Historical and cultural development of The South have been influenced by the institution of slave labor on plantations in the Deep South to an extent seen nowhere else in the United States by the presence of a large proportion of African Americans in the population; support for racial tension magnified by the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, as seen in thousands of lynchings (mostly from 1880 to 1930);

by the segregated system of separate schools and public facilities that lasted until the 1960’s; by the widespread methods to frequently deny black people of the right to vote or hold office until the 1960’s.

Most of the major events in the Civil Rights Movement occurred in The South, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the March on Selma, Alabama, and the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Some Southerners use the Confederate flag to identify themselves with The South.