Following up on our discussion about Mississippi Republicans' lamentable opposition to inter-racial marriage, here's a map showing the date when anti-miscegenation laws were overturned. That big blotch of yellow in the South, those are the states where it took the Supreme Court to do it (in Loving v. Virginia, 1967). (From Mapscroll):
Next, let's look at the frequency of citizens who hold passports in the different states (darker color = fewer passports):
How about Education? Here's one showing the fraction of population age 25+ who holds a bachelor's degree (darker = higher): 
Got that? Let's move along to religion, and the distribution of evangelicals:
Nan Hunter, writing at the blog Hunter of Justice looks at the map of the US from the point of view of LGBT rights.The states that have any recognition for LGBT people , such as antidiscrimination laws, and/or partnership/marriage protections, are left white. (However, many of the white states are explicitly anti-marriage so it's a pretty low bar.) The remaining states are blue (for Democratic legislature and governor), red (for Republican) and purple (for mixed). Unsurprisingly, the white states are largely blue or purple.
And here is an over-optimistic estimate of when marriage equality laws will happen in different states, based on data about the polling opinions there (For example, data like this. Map From Mapscroll)
What about economic activity? Here's the per capita GDP by state:
And here's one that shows us who gets the federal money. Values <$1.00 are states that get less from the Fed than they pay in taxes; values >$1.00 are states that get more than they pay.
Finally, this week is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
Discuss.
8 comments:
People keep saying that, as Americans move to the "Sun Belt", the South will change (or even that is HAS changed: good googly-moogly, I've been hearing about "the New South" since the 70s!)
So when's that gonna happen? O_o
Post hoc ergo promter.
Missing from this are economic and educational measures.
Economic measures might be somewhat correlated to military defeat and occupation following "the recent unpleasentness."
andrewdb
Good idea, Andrew. Done.
Interestingly, the economic status is similar in the inner mountain west to the deep south. Both correlate strongly to "red state" status, but cannot be linked to the "unpleasantness".
JCF, it's happening. Obama took Virginia and North Carolina in 2008. It's just going to take a very long time. I also think any trend of this sort is going to be reserved for a very few Southern states which are growing a modern economic base which can attract Northerners. Don't hold your breath for Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas or Louisiana.
This map (NYT) is very illuminating. It is a map of the South which shades each county according to the percentage of the population in slavery. Lincoln used it extensively during the Civil War. The message here is the "solid south" is in some sense a myth. There were a range of economic models in play, which left different regions better or more poorly prepared for the changes which were to come.
I might also note that while Missouri was never a Confederate state, the population was very divided, with strong Confederate sympathies in the Western part of the state (especially the Southwest). Remember that prior to the bombardment of Fort Sumpter there had been violence for years along the border between "slave" Missouri and "free" Kansas.
The South is changing, and shifting population is part of it; but it has indeed been a slower process for some issues than for others.
Off-topic:
Six weeks ago, as IT was noting the surge in anti-Muslim sentiment in the US, two elderly Sikh men (Sikh men, wearing turbans, are often mistaken for Muslims) were shot in Sacramento.
One died at the scene, the other was hospitalized.
Today, that other Sikh shooting victim died (May Surinder Singh rest in peace)
There have been no arrests made for this (possibly hate) crime.
Eternal God, bring justice!
It would also seem that where inter-racial sexual activity was the highest (slaves subject to being toys for their masters), anti-interracial marriage was most vehemently prohibited.
It would be very interesting to compare immigrant population percentages and growth of such and the anti-immigration frenzy of late....
These were fun IT. Thanks. (I was weird and wrote a whole paper in grad school of maps as representations of cultural landscapes, so, I agree with your brother. Maps are cool. Two guys touring the museum where I was working as a student took my idea and made a block-buster exhibit at the Met... never even said Thanks.... sigh.)
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