Page 341 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

INTRODUCING THE DEEP SOUTH  339

Civil Rights Movement, such as those at of Walmart, which was founded in
Selma, Alabama, in 1965, began to change Arkansas, and still has its corporate head-
things for the better. quarters there. In contrast, one of the
region’s economic darlings of the 1990s,
People & the Economy the Mississippi-based telecommunications
The Deep South is remembered for company, WorldCom, crashed into
its often troubled history as well as its bankruptcy in 2002.
people’s resolute and indomitable spirit
to cope with the problems of the past. Culture & the Arts
Despite a large exodus of African- If culture and the arts were the most
Americans to northern US cities after the valuable market commodities, the
Civil War, descendants of slaves still form Deep South would probably be among
a large percentage of the popu lation, the wealthiest regions in the country.
and the slow but steady process of The area has been instrumental in creating
overcoming racial segregation has helped some of the world’s most popular forms
transform the region. Today, while racial of musical, literary, and culinary expression.
discrimination is illegal, in reality there Jazz, for example, grew from the bubbling
remains a distinct gap in opportunities melting pot of Creole culture that was
between whites and nonwhites. New Orleans after the Civil War, while
Another distinctive group of people, the blues and its offspring, rock ‘n’ roll,
Louisiana’s Cajuns, live in the watery emerged from the slave songs of the
region north and only a handful of Mississippi Delta. Respected authors
tribes, including the Choctaw in central such as Tennessee Williams and William
Mississippi, west of New Orleans. Yet Faulkner, and novels like Harper Lee’s
another is found in the densely forested classic To Kill a Mockingbird, helped earn
mountains of Arkansas and northern the Deep South a place in world literature,
Alabama. Long denigrated as “hill-billies” while the mélange of Cajun, Creole,
like their figurative cousins in Tennessee, “Soul Food,” and barbecue make it a
Kentucky, and West Virginia, these moun- great place to travel for culinary delight.
tain people have a fiercely protected
independence and self-reliance. Hunting
and fishing, both for recreation and
sustenance, are still popular here, as are
traditional crafts and the “bluegrass” music
derived from the folk music of the Scottish
and Irish forebears of this group.
As the cotton-based economy of the
plantation and the Reconstruction
disappeared, little emerged to take its
place. Thanks to inexpensive imports, the
region’s once-thriving textile industry has
all but disappeared. Except for the steel
mills of Birmingham, Alabama, the corridor
of petrochemical factories along the
Mississippi in Louisiana, and the gambling
centers in the Mississippi Delta and along
the Gulf of Mexico, the Deep South still
suffers from a major lack of industry and
employment opportunities. Success stories Statue of William Faulkner in the courthouse square in
include the world-dominating retail might downtown Oxford, Mississippi

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