Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics

by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, Maya Sen

The lasting effects of slavery on contemporary political attitudes in the American SouthDespite dramatic social transformations in the United States during the last 150 years, the South has remained staunchly conservative. Southerners are more likely to support Republican candidates, gun rights, and the death penalty, and southern whites harbor higher levels of racial resentment than whites in other parts of the country. Why haven't these sentiments evolved or changed? Deep Roots shows that the entrenched political and racial views of contemporary white southerners are a direct consequence of the region's slaveholding history, which continues to shape economic, political, and social spheres. Today, southern whites who live in areas once reliant on slavery—compared to areas that were not—are more racially hostile and less amenable to policies that could promote black progress. Highlighting the connection between historical institutions and contemporary political attitudes, the authors explore the period following the Civil War when elite whites in former bastions of slavery had political and economic incentives to encourage the development of anti-black laws and practices. Deep Roots shows that these forces created a local political culture steeped in racial prejudice, and that these viewpoints have been passed down over generations, from parents to children and via communities, through a process called behavioral path dependence. While legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act made huge strides in increasing economic opportunity and reducing educational disparities, southern slavery has had a profound, lasting, and self-reinforcing influence on regional and national politics that can still be felt today.A groundbreaking look at the ways institutions of the past continue to sway attitudes of the present, Deep Roots demonstrates how social beliefs persist long after the formal policies that created those beliefs have been eradicated.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Political Science, African American

286 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 22, 2018

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Deep Roots, Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen make the argument that the contemporary political views of Southern Whites are shaped by slavery. Specifically they find that Southern Whites in counties that were heavily reliant on slavery (where the 1860 enslaved population in the county was 25% or higher) are more likely to hold racially conservative views such as: feeling cooler about Blacks, being less supportive of Affirmative Action policies, and scoring high on racial resentment. The authors also show that Jim Crow Laws and socialization perpetuated these racially conservative views after slavery ended.

The idea that slavery, which ended over 150 years ago, has a predictive impact on how contemporary Southern Whites view racial issues seems a little surprising and not surprising all at the same time. It's probably not surprising if you are a Black Southerner. I know many Black elders and young people in my family and friend circles who would say that the book’s premise makes sense and they could have also told you the same thing from their personal experiences. However, it will seem surprising to others because a lot has changed in the South and we are usually taught that people change and adapt to specific circumstances over time. The authors show using various statistical analyses that behavioral path dependence is the explanation for why slavery has an impact on current Southern White attitudes. The authors defined the term like this “once the culture of a community has moved along a path, it becomes firmly rooted and difficult to reverse or change”, in other words: “History shapes contemporary political culture”. American slavery shaped the contemporary political culture of White Southerners.

The authors do a great job using data to show their main findings as well as considering other possible explanations that could explain contemporary Southern White attitudes such as current demographics and migration patterns. As you might guess none of the other explanations have a strong impact as slavery does.
The remainder of their book focuses on how Jim Crow and intergenerational socialization helped sustain racially conservative views among Southern Whites. The authors also show what effects civil rights policies and protests, had on racial inequities. They reveal that some inequities have been lessened since the 1960s but that racially conservative attitudes still remain depending on the county they lived in. Students of political science and history will enjoy reading this fascinating book.

First published on Ballasts for the Mind: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...

[Susan Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a scholarly work with intensive research into how the attitudes of southern whites have been and continued to be focused on supremacy of the white race. The authors prove that the abolishment of slavery and the passage of the 13, 14 15th amendments to the constitution the large planter class of the south needed a manner to secure cheap labor. Using numerous tactics of segregation and subjugation, known as Jim Crow, they instilled in the population a system including both laws and behaviors that secured for the "elites" a dominate way of life that ensured their economic and social standing would endure. Areas of higher percentage of black populations in 1860, those where large plantations with large numbers of slaves toiled, are much more likely today to oppose affirmative action, social reform, engage in racial animas and espouse a very conservative agenda. Areas of the south, which had a lower percentage of black to white population are more likely to hold attitudes that are less conservative in relation to racial prejudice. The authors prove that these biased attitudes are not effected by current populations percentages but by the Jim Crow attitudes and policies having been passed down thru the generations from parents to children and by the use of segregation in schools which reinforced the attitudes children experienced at home. The book is chock full of statistics and historical antidotes that show how this bias was promulgated. One example - children being present at the lynching of African Americans and being encouraged to collect souvenirs of the experience.

This book is not for everyone as it is statistical and fact based. The authors are diligent in proving their thesis and eliminating what some past historians have claimed about how white supremacy is impacted by current events. I enjoyed the statistics and it will make me view statements in other sources a bit differently if the statements are not supported by scientific studies. Although, I do believe that personal stories have a place in our history.

The authors show that these high slave areas still have the same attitudes today and the grip of these area politicians over the whole of Sothern politics continues. If you doubt note that Alabama still has the same state constitution it passed in 1901 to subvert the voting rights of African Americans and that all southern states have passed some form of voter identification that it makes it more difficult for African Americans to vote.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book turned me into one of those deranged conspiracy theorist with the red lines on the white board, but about the military occupation of the south during Reconstruction.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astonishing work. I mean that in two ways: first, as a piece of scholarship, it is incredibly well researched. If you have ever written even the most basic academic paper, you will have some understanding of the remarkable skill at which the authors deployed to craft this book. That they were able to take such a vast amount of data and translate it into something both understandable and relatable to a wide audience is a fairly epic feat. As an aspiring scholar, this is a book that I will refer back to again and again for inspiration.

Second, their findings, which clearly show how deeply entrenched the ideals of slavery remain, more than 150 years after the system was ended, prove how important legislative and judicial change really are. That our current system continues to erode the rights and representation of the African American community in the South is to simply extend this system into a new century. This is a critically important book.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep Roots is an academic analysis of the long surviving racial and political beliefs in the American South. Essentially the authors correlate that the higher the slave population in the 1850’s the likelier a county is conservative and racially divided today—154 year’s after the civil war. Acharya, Blackwell and Sen make a compelling case for behavioral path dependence in which racial attitudes are deeply embedded and passed on generation to generation. Explains a lot but rather depressing that racial fear is so powerful and long lasting. A very dry statistical tome.

[Aviram · Rating 4 out of 5]

With its very thorough research, the authors convincingly argue their fascinating thesis: that the institution of slavery and its collapse still affect political behavior today. However, the book isn't structured around a sweeping narrative, so it doesn't exactly provide for an engrossing read.

[Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a *very* dense academic read. It is not a "story", but more of sociological and historical research by a team of authors combined with some "investigative reporting" of sorts. Although you will be moved, frustrated, angered, saddened, etc by what is read in here, it is not given to the reader in the more "accessible" format of Mary Roach, whose books are so approachable as to make one smile, laugh, and say "wow" out loud when reading.

This is a university research project (which it actually is) turned Master's Thesis (which I would also not be surprised if it was at some point, or at least started this way).

The direct lines between Southern Slavery and Southern modern politics is so well-done as to be breathtaking. Heartbreaking. There's some simple factoids like how higher white gun ownership in the south (and parts of the north, I add) came out of a fear of the the fellow men and women that slavemasters owned and, when those men and women were freed, the former masters now feared even more (it was Southerners who contributed most of the funds to the creation of Liberia in Africa, not abolitionists, as they didnt want these now-free people to retaliate for a couple hundred years of servitude). This is tied to modern politics. There are also of course the old "States' Rights" arguments that supported Jim Crow laws, etc, that most people are familiar with.

But this book is more methodical. It makes a direct case, and does so convincingly, and in an "academic" manner. It's not all numbers and tables, there are still "stories" in there, but this is a study.

The only reason this doesn't get 5 stars is because I know the very dry, academic, largely neutral (in language, not in findings) build of the book won't be as engaging to the general American reading public. Even I, who read tons of "dry" and purely academic books (looking at you, Vaclav Smil), found myself wishing there had been a summation of data in some parts (Smil does it a bit, but is closer to this book in tone). But this is a giant position paper/thesis, and so you put all your guns on the line, you dont hold your reserves.

As a weapon, this thing is damned effective.

[John B · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic book that makes a very compelling case using statistical analysis about the persistent effect of slave ownership levels in the pre-civil war period on the attitudes of white southerners toward Black people. Specifically, the authors argue that data show that white people living in counties with higher rates of slave ownership pre-civil war continue to be “cooler” toward Black people in so-called self-reported “thermometer surveys”, that they are less likely to support policies believed to favour Blacks, and less likely to vote for the contemporary Democratic Party. The authors posit that a concept they call behavioural path dependence is the reason for the stability seen in the attitudes of white southerners in these higher slave owning counties toward Black people. Behavioural path dependence is the term used to describe the passing down of ideas and behaviours over time both through institutions and formal laws and through families and social structures (eg schools and churches). In this case, a crucial turning point that launched many white southerners on this path was the post civil war crisis get by southern cotton planters who would have faced severe economic deterioration if the now freed black slaves became politically empowered, economically mobile and able to use the shortage of labour as leverage to gain higher wages. Behaviours and policies that aimed at instilling fear in Black people to prevent them from voting and to still tie them to the land were instituted as a result. Early in the book, there are interesting references to other periods of history that may have shaped negative attitudes towards other minority groups. For example, a German study looked at voting patterns in German towns during the Weimar period showed that the Nazi party (and possibly predecessor parties) had higher shares of the vote in towns that saw anti-Jewish pogroms during the period of the plague in the 14th century. A whole bunch other interesting references are found on the same page.

[Matthew Griffiths · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a fascinating study and the only reason I haven't rated this higher is that I had picked this up hoping for the authors' findings to have been presented in more of narratively styled account. The results are well-argued and clearly presented but this is definitely one more for the committed political scientist I'm afraid as opposed to someone looking to get a detailed historical accounting.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A sad work of exploitation. Backward agricultural villages are so not because the modernity comes slower to such remote places, but because of slavery. The author needs to learn some languages and start traveling and a World of Wonder would open in front of his eyes, as backward agricultural villages in Germany are also conservative and culturally far from Berlin even without slavery.

[Reichnekov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly a solid theory with tons of evidence, some of it stronger than others. Kind of reinforces what most people understand about behavioural path dependence but extends it back to slavery and its effect as a so-called critical juncture.

[Diane Henry]

This is essentially a long academic paper, complete with methods and covariate analyses. The premise seems sound, but wading through the academic language and structure is too much.

[Byunghwan "Ben" Son · Rating 5 out of 5]

The generalizable central thesis is that the economic foundations determine racial politics. The authors contextualize this thesis in the domain of the electoral politics of the American South. One of the questions I could better understand after reading it was ''why some people in the South are more strongly than others guided by race in their voting behavior?": Those who live in the areas where slave labor was essential for the local economy centuries ago tend to align much more strongly than others with racial divides. Showing this given all kinds of data problems may look like a daunting challenge. But the authors, who are known to be leading methodologists in the field, do a very compelling job of presenting strong-robust evidence consistent with their primary thesis (but I am not sure if that is the case for non-social scientist readers too). The works of Acemoglu and Robinson or Sokoloff and Engerman should be fairly consistent with the conclusion that the book draws.

[Mills College Library]

320.975 A176 2018