They have a lot of people to convince. The Southern Focus Poll, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, every year asks Southerners whether they would support a serious secession effort without war. Between 8 percent and 16 percent of Southerners answer ''yes'' in any given year. Not overwhelming numbers, but, said party leader Madison Cook of Tennessee, ''that's our base.
Southern nationalists tend to be conservative, religious, and mistrustful of the federal government.
They also tend to be white. I'm told we have a few blacks, but I don't know of them,'' Cook said. The lack of participation by blacks could be explained in part by the party's enthusiastic support of the Confederate flag, in all of its incarnations. An oversize flag was the backdrop for the party's inaugural news conference in August, and it adorns the party's Web page. Some party members plan to be at a Jan. 8 rally in Columbia, S.C., to support the controversial flag that still flies atop the South Carolina State House.