I married in 2000, waiting until my late 30s to tie the knot. My soon-to-be African American wife and I decided to get married in her hometown in rural Duplin County, North Carolina (we divorced in 2018). I had visited her town with her more than a dozen times during our three-year courtship. Each time, I was reminded how my brief time spent in the rural South in the 1980s and 1990s – in places like central Florida, rural Georgia, and small towns outside of Birmingham, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi – the literal feel of the place was that time had largely stood still since decades ago.

The racial divide felt more palpable in places like Kenansville, NC, her hometown. You saw Whites with Whites and Blacks with Blacks, with very little mixing. The only time I ever felt disapproving eyes on us in our three years as a dating couple—me, White, her, Black—was when we were out shopping or running errands in her hometown or home county.

The wedding weekend celebrated the coming together of wife and husband and of our two races. Our North Carolina and Connecticut families had not met before the wedding weekend. We held a celebratory dinner the night before the ceremony, where we organized activities and games that would allow our two clans to mix naturally. Laughter and a buzz of excitement filled the room all evening long.

The ceremony was a simple outdoor affair in the backyard of a bed and breakfast, with members from both families playing key roles. The reception afterward turned into a night-long dance party to music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

The day after the wedding, two of my close White friends commented on how they felt the racial tension in the town while spending time there.

A day after we returned to our home in College Park, Maryland, her Mom called me up. She repeated what she had said on the wedding night—what a beautiful and memorable day it was. Then she said something that almost dropped me to my knees. “Steve,” she said, “I’ve never been treated so well in my whole life by White people. Your family and friends were so nice. I've never experienced that before.”

Mind you, she was 50 years old when she said that. I can guarantee that this is not rare for Black people in the South and elsewhere. In the months after, I heard similar comments from her aunts and uncles.

The old Southern racial hierarchy has slowly declined over the last five or six decades. It has not died—some would prefer to see the “South rise again” to reestablish that Whites should again be on top, even though, in most rural places, they still are in 2024.

Image courtesy of ChatGPT, June 2024.