58 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



States as the inevitable result of the economic unification that 

 followed almost immediately upon the destruction of the institu- 

 tion of slavery. 



OUR CAROLINA HIGHLANDERS 1 



E. C. BRANSON 



WHAT I shall say or try to say concerns the seventeen High- 

 land counties of North Carolina, and the 243,000 people who 

 dwell in this land-locked area. This is the region and these are 

 the people I best know in our Southern mountain country. I as- 

 sume to speak for no others. 



First of all I want to claim for the whole of North Carolina an 

 identity with our mountain people. They are our very own kith, 

 kin, and kind. They are not a peculiar people in illiteracy, 

 poverty, degree of isolation, fiery individualism, or organizable 

 qualities. They differ in no essential particular from the demo- 

 cratic mass in North Carolina in mood, humor, temper, and atti- 

 tudes. Their economic and social problems are not regional; 

 they are state-wide. There are no differences in kind, and few 

 in degree, between the civilization of our hill country and that 

 of the State as a whole. Its virtues and its deficiencies are ours, 

 and I claim them as our own. 



Our civilization in North Carolina is primarily rural. Both 

 the strength and the weakness of our democracy lie in this fact. 

 We are saturated with a sense of equality. We stand unabashed 

 in ki-ngly presences. We revel in assured freedom. We have a 

 fierce passion for self-government. We have always held high 

 the spirit of revolt against centralized power, and we have been 

 quick to wrest from tyranny its crown and scepter. All of 

 which is magnificent. But we are learning that untaught and 

 unrestrained individualism needs to develop into the wisdom and 

 power of safe self-government. The civic and social mind sup- 

 plants the personal and individual view of life all too slowly 

 everywhere. 



i Adapted from "Extension Bureau Circular, No. 2," University of Xorth 

 Carolina. 



