In the New South, Old Expectations Outlive Reality

At the Old Court House Museum in Vicksburg, Miss., a visitor is hard pressed to find evidence that the Civil War is over--or the War Between the States, as it's called in Vicksburg. Exhibit cases contain Confederate uniforms and still-polished Confederate weapons. Photographs of "loyal slaves" who, the captions approvingly note, refused to leave their masters even after the war. A white hood from the original Ku Klux Klan, described as a "fraternal organization" protecting the South from the ravages of Federal troops. A shrine to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, his portrait lovingly protected in its own special room.

As I walked through the antique corridors of the courthouse, the "New South" of progress and racial harmony seemed worlds away. It was as if Scarlett O'Hara might be fanning herself around the corner.

To a Californian like me, the Civil War always seemed like a sideshow of American history. Out west, most people were more interested in making money than fighting the war--although California managed to donate a few shipments of gold to the national treasury, it never bothered to send actual soldiers to the battlefield. Los Angeles was, and is, closer to Mexico City than to Gettysburg.

So when my family planned a trip to the Mississippi Delta--"the cradle of the Civil War," in Paul Simon's words--I was skeptical of what I might find. After all, Mississippi seemed like the epicenter of the South: the Magnolia State, the second state to secede, the home of President Davis, the state that even today sports a Confederate banner on its flag.

Vicksburg is a concentrated version of that heritage: After the town was captured by Union troops on July 4, 1863, its citizens declined to celebrate Independence Day for the next 82 years. It seemed like the clock had stopped inside the courthouse when the Confederate flag was lowered for the last time.

The exhibits at the museum acknowledged the fact of slavery but implied that the institution was benign. One placard noted, "Masters provided housing, food, clothing and medical care for their slaves. Harsh treatment was rare, though cruelty did occur."

There was no mention of abolitionism, except to say that "efforts to free the slaves began in the South; ironically, Gen. U.S. Grant was a slave owner while Gen. Robert E. Lee freed his slaves." The museum even implied that President Lincoln worded the Emancipation Proclamation so that his in-laws in Kentucky could legally keep their slaves.

The treatment of the Ku Klux Klan was even more troubling. According to the museum, the actions of the Klan were morally equivalent to those of Union soldiers, who "were often guilty of theft and murder" against defenseless Southern whites, and Northern carpetbaggers, who "were exploiting the ignorance of the former slaves for their own selfish purposes." Worst of all? The abolitionists, who dared "to place blacks in positions of authority." This was Alice in Wonderland history, a version in which everything I had learned was turned on its ear and served up as fact. And yet the white-haired Vicksburg women who ran the museum hardly seemed to notice.

All along the Delta, the docents at museums and antebellum homes seemed to share the same history book. At Stanton Hall, a graceful, pillared house in Natchez, Miss., our guide held forth enthusiastically on the building's period chandeliers, wallpaper and marble fireplaces. When I asked her how many slaves the Stanton family owned, she replied, "I don't know. About 500, maybe. But they all lived across the river."

The audio tour at the Rosedown Plantation in St. Francisville, La., mentioned the hundreds of slaves who lived and worked there, but insisted that the man who owned them was an opponent of slavery who had always wanted to free his slaves but was blocked by his neighbors. The tour was based on the oral testimony of dozens of white parents, children, aunts and employees, but no former slaves.

What could explain this disconnect? Certainly not the real experiences of the present-day Delta, where racial integration was far more advanced than the plantations would suggest. As I drove from Memphis, Tenn., to Vicksburg and New Orleans, La., small details suggested that perhaps this was the New South after all--like the fact that all three cities have black mayors. Or the businesses where whites worked alongside blacks. Or the brand-new roads and schools serving mostly black small towns. The South being marketed for the tourists was far more reactionary than the real South just out the door.

The tourists' South says little about the real people who live there, but speaks volumes about what other Americans, like me, expect to find. In the back of my mind I looked for Scarlett when I crossed the Tennessee line. (In a Vicksburg restaurant, my father insisted on trying a mint julep.) We tourists sought out the scores of mansions with porches and green lawns because that's where we thought we'd find the "real" South--and the historical societies, with their steep admissions charges and gift shops, weren't about to disappoint us.

If you're looking for the South, skip the Old Court House Museum, and leave Margaret Mitchell at home. Frankly, my dear, there's a far more interesting country waiting to be discovered.

Adam A. Sofen '01 is a history and literature concentrator in Pforzheimer House.