The New South?

Last weekend was my first trip to Mississippi. As we drove past Jefferson Davis' last home of Beauvoir, I happened upon what I thought was a huge traffic jam in Gulfport, Mississippi. The even stranger part was that tons of people were sitting in lawn chairs facing the street and watching the traffic, occasionally roused by noise and exhaust. Eventually I pulled down the window and asked what was going on. "It's Cruisin' the Coast! I'll tell you when to reve your engine!" was the reply. I kid you not. Read a meticulous account of the events at the Biloxi Sun Herald.

Before I left for the trip, I was told to count the number of times someone mentioned the Civil War. It was good advice. In addition to being called "the unfortunate disagreeent between the North and the South," I also heard "the Great War," "the War between the States," or just "The War."

Most of these references were during my visit to Natchez, a small town that's known for its antebellum homes, several of which are kept in pristine order. The town used to be one of the wealthiest before the Civil War. It fell into a depression afterwards from which it's never fully recovered although tourism seems to be a new outlet. Mix tourism with a painful past and you hear references to "servants" as opposed to slaves and other euphemisms. My visit was during the Fall Pilgrimage when the homes are open to the public. Pilgrimage is a strange term which I never got around to figuring out. In the Spring Pilgrimage, there's a pageant, a local tradition since the 1930s, in which the King and Queen of the Pilgrimage dress in Civil War attire, the man in a Confederate uniform and a woman in a hoop-skirt dress.

To be fair, however, most of Jackson looked like any small town suburb...which is almost kind of sad in a way.