The South is a wonderful place. One full of beautiful people and the true beauty of America’s landscape.

The South provides warmth to the northerners who fly their coupe at least once a year to bask in the warmth of the southern sun and if the Midwest is the bread basket of America then the South is surely the Ham plate.

Stretching from the banks of the Rappahannock to the shores of the Keys, the South is known as a place of kind souls, good cooking, and beautiful architecture. While it’s reputation, on one hand, is positive, the South has a history that’s not so nice.

In years past, the South has been a haven for more than good barbecue; it has been the center of racism, hate and a conservative nature unparalleled anywhere else.

From its start, the South was born with a crooked tooth and a conviction for the wrong side of history. Beginning its life with the penal colonial that is now Georgia and the pirates that loved the treacherous coast of the Carolinas. The South has always been a place of baddies and evil, an almost socially backwards part of the world. There were schools built to “civilize” the natives, though the record shows they did not ask for the help and through the course of wars, greed and various presidents, slaves were brought in, Native Americans were slaughtered and species were pushed to extinction. So up to this point the South’s legacy isn’t great.

From there the South continued to stay its ground and do the wrong thing, through the adoption of slave codes, the civil war, Jim Crow Laws and segregation, the South’s white population continuously forgot, hurt and pushed aside their fellow country men.

A legacy deeply engrained in the minds of many Americans and still a fight fought today. The South has continued some of its bad behavior into the 21st Century with LGBT rights violations and the idea of “freedom from religious persecution” which is just fancy talk for trying to make Christianity the government mandated religion.

But the South isn’t all bad. It’s not like it can’t learn. And just like a bad little kid, there is always big brother whose job is to put little brother in his place.

So over the course of time, as history can attest, the North has taken the role of big brother and slapped the South around when they were doing wrong and kicked’em until they fixed their attitude. The North has guided and aided the development of the South to create a more sustainable and more caring population for the next generation.

The North has had a positive influence on the South for the most part, except for those carpet-baggers but the South probably had that coming. However, the South is learning and while still making mistakes, the South is maturing. As the South, we want to keep the fun loving attitude that everyone knows, the gentile reputation we have, and simply to be more inclusive. All over the South, centers of population are becoming more secular and more diverse. Issues of the past are not holding people back anymore and change is afoot.

In many Southern towns, the towns people are putting on art shows and public art displays to showcase the creativity and masterful talent of the South. Southern writing is also getting a boost, with an interest in the dialect and slang speak of the South getting more recognition.

The South does have its history and it still sits sometimes on the wrong side of history, keeping its views on the more “traditional” side, but thankfully it has big brother the North to keep it on track and to help remind the South of equality an openness. While big brother is more than not right, everyone knows the second child is always more fun.

So come on down, y’all! Come and sit a spell. I’ll whip up some lemonade and we can sit on the front porch and talk about art or writing or about the past. The New South is a place of friendly interchange and open conversation, oh, and the best fried chicken you’ll ever have, or pretty much anything fried. So come down and talk, we just have one rule, leave your bad feelings at the door.

So as the new social progress flows in, arts and culture flourish, and the excellent people remain, I have one thing to say to the old southern way – Goodbye Dixie, don’t the door hitcha on the way out.