A Different Shade of Blue

The Enduring Legacy of the Old South

There is no doubt about the atomizing and deracinating nature of modernity. Wheater intentional or not the spirit of the age is one that reduces man to interchangeable cogs in an industrial machine, separated by superficial prepackaged distinctions that can be purchased at the local big box retailer. The core characteristics of what separates us are fading, regional accents have been relegated to isolated rural communities and replaced by a generalized American accent, transmitted through smartphones to every corner of the country. Unique culinary dishes formed from local ingredients and customs have given way to the one size fits universal fast food. Even the stories we tell about ourselves have been altered to fit a homogenizing educational curriculum hand down from on high, straight from the halls of Washinton.

Henry Ford once said, “ You can get it (Model - T) in any color you want as long as it’s black”, and in America, you can have any regional distinction you want as long as it can be bought and sold at Walmart. It’s a depressing realization, the loss of culture and identity. As Christ said, “ For what does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul”; however, staring up at my grandparent’s porch its ceiling paint colored in haint blue I realized that all was not lost.

For those that don’t know “Haint blue”, is a distinct shade of blue unique to the South, a color that predates the founding of America. The specific hue was originally made from crushed indigo and used by the Gullah, African slaves living in Georgia and South Carolina to paint the ceiling of their slave quarters, which they believed would ward off evil spirits or “haints”. Over time the cultural cross-pollination facilitated by the close proximity of whites and blacks resulted in the adoption of haint blue as a Southern tradition. Porches decorated in blue became customary across the South.

It is in that color that I find hope. My Grandparent’s house is new, built within the last two years. It is a product of modernity its trimmings and appliances, mass-produced goods found in stores across the country, and its layout and architecture are contemporary and en vogue. There is nothing that sets their dwelling apart from a home in New York or Colorado, nothing except haint blue, that Southern color bleeding over from the past and staining the new.

Despite the attempts to uproot and erase our heritage as Southerners there lies a shade of blue that speaks to the enduring legacy of our culture. In time the American Empire will fade and with it the homogenizing power it wields. Southern culture will rise as the tide of Americanization recedes. So dye your ceilings blue and tell your boys about Bobby Lee, cause one day the carpetbaggers will have to leave, and though our accents may sound a little different, you will still find porches where men drink sweet tea under the protection of haint blue.

The past is never dead. It's not even past." - William Faulkner

-TJS