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The Southern Mystique
Howard Zinn examines the politics of the South and his own experiences there. In this powerful volume, drawing on Zinn’s own experiences teaching in the South and working within the Southern civil rights movement, Zinn challenges the mystique and stereotypes surrounding the South, race relations, and how change happens in history. With a new introduction by the author.
312 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 1972
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About the author
Howard Zinn
245 books2,848 followersHoward Zinn was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist intellectual and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young People's History of the United States.
Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.
Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 29, 2014
The Southern Mystique is actually four thematically related essays. The first, “Is the Southern White Unfathomable?” argues that humans act according to their current situations more than what they may think are their unshakable values and assumptions. After some cataloging of psychologists who support his view, Zinn argues that humans can change their behaviors more easily than their beliefs and that attempting to fathom human thought is a losing proposition. According to Zinn, if more people of different races lived in the same place and grew used to each other, the “mystique” of each would vanish. “One of the values which middle-class Southern whites cherish,” he argues, “even more than segregation, is freedom from embarrassment.” Thus the most ardent segregationist will yield to social pressure rather than make a scene in an integrated barbershop and voters will elect candidates that reflect their actual needs more than ones who vowed to fight for segregation. “In practice,” Zinn states, “what we find most is a pragmatically shifting set of maneuvers, a search for openings, a flexible but insistent oppressing forward until a rampart sways and falls.”
The middle two essays describe Zinn and his students at Spellman College attempting to do more than sway a rampart; instead, they attempt to topple the castle. In “The ‘Mysterious’ Negro,” Zinn describes his interactions with students and faculty at Spellman in their attempts to get the federal government to enforce the Fourteenth amendment; in “Albany, Georgia: Ghost in the Cage,” Zinn examines a specific city as a representative example of “the Black Belt” and a place where “the mystique of the South is overwhelming, stifling, depressing.” Here Zinn tells the story of his and other’s attempts to have the federal government enforce the International Commerce Commission’s 1961 ruling that all train and bus facilities would be integrated. Such attempts were often met with violence and examples of the heroism that Zinn argues only a place like the South could create.
Finally, in “The South as a Mirror,” Zinn argues that all of the scorn heaped upon the South by supposedly enlightened northerners is an attempt to isolate what are actually American practices and values. “Far from being utterly different,” Zinn states, the South is really the essence of the nation” (emphasis in original). The aspects of Southern life most readily pointed out by others in a mood of self-righteousness—racism, violence, evangelicalism, xenophobia—are, according to Zinn, characteristics of American life that have been concentrated bellow the Mason-Dixon line. The South is “not a mutation born by some accident into the normal, lively, American family; it has simply taken the national genes and done the most with them.” And this is why the South is viewed as an alien place to those in the North: “Because the South embarrasses us, we try to disown it, apologize for it, hold it at a distance, pretend that it is an abnormal growth of the human body.” Such a train of thought recalls Flannery O’Connor’s line that “anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” Both she and Zinn viewed the South as peculiar yet filled with universally-found figures and truths.
Don’t let the title fool you: the mystique Zinn examines is a miasma that he argues hangs over the South, the region he calls “the most terrible place in America.” Zinn’s book is interesting both as firsthand reporting of lunch-counter sit ins and as a look at what a Zinn thought of the issues facing the South in the early 1960s. Like him or not, agree with his psychological explanation about the South as red-headed stepchild or not, a reader has to respect Zinn for never condescending to his reader and expressing himself in straightforward, workmanlike prose. Would that all academics wrote as clearly as he does and with as much conviction, regardless of their politics. Zinn never resorts to hand wringing, mealy-mouthed self-congratulation, or blanket accusations.
The middle two essays describe Zinn and his students at Spellman College attempting to do more than sway a rampart; instead, they attempt to topple the castle. In “The ‘Mysterious’ Negro,” Zinn describes his interactions with students and faculty at Spellman in their attempts to get the federal government to enforce the Fourteenth amendment; in “Albany, Georgia: Ghost in the Cage,” Zinn examines a specific city as a representative example of “the Black Belt” and a place where “the mystique of the South is overwhelming, stifling, depressing.” Here Zinn tells the story of his and other’s attempts to have the federal government enforce the International Commerce Commission’s 1961 ruling that all train and bus facilities would be integrated. Such attempts were often met with violence and examples of the heroism that Zinn argues only a place like the South could create.
Finally, in “The South as a Mirror,” Zinn argues that all of the scorn heaped upon the South by supposedly enlightened northerners is an attempt to isolate what are actually American practices and values. “Far from being utterly different,” Zinn states, the South is really the essence of the nation” (emphasis in original). The aspects of Southern life most readily pointed out by others in a mood of self-righteousness—racism, violence, evangelicalism, xenophobia—are, according to Zinn, characteristics of American life that have been concentrated bellow the Mason-Dixon line. The South is “not a mutation born by some accident into the normal, lively, American family; it has simply taken the national genes and done the most with them.” And this is why the South is viewed as an alien place to those in the North: “Because the South embarrasses us, we try to disown it, apologize for it, hold it at a distance, pretend that it is an abnormal growth of the human body.” Such a train of thought recalls Flannery O’Connor’s line that “anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.” Both she and Zinn viewed the South as peculiar yet filled with universally-found figures and truths.
Don’t let the title fool you: the mystique Zinn examines is a miasma that he argues hangs over the South, the region he calls “the most terrible place in America.” Zinn’s book is interesting both as firsthand reporting of lunch-counter sit ins and as a look at what a Zinn thought of the issues facing the South in the early 1960s. Like him or not, agree with his psychological explanation about the South as red-headed stepchild or not, a reader has to respect Zinn for never condescending to his reader and expressing himself in straightforward, workmanlike prose. Would that all academics wrote as clearly as he does and with as much conviction, regardless of their politics. Zinn never resorts to hand wringing, mealy-mouthed self-congratulation, or blanket accusations.
March 16, 2017
As I was finishing up Charles Payne's "I've Got the Light of Freedom" about organizing the Mississippi Delta in the 1950s and 1960s, I picked up Zinn's book as kind of an interlude as I got down to the last five or so chapters of Payne's book. I figured, Zinn has valuable recorded experience from the south at about the same time as Payne's book and it might be interesting to see if there are overlaps.
I certainly wasn't surprised that there were some overlaps. I also wasn't surprised, that much like Payne, Zinn focused on stories and people, everyday people, in his life as he taught at Spelman College and their struggles to desegregate Atlanta.
The four essays are a nice mix of Zinn's personal experiences as well as academic influences that gave the essays some theoretical direction. My gut told me that as I was reading some of the analysis he used was dated. Perspective can be gained by looking at the book as a historical document rather than an up to date text on race.
I found it a little slow in some areas but generally moving. And the stories, where Howard excels, were excellent.
I certainly wasn't surprised that there were some overlaps. I also wasn't surprised, that much like Payne, Zinn focused on stories and people, everyday people, in his life as he taught at Spelman College and their struggles to desegregate Atlanta.
The four essays are a nice mix of Zinn's personal experiences as well as academic influences that gave the essays some theoretical direction. My gut told me that as I was reading some of the analysis he used was dated. Perspective can be gained by looking at the book as a historical document rather than an up to date text on race.
I found it a little slow in some areas but generally moving. And the stories, where Howard excels, were excellent.
Want to read
July 2, 2022As seen in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...
June 23, 2023
Howard Zinn is, in my experience, one of the most engaging writers of social history ever to grace the shelves of American bookstores.
August 10, 2015
Having recently read the first volume of Taylor Branch's trilogy and Raymond Arsenault's more recent analysis of the 'freedom rides' movement, and being a fan of Zinn's work, I decided that it would be interesting to read about what was happening in the deep south in work that was written while these were still current events.
Howard Zinn witnessed the burgeoning civil rights movement as a history professor employed by Spelman University in Atlanta, Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s. I'm confused by the chronology of releases, but this was either the first or the second book Zinn had written about the movement in the south. Zinn's perspective is always in alliance with those who are oppressed by illegitimate authority and fighting back, so this book was unusually supportive of disruptive direct action tactics in opposition to segregation. The only reason I mention this support is because it was considered an extreme position when this book was released in 1964, and especially earlier when many citizens of the nation agreed that activists were legally and morally justified in opposing segregation, but that they should not commit themselves to these activities because of the violence they provoked.
Zinn targets this idea that southern white folks are so bound by the ideology of segregation and white supremacy that direct-action tactics cause problems for everybody, including the black folks who live in the same region and will inevitably bear the brunt of the riled up segregationists. Zinn uses post-Freudian psychological theory to make the claim that people are more inclined to amend cherished beliefs if they feel pressured to do so in other ways. For example, southern whites may feel more obligated to adhere to notions of being a good host and may ignore segregationist values to protect themselves from embarrassment.
The bulk of the book is devoted to two essays examining white northern perspectives about the south. The first perspective can be summarized as southern whites being implacably connected to segregation, preferring to lash out in violence before agreeing to racial integration. The second perspective is about black folks in the south and how they seem to accept segregation and their own inferior status. Zinn builds arguments against each perspective and explains how the movement for civil rights and the results of the provocations contradict these beliefs.
While this may have been helpful polemically in gaining supporters for the movement in the north, it is less interesting to me than the other sections of the book because his arguments already seem so obviously correct. Zinn was charged with going to Albany, Georgia in 1962 and filed a report about the conflagration there for the Southern Regional Council. This is where the book becomes an interesting contemporary account of a historical event I have read about in detail. I appreciated how forward-thinking Zinn was and it was great to picture the professor stomping around Albany when the conflict with Chief Pritchett was in full force. I'm looking forward to reading his book about SNCC.
Howard Zinn witnessed the burgeoning civil rights movement as a history professor employed by Spelman University in Atlanta, Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s. I'm confused by the chronology of releases, but this was either the first or the second book Zinn had written about the movement in the south. Zinn's perspective is always in alliance with those who are oppressed by illegitimate authority and fighting back, so this book was unusually supportive of disruptive direct action tactics in opposition to segregation. The only reason I mention this support is because it was considered an extreme position when this book was released in 1964, and especially earlier when many citizens of the nation agreed that activists were legally and morally justified in opposing segregation, but that they should not commit themselves to these activities because of the violence they provoked.
Zinn targets this idea that southern white folks are so bound by the ideology of segregation and white supremacy that direct-action tactics cause problems for everybody, including the black folks who live in the same region and will inevitably bear the brunt of the riled up segregationists. Zinn uses post-Freudian psychological theory to make the claim that people are more inclined to amend cherished beliefs if they feel pressured to do so in other ways. For example, southern whites may feel more obligated to adhere to notions of being a good host and may ignore segregationist values to protect themselves from embarrassment.
The bulk of the book is devoted to two essays examining white northern perspectives about the south. The first perspective can be summarized as southern whites being implacably connected to segregation, preferring to lash out in violence before agreeing to racial integration. The second perspective is about black folks in the south and how they seem to accept segregation and their own inferior status. Zinn builds arguments against each perspective and explains how the movement for civil rights and the results of the provocations contradict these beliefs.
While this may have been helpful polemically in gaining supporters for the movement in the north, it is less interesting to me than the other sections of the book because his arguments already seem so obviously correct. Zinn was charged with going to Albany, Georgia in 1962 and filed a report about the conflagration there for the Southern Regional Council. This is where the book becomes an interesting contemporary account of a historical event I have read about in detail. I appreciated how forward-thinking Zinn was and it was great to picture the professor stomping around Albany when the conflict with Chief Pritchett was in full force. I'm looking forward to reading his book about SNCC.
July 22, 2008
I could not put this book down for two reasons, those being the subject itself and the efficacy with which Howard Zinn writes. Half political meanderings and reflections, half narrative acocunts of the Civil Rights movement as he lived and observed it in Georgia during the 1960s, it was an overall goodread, nods to the website, ahem (cough).
It was part of a series released called the "Radical Sixties" and it's a little frustrating when you realize that a book begging for a speedier response to and general acknowledgement of the blight of racism not only on the South, but the nation as whole...and this has to be labeled "radical?" I'd rather it be "The Common Sense Sixties" but alas, no.
Really depressing accounts of violence inflicted upon black and whites alike. People who dared the local governments to follow through with what the Supreme Court had ruled and designated as law. And that is precisely what becomes the main problem, is the executive's refusal to act in accordance to the judicial's mandates, a problem he points out, not so uncommon among America's history. You start to get a little fired up in the middle, and by the end, you're just really depressed, seeing as how the same problems still exist in the U.S. 40 years later. Three cheers for democracy!
It was part of a series released called the "Radical Sixties" and it's a little frustrating when you realize that a book begging for a speedier response to and general acknowledgement of the blight of racism not only on the South, but the nation as whole...and this has to be labeled "radical?" I'd rather it be "The Common Sense Sixties" but alas, no.
Really depressing accounts of violence inflicted upon black and whites alike. People who dared the local governments to follow through with what the Supreme Court had ruled and designated as law. And that is precisely what becomes the main problem, is the executive's refusal to act in accordance to the judicial's mandates, a problem he points out, not so uncommon among America's history. You start to get a little fired up in the middle, and by the end, you're just really depressed, seeing as how the same problems still exist in the U.S. 40 years later. Three cheers for democracy!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews