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The
relatively small state of SOUTH
CAROLINA remains, with Mississippi,
one of the poorest and most rural pockets
of the US, although the prime real estate
along its coast has lately been developed
into exclusive golf courses and tennis
clubs. Politics in the first state to
secede from the Union in 1860 have
traditionally been conservative.
Reconstruction was mired in terrible Klan
violence, while c.1900 demagogues openly
espoused lynching and enforced “Jim Crow”
laws with frightening zeal. The state
contains two of the country’s most
right-wing minor universities –
football-fixated Clemson, and Christian
Bob Jones University in Greenville, a
training ground for the fundamentalist
right.
South
Carolina’s fascinating subtropical
coastline of sea islands, great
beaches, marshes and lush palmetto groves
preserves traces of a virtually
independent black culture (featuring the
unique patois gullah), from the
days when slaves escaped the mainland
plantations. Beyond the grand old
peninsular port of Charleston,
arguably the most elegant city in the US
with its rainbow-colored old buildings and
magnificent, tree-lined avenues, restored
plantations stretch as far north as
Georgetown, en route toward the
poseur’s paradise of Myrtle Beach.
Inland, the rolling Piedmont and flat
coastal plain hold little to see.
Click here to go to South
Carolina State web site. |
