their old world until the very last, but when finally they must choose between the next step in their program for Southern progress and the last of the ante-bellum mores they will likely pick the former.

A Matter of Time

Unfortunately these changes will take considerably more time under moderate leadership than they would if liberal pressure groups were dominating the South. And profit does not make nearly as good a motive as principle. But the treasury of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee will never be able to compete with Atlanta's billion dollar banking business, and progress at any pace is a satisfying thing.

Already, moderatism and the economic interests have done a sizeable amount. The changing economy of the region has brought, along with rising productivity, increased per capita income, great increases in urban population, appreciable improvements in public education, and higher standards of health and welfare. They have, in fact, given to the average Southerner a little taste of what he thought was the grandeur of the Old South. It is in this sense that this New Reconstruction is a part of "The Eternal flame of the Confederacy." It kindles a regional pride which once more prompts the Southerner to work for social and economic progress. In North Carolina, South Carolina, and parts of Georgia it even prompted him to accept integration because to do otherwise would blemish the regional image and hold up Southern progress.

In growing numbers of areas, moderates--often with the assistance of liberal forces--are winning at the polls as well as in the market place. In South Carolina, moderates with labor and Negro backing managed to elect Donald Russell to the governor's office and subsequently succeeded in efforts to integrate a previously all-white university. At the same time they re-elected Olin Johnson to the Senate over concentrated conservative-segregationist opposition in both the Democratic primary and the general election.

Moderates in North Carolina and Tennessee have been a decisive force instate elections for some time. In Georgia, the moderate candidate, Carl Sanders, defeated conservative former Governor Marvin Griffin in the 1962 gubernatorial lections and moderate-turned-lately Peter Zack Geer was elected lieutenant governor. The moderates at the same elections aided in the removal of the incumbent and arch-conservative U.S. Congressman James C. Davis, replacing him with liberal Charles Weltner.

The Coming Decade

Even in Alabama, a moderate candidate for governor claimed substantial strength in the Democratic primary last year. In Mississippi, where both moderatism and progress are unusual, the recent elections have been less hopeful, certainly less satisfying.

Traffic down the middle of the road has never moved particularly fast nor to any great distance, but moderatism is bringing some progress to the South and with the growing influence of Southern liberals will soon bring still more. Those Southerners who are fond of saying that the last half of the twentieth century belongs to the South are aware that they are a decade behind schedule; how fast they work in making up for the last decade will to a large extent, determine the progress of the South in the coming one.