Integration: A new southern dimension

Abstract

Jimmy Carter's political success is difficult to explain. How could a virtually unknown southerner from a rural community win victory after victory in the 1976 presidential primaries? What factors allowed this Georgia peanut farmer to gain such national prominence? Some persons rationally evaluate Carter's popularity in terms of his wellorganized, highly-disciplined campaign style. Others explain his political success by pointing out that the nation did not vote for a presidential candidate but actually selected a preacher possessing the Plains truth. Hard work and religion, however, do not fully explain Carter's political appeal. In part, we may explain his national attraction in terms of a new era of regional reconciliation. Ten years ago a southern Democratic or Republican presidential candidate would not have been possible. So long as segregation existed in the South, northerners would not endorse a southern presidential candidate. Except for Lyndon B. Johnson (self-proclaimed westerner), no southern politician has been acceptable as a presidential candidate by the two major political parties during the past century. Recently with new civil rights laws and public school integration, southerners have found that have suddenly become more acceptable as national political figures. foundation of Carter's campaign rested upon the realization that southern racial integration had opened new political horizons. Carter never has underestimated this fact; he has often stated that these social changes were of utmost importance: The Civil Rights Laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1965 were the best things that happened to the South in my lifetime; said Carter, they have had a liberating effect on both Whites and Blacks in the South and America in general.2 But the political acceptance of the southerner, which Carter symbolizes, does not manifest any radical change in the southern image. Indeed, southerners are still portrayed in movies as slow, tobacco chewing individuals who would rather