The Farmville herald. (Farmville, Va.) 1957-current, 1961-10-31
W. D. workmon
W. D. Workmon
The South Must Be Recognized

CHARLESTON, S. c. = Out of
this heartland of the Old South Is
coming a persuasive point OF
view. It argues that the South,
today as yesterday, is nation
within a nation, and should be
recognized as such.
The spokesman of this view
Soint is a young attorney and
.sriter named Marion H. Sass.
He comes naturally by his liter
airy leanings. since his father was
the late Herbert Ravenel Sass,
author and naturaliSt.)
The younger Sass subscribes to
the Southern arg ume n IS for
states rights, constitutional gov
eminent. and racial separation.
But he gives higher billing to
what he calls Southern national
ISM" and he poses the issue in
these words:
Shall there continue to exist
in America a land, a society, a
distinct cultural entity, known as
The South?-or shall there be in
stead only a geographical region.
southern portion of the USA'?
In short -. shall the South, as
such, Survive?"
What Sass actually is doing,
whether the realizes it or not, is
giving clear expression to a
gnawing concern which has Wor-
ried Southerners increasingly in
recent years, frequently without
their knowing what they were
worrying about.
He is updating = amoung the
mid-Century pressures of indus
trialiZation, urbanization, in-mi-
grafton, and desegregation a
concept which has been touched
briefly by earlier writer's, but
without stress or persistence.
Others have pointed out, with
both historical and psychological
accuracy, that the forces brought
to bear against the South from
1920 to the present have strength
ened rather than weakened the
sense of Southern nationalism.
That feeling was nurtured in the
ordeal of the War Between the
States, and hardened in the
mold as Sass puts it, by the
oppressive Reconstruction era.
The re iona consciousness
which developed out of these
events is something alien to the
t h j n k g Of non-Southerners.
They find it hard to conceive of
a spirit of Southern nationalism
within the larger framework of
American nationalism.
But, here again, Sass drives
home a telling argument. He
likens the South's position within
the United States to that Of Ire
land vis-a-vis England, or Slo-
vakia within Czechoslovakia, or
French Canada within Canada.
The latter analogy he terms 1.-The
closest parallel of ALL" adding
this appraisal of the South and of
French Canada:
Both are mature, levelheaded
nationalisms. Both seek the pro-
lection and perpetuation of their
respective cultural identities
and. concurrently, the attain
ment Of economic and political
equality with the dominant group
rather than outright separa-
ton"
Sass sees the South as being
fundamentally concerned with
two major goals: recognition of
its differentness (he prefers that
word over difference; and
recognition of its right to be diff
ferent.
1t is that latter goal which
poses today, as it has posed for
generations. the chief obstacle to
continuation of Southern-ness.
W. j. Cash wrote of it 20 years
ago in 1.-The Mind of the South"
when he said that the most
fundamental drive back Of yam
kee behavior" was the will to
wean the South from its diver
gences and bring it into the flow
Of the nation the instructive
urge of men in the mass to put
down W h a q " @ r differs from,