The Southernization of America: A Story of Democracy in the Balance

"The South plays an outsized role in shaping the nation’s political and cultural landscape – for good and bad, according to this provocative collection of essays. Historian Frye Gaillard, a white man, and Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Cynthia Tucker, a Black woman, took inspiration from historian and journalist John Egerton’s The Americanization of Dixie: the Southernization of America published in 1974. They trace the political and social upheaval the country has experienced recently to milestones in Southern history, while also sounding notes of hope. “The story of the South is the story of America with all the implied pain and promise,” they write."