Here's What Wing Nuts Love About the South

"The South accounted for 27 percent of the U.S. population in 1940 but roughly 36 percent of total spending for military facilities.” p. 55

“By 1960 the South provided only 12 percent of all federal tax revenue but received 25 percent of all federal spending.” p. 63

July 2, 1964 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, but observes, “We have lost the South for a generation.” p. 89

Roughly 40 percent of black adults were registered to vote across the South in 1964.” p. 93 (But only 10 percent in Mississippi and 3 percent in Selma, Alabama.)

Voting Rights Act of 1965 p.96

Black registration in the states of the old Confederacy stood at 29 percent in 1960, but at 63 percent by 1968. p.97

Mid-1960s: “Unemployment payments in southern states typically ran from 30 to 40 percent below the national average and disability benefits were even lower.” p.98

Racial strife bad for business: During 1950s employment in strife-torn Little Rock grew by less than 2 percent, while rising 35 percent in Atlanta. In 1960s jobs in Atlanta and Charlotte grew by 6 and 26 percent respectively, but declined by 7 percent in New Orleans and 8 percent in Birmingham. p.106

School integration: “the percentage of southern black children attending racially mixed schools quickly shot up from 32 in 1968-69 to 79 by 1970-71, meaning that 44 percent of black students were now enrolled in white-majority schools in the South, as opposed to 28 percent in the North and West.” P.111

Only 35 percent of southern blacks age twenty to twenty-four were high school graduates in 1960, by 1977 this figure had more than doubled. P.113

John Wayne gave three $10,000 checks to George Wallace. P.125

Nixon’s Southern Strategy (Kevin Phillips in 1969): “The Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are.” P.132

“While northern whites continued to express strong support for school integration in principle, a 1973 Gallup Poll found 63 percent of them opposed to sending their own children to predominantly black schools.” P.134

The number of all-country radio stations rose from just 80 in 1961 to over 1,100 by 1975. P.162

Evil Rank Hypocrisy I: Senator Ernest Hollings: some of South Carolina’s large farmers could pull in as much as $40,000 in federal incentives for not planting certain crops and yet remain “as red-blooded, capitalistic, free enterprising and patriotic as ever before.” On the other hand, “give the poor, little hungry child a 40-cent breakfast…and you’ve destroyed his character…[and] ruined his incentive.”

Evil Rank Hypocrisy II: In Sunflower County Mississippi planters cashed in on more than $10.2 million in cotton program checks in 1967, while federal food-relief expenditures totaled only $446,000 for two-thirds of the county’s population who live below the poverty line. P.167

Evil Rank Hypocrisy III: “There was no federal food program at all in Clarendon County, South Carolina, where 70 percent of the population lived in poverty and 121 farmers had collected individual crop subsidy payments in excess of $5,000, adding up to a total of $1.6 million.” P, 167

Evil Rank Hypocrisy IV : “ was also no food assistance available in Burke County, Georgia, where the poverty rate was higher [than 70 percent] and 130 farmers received subsidy payments totaling well in excess of $1.9 million in 1967.” P.167

Southern states took in $11.5 billion more in federal funds than they paid out in federal taxes in 1975. P. 173

Southern states registered 7 of the ten worst states for most male-on-female killings in 2006. P.222

For states where data was available, 7 of the 10 highest rates were posted by states “in the very heart of the holier-than-thou southern Bible Belt.” P.222