The South Rising Again--on an International Stage

No section of the United States has been reconstructed and renewed more often than the South. On July 19, when the Olympic Games open in Atlanta, Southern leaders hope to introduce the world to the newest “new South”--a progressive, multiracially governed region of emerging “world-class” cities and states.

Southern realities, as last week’s headlines reminded us, are more mixed. Nevertheless, the region’s boosters are more right than wrong: The South is reshaping itself in ways that could position it to lead other U.S. regions into the 1st century of the global age.

Once again, Atlanta has taken center stage. But the drama of the new globalSouth has many actors, among them South Carolina, with their own international connections and visions. Taken as a whole, the old Confederacy’s burgeoning involvement in world commerce and affairs represents the beginning of a new kind of American sectionalism, one that could prove much more enduring than the old variety.

The old sectionalism was a product of defeat, segregation and poverty. It was backward-looking and determined to isolate the region from the modernizing forces of nationalization. By contrast, the new sectionalism is a product of political change and rapid economic growth. It looks to the future and strives to gain advantages from globalization.

During the past half century, the South has undergone two revolutions: a civil rights revolution that opened the door for African Americans to play a role in charting the region’s future, and an economic revolution that transformed the land of cotton into a leading center of industrial growth. By reducing the yawning divide between the South and the rest of the nation, these revolutions destroyed the old sectionalism while laying the foundation for the new.

Atlanta was the first major Southern city to be transformed by the civil rights revolution. In 1973, Maynard Jackson, a product of Atlanta’s long-established black middle class, was elected mayor, one year after his fellow Atlantan and eventual successor, Andrew Young, became the first black to be elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction. Together, Jackson and Young were chiefly responsible for molding the vision of a global Atlanta that will be on display next month. It is a vision that aims to capitalize on the city’s African American heritage, its prominent place in both the national struggle for civil rights and the international struggle for human rights, and, most crucially, the international reputations and personal connections of its black civic leaders.

But “global Atlanta” would be nothing more than a hollow slogan if the city’s political changes had not been paralleled by an equally far-reaching economic transformation. According to the latest statistics, Atlanta is home to 11 of the nation’s 500 largest industrial and service companies. Significantly, this number includes three of America’s most internationally recognized corporations: Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of CNN. The growing presence in Atlanta of large multinationally minded companies provides it with the kind of economic base necessary to compete for investment against rival metropolitan areas.

Atlanta’s struggle to become a global player has also been boosted by the development of a strong, internationally connected nonprofit sector. It is the home of the world’s leading tracking center for infectious diseases, the Centers for Disease Control, and America’s largest private international relief agency, CARE. The Carter Center, a world leader in private efforts to end violent conflict and promote democracy, is located there. In addition, the city has been able to draw on the resources of a host of institutions of higher learning, including the nation’s leading black colleges and universities, almost all of which are involved in international education efforts.

Other parts of the South have been equally successful in defining their own global interests and developing policies and institutions necessary to promote them. For example, last week, as Atlanta was preparing for the invasion of international athletes, dignitaries, reporters and spectators, a small delegation from South Carolina was several thousand miles away in Rheinland-Pfalz working to deepen their state’s growing economic and societal bonds with Germany.

In many ways, the story of South Carolina’s ventures abroad is a more telling demonstration of the South’s new globalism than the Atlanta story. Politically, South Carolina has long been one of the nation’s most conservative and protectionist states. It has a small foreign-born population. Moreover, almost none of its political leaders and institutions have a long or extensive history of international involvement. Despite this background, South Carolina now has one of America’s most well-conceived--and successful--international strategies.

Economic necessity forced it to go abroad. Early on, the state’s economic leaders realized that the only way South Carolina could be able to offset the economic losses caused by its declining textile industry would be to attract foreign investment and compete in global markets. Today, more than 200 foreign companies, including BMW, Hoffman-La Roche, Michelin and Fuji, are doing business in South Carolina. But the strategy of using tax incentives and a pool of mostly white, low-wage, nonunionized workers to lure foreign manufactures to set up shop has now evolved into a broader effort to develop the state’s global connections.

One example of South Carolina’s new globalism is its Germany Project. It was initiated in 1993, following a visit by then-Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. to the German state of Brandenburg. The visit produced a number of cultural exchanges and business agreements, including partnerships between six South Carolina high schools and their counterparts in Brandenburg. It also stimulated partnerships with two other German states, Rhineland Palatinate and Thuringia. By 1996, institutions all across the state were hosting Germans and developing more cultural exchanges and partnerships.

The underlying idea of all this activity is simple: The only way to ensure that the gains that South Carolina has secured from foreign investment endure is to embed them into a deeper fabric of mutually beneficial relationships.

Still, it would be a mistake to suggest that South Carolina has become a bulwark of internationalism. For a large part of the state’s population, the benefits of global involvement are more promise than reality. But as Patrick J. Buchanan discovered when he went to South Carolina hoping to find recruits for his “pitchfork brigades,” xenophobia and isolationism are losing ground in South Carolina.

There are three lessons to be learned from the efforts of Atlanta and South Carolina to carve out their own global niches. First, and most important, any attempt to take advantage of new global opportunities must reflect the history, demographics, needs and resources of the community with global ambitions. The challenge for each state and local government is to discover its own comparative advantages and build on them.

Second, if foreign investment and trade are regarded as zero-sum games, in which the gains of Atlanta and South Carolina represent losses for communities in other cities, states and countries, everyone will lose in the long run. Hence, there is a need to give as well as take, which is what South Carolina is doing in its relationship with Germany and what Atlanta is attempting to do in its efforts to help its South African sister city, Cape Town, replicate Atlanta’s Olympic quest.

Finally, these two stories demonstrate the need for cities, states and regions to develop their own global strategies rather than depend on Washington to promote their interests. In the dawning global age, this new kind of sectionalism, with an international accent, may be the best response to the intellectual vacuum and policy gridlock in Washington.*