That’s some tightly woven good research right there. Good on ya. Put me down as a hard pass on Natchez, as well.
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Do you spend all your time in the white parts of town? But even in the white parts of the south, there are enclaves. Look for Reconciling Methodist churches and other welcoming congregations. Also, look for arts communities. My family in Kentucky have a farm in the sticks and make beautiful pottery. I’m sure you can find conservative artists, but I’d bet this is a good way to get leads.
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Using this as a reference, re: the U.S. Civil War of 1861 to 1865…
I searched this site:
re:
and came up with these nodes:
Showing 159 communities.
I acknowledge I am a human being and I am subjective and YMMV etc. etc.
Please devise your own parameters and visit the IC site if you are still curious.
Forming and formed,
communes and ecovillages and intentional communities,
not all of them rural,
none of them perfect,
~159 nodes in what I will crudely call “The Slave States” and certainly those south of the Mason-Dixon line.
(NB: I live in an intentional community; have for over 20 years. None of them are perfect. None.) (I’d like to say that in some cases, if there’s a charismatic leader or movement involved, it can devolve into something complicated including but not limited to a dang cult of personality.) (The sharpest end of this multi-pronged sharp stick is this predictably disastrous yet fascinating story here that I have posted elsewhere on bOING.)
So if I were to make a pitch here like “hey, we can make our own reality” or similar optimistic, I’d say please check these nodes at the link with an open mind. If there’s anything I’ve learned about dreaming big, it’s that sometimes I have to find a way or make one. It’s a lot of work.
If you prefer to jump in to a fun cool spot already in underway (and probably pretty expensive), I think that @DukeTrout 's list…
… is a really solid chunk to chew on and experiment with. (Heads up: I spent a lot of time in NOLA and the tapwater’s definitely iffy, so drink bottled. Most all the residents there who can afford to do so, do. Or maybe that’s not so much of a priority esp. if you’re not a supertaster etc.)
And if one expands the geographic params a bit, all kinds of funky wild cool places can be added for consideration (a really random sample off the top of my mind, not meant to be as an ideal a list as the IC list above)…
and
and
…depending on how much a priority one place’s on personal safety, etc. YMMV.
ETA:
Another parameter, for me anyway:
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Ohio interests me.
For one thing, this guy lives there with his family. He has the means to live anywhere.
I don’t understand Ohio.
But it interests me.
This Ohio county is 42% Amish.
Interesting to me.
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Thanks for the feedback. As noted, I have lived most of my my life below the Mason-Dixon. My southern existence and the locales where I have lived has been largely dictated by work and family. When I stated I was “still looking” I was speaking in a broader sense and I apologize for not being clearer on that. I’m not looking to move. I have lived in the north, the midwest and Europe, and each return to the south required a not altogether pleasant adjustment. But, here we are.
I am also familiar with many of the towns/cities mentioned/suggested and I agree that they are not your average southern cities. Austin, TX? Very cool town. But at the end of the day, Ted Cruz is still your senator and Rick Perry was your governor for 15 years. Ashville, NC ? Yeah, lived not too far away, and thirty minutes out of town you’re right back in Mayberry, so to speak. And while I applaud the recent gains made in Georgia, I also know that the next election cycle can turn that around in a heartbeat.
As for sticking to the white parts of town? No, I don’t, but I have lived towns, both north and south, where doing otherwise was really not a wise choice.
So for now, I’ll bide my time in my little redneck town where we are 90% white, Trump is Jesus’ brother and an unnecessary ordinance is on the books making english the official language of the county. Fortunately, Wash DC is just over an hour away where the wife and I can occasionally escape to for a dose of culture and to satisfy our jones for a sweet spread of Ethiopian food.
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The easiest way to understand Ohio is to stop thinking of it as one place. Culturally, linguistically, politically, hell even down to soil geology it is starkly divided by region. The northern edge of the state had its white settlement tied to New England with Connecticut maintaining a claim until 1800, then spent the next couple hundred years focused on industry and commerce tied to the lake. The southeast is tied into the Appalachian culture and economy. The southwest was tied to the south through the river trade. The central part of the state was much more agrarian until comparatively recently.
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This is one of the most cogent explanations I have heard re Ohio, ever.
Thank you.
Here’s a few things I knew (for years) but maybe some folks will get a fresh sense of how complex Ohio is. For one thing, it was a massive wine production region for a while:
http://www.findohiowines.com/about-ohio-wineries/history-of-ohio-wines/
https://www.shoresandislands.com/things-to-do/glacial-grooves-state-memorial?id=12712
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An expansion of @moortaktheundea’s explanation is the thesis of Colin Woodward’s American Nations: American Nations: The Official Homepage at colinwoodard.com
I found it an interesting read. The main caveat is that it mostly applies to white cultural divides and white migration. It also, IIRC, doesn’t deal with urban vs rural divides.
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Even the wine thing shows the split. The Cincinnati area was a major wine making region prior to the civil war, but the modern northern Ohio wine industry has almost no connection. They use different grapes, production processes, and harvest schedules.
The book is definitely one of the things that shaped my view on that, but the history of settlement in Ohio has a similar split in nonwhite migration patterns and some related things for general urban/rural split. Northern Ohio’s native communities pre-Beaver wars were still tied more to the lake than they were to downstate. At the time of the Beaver Wars, a lot of the state was depopulated, then repopulated by returning refugees, who often ended up occupying new areas as part of land swaps in treaties. During the Great Migration the source regions for black migrants to Cleveland were generally further east in the south, while Cincinnati largely received people up the river and as a result had a much larger share of people from the delta region. The urban rural is always an issue, but the history of immigration laws, the orphan trains, and the canal system would make that a much longer essay in Ohio than I am looking to get into.
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If anyone knows of an analogous book wrt Mississippi, specifically, please chime in.
Thanks in advance.
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Holy moly, there must be a million stories like this one, but this one is part of Natchez past and present.
The arc of the wikipedia entry is worth reading in full.
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Ahhh the Deeeep South, where you’re paid to be discriminated against. People must be moseying on outta there fast.
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