Deep South reencountered: The cultural basis of race relations in Natchez, Mississippi, since 1930

In 1941, Natchez, Mississippi, became the subject of a scholarly book, Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, by Allison Davis and Burleigh and Mary Gardner. The dissertation uses Deep South as the historical entree into a study of race relations in Natchez from 1930 to the present.;The dissertation's primary objective is to probe the nature of race relations and racial attitudes. It seeks to provide a better understanding of race relations by concentrating on patterns of broader social development from 1930 to the present. It examines the intersection of race relations with the social and cultural consequences of farm mechanization, industrialization, tourism and historical myth, civil rights, school desegregation, religious beliefs, and federalism. These themes also serve as chapter headings.;The dissertation has pursued its task by reconstructing and analyzing past events. To do this, it uses conventional sources: books (primary and secondary), scholarly and popular articles, local and federal government documents, newspapers, and manuscript collections. It also uses over one hundred hours of collected oral histories from sixty-eight subjects. Oral histories have been integral to uncovering undocumented, and often unspoken, assumptions and ideas that defined racial attitudes and relationships. They have also been essential to providing an empirical understanding of culture and its ritualistic and institutional components.;The dissertation's research demonstrates that the caste system perpetuated false perceptions about blacks and the need for segregation. Its barriers denied blacks opportunities to fulfill ambitions similar to those of whites and to overcome racist stereotypes. Blacks shared values of work, family, and education with their racial counterparts. Whites, however, believed the black value system to be deficient. They feared integration would mean black culture overwhelming white culture and the dismantling of the latter.;The thesis concludes that the central theme of race relations was the white notion of race-distinctive cultures and the perceived need to maintain white cultural integrity and hegemony through the separation of the races. Despite broader changes in society, these social concepts have changed little since 1930.