[MUSIC] The South is arguably the most studied place on earth. Generations of historians, Southerners, Americans and international scholars have studied the South and have tried to understand its rich history and its complex worlds. A lot of the study has looked back at the Civil War, at slavery and reconstruction, and tried to understand that history. Today, there are very interesting new ways of approaching Southern history and culture, new ways that are being shaped and developed here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There is the field of contested memory. When we say the South lost the Civil War, we can say wait just a moment, some white Southerners lost the Civil War, but black Southerners were liberated. So that when we look at the South, increasingly we have both Civil War museums and Civil Rights museums. We have Civil War trails and Civil Rights trails, as well as blues trails, country music trails. There is a rich and growing body of information that helps us appreciate the contested memory of the South. And it's not only Black and White. There are Jewish, Irish, Italian, Chinese, Greek, many, many worlds in the South that we increasingly recognize and honor their memory as part of that braided history of the South. We also look at the South today, again, of an approach to history being developed here at UNC in the understanding of the global South. The South has always been a global place. Our very first settlers, Indian settlers came across the Bering Straits from Asia to settle in the South. And later from Africa and Europe, others came. And today, we have a growing and very diverse population of Hispanic, Asian, African, a wonderfully rich mix, a gumbo of people who are moving to the South and are creating a kind of new world is part of what we think of as the global South. I was thinking one day about a story that illustrates this. If I were to take Delta Airlines from North Carolina and fly to London, and take a cab to the Holiday Inn. And on the way to the Holiday Inn, I realized I had left my film, and I asked the driver to stop at the Walmart so I could buy film. When I got to my room at the Holiday Inn, I was thirsty. So I opened the refrigerator and take out a Coca Cola. I'm curious about news, so I turn on the television to CNN news, and there's a knock at the door. An overnight package has been delivered by Federal Express. Now, each step of that story is made possible by a Southern business that began in a small town like Bentonville, Arkansas, and eventually became a global presence in the world. So the South, like kudzu, has spread. And when we study the South, we can think of it in terms of the contested memory of its people and their history, and also the global South. In every period of our history, we have been deeply connected and shaped by the rest of the world.
