“I remember my own father and uncles returning from World War II with stories of how southerners, particularly rural and working-class ones, were denigrated and ridiculed by conscripted urbanites for their speech, manners, attitudes.”

I remember my own father and uncles returning from World War II with stories of how southerners, particularly rural and working-class ones, were denigrated and ridiculed by conscripted urbanités for their speech, manners, attitudes. There was a general cultural attack at the time on “hillbillies.” This was the beginning of their sectional consciousness I am sure, which had hardly existed before, as it was of mine. It was after this that we began to display the Confederate battle flag at times from the front porch. It was ten years before Brown v. Board of Education, and had nothing to do with the Dixiecrat movement or with football.