I thought I heard  Zell Miller  say there are 33,000 blacks holding public office in the South. Somebody on a forum was paying closer attention.  The number Miller gave, said the poster, is 5,500.  But, here's a quote from yet another netizen.
 

Even the lower tally, when compared to the count of black officeholders in that region in, say, 1670, 1780, 1843 and even 1943 (in each case, probably zero), it is still an impressive increase.  When making his point, Miller mentions that for this to happen, districts which are predominantly white have to be populated by something other than people who fit the modern Democrat stereotype of the region.

Lawdy, lawdy, but ain’t that a strange brand of corn mash?

J.C. Watts was elected to congress for term after term.  His state is Oklahoma, which also has a white voting majority.  Only one state that I know of has ever elected a black governor.  That was Virginia, which isn’t  in the North.  Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican president!  Imagine that.  But, there’s nothing new about all this.  I have written before about the subject.  The first blacks elected to congress were Republicans because it was the “radical” party of Lincoln which freed them. Without question for some Republicans it was all about freeing them, while for others it was about money or something else, but who cares?  They got freed. To the slaves, that’s what mattered.  Breathing free air, that’s the ticket.

(After Reconstruction, the Democrats got right to work on re-enslaving them with a process they invented called Jim Crow.  Finally giving up on the South, blacks turned their backs on it in large numbers and headed north.)

 It was also the “radical” party of Lincoln which passed the first Civil Rights Act in American history, in 1867 if memory serves.  And, Lincoln’s Republicans passed the 14th Amendment shortly thereafter (rejected by all Democrat-controlled southern states except Tennessee), which made constitutional the tenets of that first Civil Rights Act.  American blacks of that era knew who was on their side even if modern American blacks do not.  That was why when they were allowed to register to vote, the ratio of black Republicans to black Democrats was the exact reverse of what it is today. 

Some of you have heard about a massive (80,000+ subjects) survey that indicates a political sea change in America.  Democrats no longer have the advantage in registration numbers.  As I see these numbers, what they indicate is a sea change in the South.  My guess is that a lot of whites down there have about had it with what has happened to their political party.  Socialism isn't their thing.  But, beyond the registration shift, there's something else happening in the South these days. Zell Miller’s numbers of black officeholders is a sign of it. The reports of a migration by blacks back to that region is part of it, too. It all bespeaks of an historic reconciliation – a coming back together of two races whose skin color once divided them, but whose deep ties to the region still bind them, no matter what the past held..  I see a homecoming in all this, a welcoming.

Long ago, blacks had to ride the underground railroad to find hope in the cold and snowy North.  But, what they found was a new kind of massa, a life of northern Democrat dependency in trade for votes that offered little in the way of pride to a man. 

Now, they are going home.

Pecan trees and the delta blues.  Deep fried Louisiana shrimp, grits and gumbo.  Spanish moss and African savannah sun.  I have never even visited the South, but I miss it, myself.  And now it is the fastest growing economy in America.  And, to get elected to office, you don’t have to live in a gerrymandered district made out of a ghetto.  Are there Confederate flags on some of the pickups down there?  Yes, there are.  Some of them are remnants of racism. Some of them are a defiant statement against the stars and stripes that marched from Atlanta to the sea.  Some of them are about courage, however misdirected in terms of purpose, at places like the Shilo Meeting House and Gettysburg.  Pickett may have been a dog nuts lunatic, but from the standpoint of pure guts the charge he and his men made was the equivalent of storming the beach at Normandy

Respect for an enemy who fought well and fairly is about honor that stands apart from motive, and up till WWI was quite typical around the world.  When the Red Baron was shot down, the Allies treated his body with respect for a warrior in spite of his cause.  But, it doesn’t have to be a war. At the end of the great boxing matches, two men who have hated each other for years fall into each other’s arms in loving tribute to courage manned with honor.

Only a liberal Democrat could fail to understand something like that.  Only a liberal Democrat could be so bigoted as to fail to grasp the brotherhood of the spears which have been weilded beneath different flags.  My guess is this lack in liberal Democrats is due to the petulance at the heart of their ideology.  A “progressive” can never get on with life.  She carries her hate to the grave and beyond.

The New South is new in only a few ways.  Tolerance and respect for two. Unlike the North, religion still holds sway.  The dirty, cold cities of the North, dominated as they are by liberals, have spayed the church there.  But, in the south, on a Sunday, you can still hear hosannas and singing so rich and full that the soul that was hidden from the displeasure of political correctness now comes out and breathes for the first time in eras.

For lots of folks, life without God lacks warmth.  The black trek south is about warmth.

The South isn’t made of concrete.  It is made of delta dirt.  Of Georgia pines.  Of peanut farms and country lanes lined by old oak trees.  I know. I know.  They have shining cities made of chrome and glass.  They have running water and television and all that up to date stuff.  But, not far from the Atlanta cab stand is a porch on a tree-lined street.  And not far from that is a man in a straw hat, putting oil in his tractor.  I have never seen them, except in pictures, but I know they are there.  I know there is a river named the Suwannee, whose dark water flows so slowly that it seems more like a long narrow lake than a stream.

I know this because an old friend of mine recently had a heart attack not far from where I live in Oregon.  I beat on his chest until the EMTs arrived.  When he got out of the hospital, this famous, award-winning cinematographer, John Wilder Mincey, sold all of his studio lights, his cameras and his sound equipment, then got on a plane and went home to the South of his boyhood.  I think he is now living somewhere near Rome, Georgia, which I am told is in the middle of that state.  But, go look at the Savannah, Georgia telephone book, and see if you can find some Minceys.  It's hard to turn around in those parts without running into one.

He told me all about his South, so I know that he is warm, and can sit beneath a pecan tree and eat a moon pie.  He can fish for brim, and talk to gators along the slow waters.  The white folks there sound like the black folks here.  Both races in the South speak the same language.  Not ebonics, but the true southern argot.  No wonder it feels like coming home to so many in the modern black diaspora.  Coming home to a place where they’ve never been before.  Isn’t that a line from a famous song?  I can’t recall which one.

“We understand our black folks,” said a white southerner.  “We understand our white folks,” said a black southerner.  What a northern liberal would call racism strikes me as a strange, delightful, warm and brotherly competitive bond.  Like two old friends arguing who is the best at catching bass.

I’m glad so many of them can now go home.  In a way, I envy them.  What a fine  adventure it will be. 

It’s hard to believe it, but damned if after all these years the Civil War isn’t finally over.  The true colors of the new South are red, white and blue.

(LL)

© 2003 Oregon Magazine