Weekend Reading Part 2

The other non-fiction work of Warren’s I read this weekend is Segregation: The Inner Conflict in the South (1956). Originally an article written for a magazine reading audience, the work in its entirety includes Warren’s interviews with Southerners from Tennessee to Mississippi. The writing is informal and personal, a gritty look at the true feelings of everyone from the black community in Tennessee to the much maligned Southern planter. Warren’s diligence in collecting the view of every facet of society, black and white, male and female, old and young indicates his true concern with finding the real importance of segregation to the average citizen, be it bigotry or fear of large governments.

Warren’s sample population indicates what common sense dictates—the young people are generally more accepting than their older counterparts. Black Americans find that their position is generally improving with the advent of racial reform; white people feel in general that they ought to live and let live. The feelings of the vast majority of the populace indicate that they fear the court becoming a legislative body and dislike being told what their local governments can and cannot do; some cannot comprehend the possibility of mingling with the other race, others feel that racial amalgamation could potentially be a problem.

While Warren’s reporting provides interesting insight into contemporary attitudes toward segregation, the most interesting aspects of his piece from a literary standpoint include Warren’s self-identification as a Southerner. Despite having studied, travelled, and lived all over, his sense of his identity places him solidly in the South; he says that he understands a girl when she says that there is something indescribable about being Southern. Clearly, then, Warren comes with all the Southern “baggage” he discusses in his longer essay on the Civil War, the tendency towards pragmatism and the “Great Alibi.” I intend to keep his heritage in mind when reading his other works and to examine the influence Warren’s view of the South has on his work. He seems quite devoted to the idea of the South’s cultural and social independence, even if it has no economic strength.

He ends his piece with an interview with himself, as if to justify with the voice of a scholar the opinions of the people he interviewed. Here he takes the opportunity again to remind himself and readers that he is a product of the South as surely as the Citizen Council officers and integrationist college professors. He broadens the scope of his article to include the entire nation; he indicates his disgust with the contemporary evaporation of morality, finally suggesting that the South, if it grows into integration, is uniquely placed to lead the return of morality. Given that it alone among the regions of the United States has a truly moral problem to face and overcome, Warren postulates that the South will rise again, not the Old South, but a South capable of guiding the nation. This proves particularly interesting in light of my search for Warren’s spirituality—as he has already named himself Southern and boasted of the morality the South has to offer, Warren is perfectly placed to codify his conception of Southern ethics.

How strange then that he should evince relief upon leaving his “roots” to fly back north. Warren’s relationship with the legacy of his home seems that of an observer. Perhaps, like the Yankees he lives among, Warren’s creative faculties are best stimulated when he plays the role of observer. Or perhaps, and I think this more likely, Warren himself struggles with exactly what the South means to him and to his work.