The Palmetto State: The Making of Modern South Carolina

14. Change and Continuity

14 change and continuity Life in South Carolina has changed more since World War II than in any other period of the state’s history, except for the brief era of Reconstruction. The twin forces of transformation flow from the interconnected federally mandated collapse of segregation and the pace of economic modernization.Yet the state retains a strong sense of continuity with its past. Continuity with the past also remains strong as southern identity continues to assert itself,especially the deeply embedded sense of place.That cultural identity—much of it linked to the little-recognized melding of western European andAfrican influences—is found in food,music,and religion.From grits and collard greens to sweetened iced tea and pecan pie,natives of the state take for granted much of what they eat and how it is prepared. The official state dance, the shag, emerged from white teenagers in the 1950s learning the steps from blacks and the folk transformation of the beat from rhythm and blues to beach music. And there’s the role of religion, with its message of brotherhood that significantly underlaid the relative ease of transition into a multicultural society. As South Carolina moves fully into the twenty-first century, however, its future may be shaped as never before by the actions of an increasingly diverse population, including in-migrants and a generation of natives who have grown up mostly attending integrated public schools. Under almost total Republican control, however, state government in the first decade of the twenty-first century drifted from the previous half century’s focus on improving public education at all levels as the engine driving economic development. Much more attention was paid to keeping taxes low and shifting the tax burden away from those better off than to grappling with the issues related to developing a healthy and well-educated workforce to complement business-friendly government. On the surface, public life in contemporary South Carolina shows little outward evidence of the withering hand of Jim Crow. Below the surface, however , the effects and residue of past discrimination remain fully present in terms of racial disparities in health, education, and income. The signs of significant growth in prosperity remained offset by the less visible reality of enduring poverty for many. More than a half-million South Carolinians lived below the poverty level in 2005. The almost identical rates of poverty among African Americans and those of Hispanic origin tripled that of whites’(26.4 percent among blacks and 8.6 percent among whites). Rates of unemployment and personal income further reflected these racial differences. White unemployment was 6.9 percent in 2004, compared to 10.2 percent— almost 50 percent higher—among blacks. Black per capita income in the state amounted to 53 percent of that for whites—$11,776 and $22,095, respectively.1 Measured differences in racial attitudes disclose a range of difference in perception between white and black South Carolinians. A 2000 survey on racial attitudes conducted for the Palmetto Project, a private nonprofit initiative (funded in part by corporations) to put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina, measured such differences. Fifteen percent of whites and 37 percent of blacks called race relations “the most important” problem facing the state. Blacks also believed far more than whites that“a white child in South Carolina has a much better chance of achieving financial success.” Half of all blacks agreed with the statement, but only nineteen percent of whites. On a different question, whether a nonwhite person in South Carolina has“as good a chance as a white person at getting a job for which he or she is qualified,”the level of disagreement narrowed.Among whites,37 percent strongly agreed and 14 percent somewhat,compared to 24 percent strongly agreeing and 18 percent somewhat by blacks. The greatest disagreement came in response to the state’s system of criminal justice. When asked in 2000 if it treats nonwhites “more harshly than whites,”58 percent of blacks strongly agreed, but only 12 percent of whites did. That perception may well have changed after videotapes surfaced of a series of incidents depicting racially abusive treatment by several highway patrolmen, who were only minimally reprimanded. Legislative hearings followed in 2008, resulting in resignations by the State Highway Patrol’s two top officials. A lack of white awareness of the factual disparity may well have accounted for much of the white perception in the 2000...