Article on Atlanta and the "new South ", 1974

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"downtown business district less attractive than Birmingham's."

The Birmingham of 1974, of course, is only a pale shadow of what it was in 1945, and the same is true of the leading cities in practically every Southern state.

Look, if you will, at another field of SOuthern growth: education. Southern minds c now can grow to their full potential because the region's long, dark age of educational deprivation is drawing to a close. From elementary schools to the universities, an era of adequacy has dawned, which represents a breakthrough of long-term importance. One reason is that the crippling phenomenon of a dual school system, separate but never really equal, as been brought to an end. One of the most interesting educational developments is the rise of excellent vocational schools and specialized job-training programs in several Southern states; some of these, like South Carolina's, provide tailor-made training for new plants moving in, and can be a unique asset for industry.

Taken in their totality, the changes in the modern South present an exhilarating prospect. "The changes stimulate and reinforce another," one Southerner has observed. "Racism diminishes, industry moves in, and the cross-migration of people accelerates. The educational level i rises, and people accustomed to being left out find themselves[illegible] near the center of things. Confidence rises, and suspicion declines."

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Now to each of these changes, I am fully aware that there is a dark side. If black people now can vote freely for the first time in a century, it is also true that race-tinged issues like busing have polarized the Southern electorate, especially in Presidential elections.

If race relations are less tense than they once were, some of the peace has been bought at the price of a massive outmigration of black people -- one of the great folk movements of modern history, forced in part by the South's own racist policies. I would, however, invite your attention to the signficant countermovement of blacks from the North to the South, which began some five or seven years ago. Many [illegible] young blacks, especially the college educated and most talented, apparently believe that the South now offers them decent jobs and a way to live in dignity not available in the hectic Northern cities.

^/__To return to the problem area, though, I think one must remember that if the ^{modern Southern} economy looks brighter, a lot of industry -- especially in apparel, electronic assembly, and of course textiles -- has been attracted to the South to avoid unions and obtain cheap labor. One should not forget that the levels of poverty here are far [illegible] greater than anywhere else in America. One still finds destitute, hungry people in the coastal lowlands, ^{in the Mississippi Delta south of Memphis,} in the [illegible] hollows of the Appalachian South, and if you will, a few blocks from where we are sitting right now. Come with me, if you will, and visit Summerhill, Cabbagetown, or Buttermilk Bottoms. ^{They are all part of Atlanta.} I [illegible] can show you black areas, and some white too, where people live in shanties fit for demolition on narrow, muddy, yes unpaved streets. ^/-- It was at the end of [illegible] World War II that Georgia's Governor Ellis Arnall urged Georgians, "Let's get off Tobacco Road." But ugly traces of that old Tobacco Road are still with the South.^__/

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Or consider the South's urbanization. A great deal of it makes one despair for the region, as the South takes on many of the garish qualities of the North and West and suburbanizes in a way to [illegible] create degrees of neighborhood segregation unknown in the Old South. [illegible]

One can even say [illegible] that if the [illegible] spiritual impediments of the South are being swept aside--the Confederate nostalgia, the deep regional guilt feelings and alibi psychology of old--there is a danger that the best of the Old South is in peril of being eradicated too. I speak of the South's traditional civility, its sense of place and community and family, its feeling for the tragic side of history -- values so lacking in the acquisitive and hitherto confident North. The age of rich Southern storytelling may give way before the homogenization of the television tuve. Super-Confederate patriotism may give way to super-American jingoism and an unblinking approval of all things military. And the sense of adversity [illegible] in the Southern mystique may be difficult to maintain if in fact the South is [illegible] no longer a defeated, impoverished region. Many sensitive Southerners now worry most about the unhappy side of the Americanization of their region.

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Now, before I go forward with an assessment of the South as a place to do coprorate business today, I think it's only fair to tell you my basic thesis_

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Now, whatever the sociological and political changes in the South have been and are today, I know that [illegible] an assessment of the [illegible] to do business today, particularly in relation to the corporate community and its activities on the state level, are of prime concern to most of you.

thesis will be---

there was a ^{not-always-attractive} [illegible] was of doing business in the ^old low-cost-labor, lower-power cost, laissez-faire South that attracted much of the industry here today...

that the rules of the game are fast being altered, through increased state regulation, campaign spending reports, growing unionization, and a more informed electorate;

that economically the South may begin to lose some of its advantages vis-a-vis the North;

but that regardless of all those factors, the region remains a very promising place to do business if one will only become and remained informed about ^its [illegible] changing political and economic conditions. [illegible]