The South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960–1980 by Zachary J. Lechner (review)

In The South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960–1980, Zachary J. Lechner examines the cultural uses of the South. As political and cultural anxiety—and a general sense of “rootlessness”—increased nationwide, many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s took some comfort in viewing the rural white South as a “repository of discarded values” (pp. 5, 2). Imagined as an “authentic,” tradition-bound place with strong family values, Lechner argues, the American South had the “capacity to manage postwar cultural trepidations that eluded simple political categorization” (pp. 2, 20). While the book is not exhaustive, Lechner provides a comprehensive analysis of several southern cultural flashpoints of the period. The diverse array of subjects under examination helps “draw attention to the flexibility of discourses about white southernness” (p. 20). Chapters explore iconic southern rock bands and politicians, underground counterculture, films, and television programs.

Lechner identifies three imagined Souths—what he calls the Changing South, the Vicious South, and the Down-Home South—in 1960s and 1970s popular media. Although race was central to accounts of the South during the civil rights movement, the Down-Home South discourse largely overlooked racial discord. Instead, images of the Down-Home South (as seen in folksy sitcoms like The Beverly Hillbillies [1962–1971] and The Andy Griffith Show [1960–1968]) depicted the white rural South as a feel-good escape from social change and the “empty promises of modernity” (p. 41). In his discussion of Alabama governor George Wallace and the films Walking Tall (1973) and Deliverance (1972), Lechner introduces another concept—the Masculine South. For white men who felt attacked by the gains made by the civil rights and women’s rights movements, the notion of the Masculine South proved especially appealing. The exotic and dangerous South of James Dickey’s novel-turned-film Deliverance gave readers and viewers an opportunity to exert vicariously their manhood and counter the purported softness of white-collar suburban life. Ardent segregationist Wallace espoused the violent rhetoric and “backlash racism” rooted in the Vicious South (p. 91). In contrast, fellow southern politician Jimmy Carter championed truth telling and racial healing in his 1976 presidential campaign, reflecting the Changing and Down-Home Souths. The popularity of both Wallace and Carter confirms not only the diversity of southernness but also its widespread allure among southerners and nonsoutherners alike in the 1960s and 1970s.

Fans of southern rock music will be particularly interested in this book. Classic anthems like “Sweet Home Alabama” (1974) offered a popular escape from the uncertainty many Americans felt in the 1970s. Such songs served as unapologetic salutes to the so-called southern way of life and celebrated working-class masculinity. Lechner explains how the Allman Brothers Band drew on notions of the Down-Home South and the Changing South, whereas Lynyrd Skynyrd played up themes of defiance that were a prominent part of the Masculine South. The coexistence of the Allman Brothers’ interracial “countercultural ethos” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Rebel macho” persona once again reveals the malleability of “southernness” (p. 19, 164). As Lechner so acutely argues, “In the South of the Mind, redneck fists and hippie peace signs both had their places” (p. 114).

By illuminating “the mythical underpinnings of white southernness,” Lechner not only helps readers understand the country’s conflicted relationship with the region but also sheds light on national politics and culture (p. 13). He joins scholars of the “new” southern and cultural studies by situating his account into a larger national narrative of post–World War II America. In so doing, Lechner weaves a narrative depicting the South as simultaneously the “other” and “us.” His masterful use of different source types uncovers and explains imaginings of the South and how their connotations evolved...