‘The whole US is southern!’ How our troubled racial history went national

The US south has long been the epicenter of racism. But the cancer has taken root in every corner of America

In 1974, the great southern journalist John Egerton wrote a prescient book entitled The Americanization of Dixie: The Southernization of America.

In a series of connected but self-contained essays, he made the point that something fundamental was changing - both in his native south, and in the country as a whole. But even Egerton seemed not to be sure exactly how things would unfold.

The South and the nation are not exchanging strengths as much as they are exchanging sins; more often than not, they are sharing and spreading the worst in each other, while the best languishes and withers.

I've been the product of an emerging South. I see the clear advantages of throwing off the millstone of racial prejudice. I think it's a process that's compatible with the moral and ethical standards of our nation - the heritage of our country, as envisioned by our forefathers. I also see that we have a special responsibility here. When we are meek, or quiescent, or silent on the subject of civil rights at home or human rights abroad, there is no other voice on Earth that can replace the lost voice, the absent voice, of the United States. This is what the persecutors want, and this is what the persecuted fear.