North and South share similar social problems, erasing regional differences
Sanford returns to the South's burden of its historical legacy, despite the region's industrial growth. However, he discusses how the North now shares the South's cultural and racial problems, eliding regional differences.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Terry Sanford, [date unknown]. Interview A-0140. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
On that point, is the South really a region? Is it that much different
than the rest of the country?
- TERRY SANFORD:
-
There's no question about it.
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
How is it different?
- TERRY SANFORD:
-
It's a difference in the sense of history, a difference because it's been
the only oppressed "nation" ever to have to deal with
the United States government. It's been the only enemy that the United
States government has ever extracted tribute from after a military
defeat. It's been the only nation that - and, again, in quotes - that,
having been defeated, was not given a helping hand in rebuilding it by
the national government. And obviously, in this, we were too close to
home. Defeat had helped the Germans and the Japanese, but it was
impossible to get rid of the bitterness than divided the North from the
South. And it has been oppressed. There's no question about it. The
Southern Governor's Conference was organized to fight the discriminatory
freight rates that prevented industry from coming to the South. It's
been . . . it had to, having had the slaves freed, it then had to carry
almost the total burden of integrating and educating the freed slave
into society, without any help. No federal funds for education. A little
bit of foundation money temporarily for a period of several years, which
of course was ineffective. So the South, out of it's own exclusion and
it's own bitterness for fifty years, became a region apart. And they . .
. that was thought as a region.
- JACK BASS:
-
Do you think the South . . .
- TERRY SANFORD:
-
I think they're over that, I might say.
- JACK BASS:
-
Do you think the South has shed its inferiority complex?
- TERRY SANFORD:
-
To a considerable extent, I think so. The Deep South still has the . . .
a somewhat justifiable chip on its shoulder. But I think it's pretty
well disappearing. I think you look at Louisiana now, and Mississippi,
for that matter. I was down there not long ago to a Governor's
Conference on Education. I think the South is beginning to look at
itself as a region that just by, again, the chance and turn of history
is in a position to lead the country in a constructive way. Again, I'm
speaking partially from my bias, but I think that that's true. I think
more and more people are seeing that we've got a freshness and an
opportunity of growth, and many, many advantages. That we can be the
brightest part of the nation now.
- WALTER DE VRIES:
-
So you don't see these regional differences diminishing, but . . .
- TERRY SANFORD:
-
Yes, I see them diminishing as differences, because I think our problems
are the same problems that the rest of the nation has. I think as we
look at . . . I think any region can deal with some of its own problems
better than they can be dealt with as part of a national pattern. I
think particularly, just to take a narrow example, that New England can
deal with problems of transportation better than they can take a pattern
for nationwide transportation programs and make it fit them. I think we
can do it in terms of zoning and regional planning and land use and so
on, a better job in one region than we can do if we try to do it
nationwide. I think the midwest has been able to do some things in
education better than they could be done nationwide. So I think there's
definitely a place for regional effort. But that's not necessarily
regional differences, and it's not necessarily that region
setting itself apart. But because we are historically a
region, there are a lot of things we can do well together.