Interesting that you feel so defensive about the Southland. The reason so many of the battles of the Civil Rights movement took place there was because segregation was enforced by State law.

Defacto segregation was the norm throughout America; the largest black ghettos were then and are now in the North. Racism exists everywhere. Even though the Klan was begun in Pulaski,TN , the Nazis and the Aryan Brotherhood certainly cannot be characterized as Southern.

Incidently, all of my people are from Georgia and Texas.