The “Golden Era of Southern Governors” led to multi-state institutions that helped Southerners advance education, economic development, banking, and technology, says the former head of two regional agencies. The dismantling of many of those multi-state groups has left the South with a long list of unfinished business.
Perhaps it comes from losing a war together, but the South has had periods of great regional solidarity in the contemporary era. There is a sense in which folks in Mississippi care about their brethren in Georgia, South Carolina, and other Southern states in a way that it is difficult to imagine people in Indiana caring about their counterparts in Illinois. This sense of regional identity is the fuel for collective action that can promote reactionary causes (opposition to civil rights, for example) or progressive efforts (for example, education reform).
This is the story of the rise and fall of progressive regionalism in the South from the 1970s to the present. As always, it was determined by the make up and outlook of the political leadership in the states. The ascendance of positive regional action was led by a remarkable group of Southern governors in the 1980s and 1990s in what I call the “Golden Era of Southern Governors.” The ideological fracturing of the governors and the growing political polarization of both the region and the nation in turn caused the demise of those efforts from the 1990s to the present.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The author served as the head of two organizations described in this article. Jesse L. White Jr. was Executive Director of the Southern Growth Policies Board from 1982-1990 and was Federal Co-chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission from 1994-2002.
Jesse L. White Jr. is a Professor of the Practice in City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Formerly he headed the university’s Office of Economic and Business Development, served for nine years as Federal Co-Chairman of the Appalachian Regional Commission, and for eight years as Executive Director of the Southern Growth Policies Board.