At Ole Miss, a Valedictory to the Old South

Former Democratic governor Ray Mabus is working actively for Obama in Mississippi, which has probably made it easier for many loyal white Democrats to support a black candidate. Nevertheless, most registered voters are still Republican, and the state is without question conservative, far more likely to fall into McCain's column in November than into Obama's.

If you travel around the state, you'll still encounter some of the racial attitudes of the old South. True social integration has eluded Mississippians aged 50 and older, both black and white, even though they were shaped by the civil rights movement and the fight against segregation. But at the same time, the old racial divisions can no longer be automatically mined for political purposes. The University of Mississippi -- scene of that riot nearly a half-century ago -- is located in a congressional district where a heated special election took place in May. The Republican Party, along with outside groups, tried to defeat Democratic candidate Travis Childers by spending nearly $1 million on television commercials linking him to Obama. Childers won anyway.

In today's South, truth be told, the largest concerns are no longer racial or social but economic, as manufacturing jobs have replaced farming as a means of keeping residents in many Southern states. One of my favorite boyhood vistas, a vast cotton field near the Mississippi town of Canton, is now the site of a Nissan factory. In February 2007, Toyota announced that it would build a plant on a 1,700-acre site near Tupelo, Miss., the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Slowly, farmland is being converted to manufacturing, attracting people from far outside the region and even the country, further transforming the South's cultural and economic landscape.

As the saying goes, it's not your father's South anymore. Today, the region is more sophisticated and open-minded than most people outside it realize. Maybe the public and political strategists will both finally see that when John McCain and Barack Obama arrive on campus, and walk past those bullet-pocked walls.

eubanks@newamerica.net

W. Ralph Eubanks, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of "The House at the End of the Road: A Story of Race, Identity, and Memory," to be published in May 2009.