Is Tennessee ‘The South?’ 

The internet finally gets around to asking the important questions

I spend too much time on the internet just scrolling for information. A news junkie, an information junkie, I am someone who was born to argue and debate. Platforms like Twitter – I do not call it X – and others were essentially custom made to capture the attention of someone like me.

That said, I don’t waste nearly as much time arguing online as I used to do. It’s pointless, of course. Half of the people you’re arguing with are just trying to get you mad. They derive a perverse thrill from bothering strangers online, they don’t really care about the details of the argument. They only care about drawing your engagement and outrage.

And so, I was proud of myself this week as another inane debate pinballed around the confines of the internet. I did so well in not engaging that I didn’t even have to type out impassioned responses that I would immediately delete.

The debate? Is Tennessee – my beloved home state – part of the South? I did not get sucked in. Except, I kinda did. You see, the original poster wasn’t particularly intelligent or articulate but darted around the edges of a fairly interesting idea.

Their point, essentially, was that the Deep South – Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina – make up the real South. And that Tennessee – which they seemed to think only consists of the mountainous part of the state – belonged in another region referred to as the Appalachians. This, of course, ignores the fact the mountains extend into Georgia as well.

While the debate is silly (yes, of course Tennessee is part of the South), it does open pathways to an interesting conversation about the nature of Tennessee, the South and American culture as it stands in the year of our lord 2025.

Is Tennessee The South?

Yes. By every possible reasonable metric, Tennessee is part of the American South. Geographically? Draw a line through the middle of the country and Tennessee will be decidedly below that line.

A lot of the country’s perception of the South is centered on the Civil War. The Southern states that seceded from the Union all fit neatly into that common conception. Which is mostly why when people say “The South” they mean the Southeast.

Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are in the Southern part of the country but are decidedly considered separate from the South – for the most part. Climate and geography factor in as well. That’s why some consider Eastern Texas part of the South as well, but it’s a fluid consideration. I usually just think of Texas – as many Texans do – as a region onto itself.

There are cultural considerations to consider as well. The conception of the South as the sweet-tea swilling, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths, gentile stereotypes.

But the fact of the matter is that many people weighing in on this issue – many of whom are Southerners themselves – don’t really understand what the South is either.

What is ‘The South?’

As we said above, when people refer to the South, they’re thinking of the Southeaster region of the United States where Southern culture for its good and ills, prevails. Many people will carve Central and Southern Florida out of that inclusion as well as the Cajun part of Louisiana down to New Orleans.

But what a lot of people don’t understand is that the South is like Europe. It is divided into dozens of regional affiliations that don’t align neatly to state borders. In other words, anyone who excludes Tennessee because it’s not like Mississippi, Alabama. South Carolina or Georgia ignores the fact that large parts of Georgia are not like other parts of Georgia. That coastal Alabama and Mississippi have significantly different cultural norms than the northern parts of those states.

The South, to borrow a phrase from the non-Southerner Walt Whitman, is immense. It contains multitudes and it contradicts itself all the time.

Why would someone say that Tennessee is not the South?

Because East Tennessee and its mountain culture is not terribly similar to South Alabama or West Mississippi or I suppose, Columbus, Georgia. And a lot of it is centered around the Civil War. Large parts of East Tennessee, especially in the mountains, did not support succession. And, in fact, units were formed to fight on the Union side of the war. That whole part about the war that pitted brother against brother? In East Tennessee, loyalties were really divided.

And, speaking in general terms, the mountain culture of East Tennessee has more in common with other Appalachian regions all the way up into places like West Virginia and beyond than they do with the region that is fairly considered the Deep South. However, other parts of Tennessee, South and West of Nashville have more in common with Alabama and Mississippi than they do East Tennessee.

I will often remind people just how wide Tennessee is. From my hometown in East Tennessee, it’s about a 7-hour drive – 438 miles to Memphis. Cities that are a similar distance? Cleveland, Ohio is 505 miles – 8 hours away. Washington D.C. 451 miles – about 7 hours and 14 minutes. Indianapolis is 362 miles, less than 6 hours away. Chicago – 545 miles. Detroit? 542.

The point? There is a whole lot of Tennessee and the culture in Johnson City is significantly different than Jackson.

But in that, Tennessee isn’t really that different than other Southern States. In Georgia, Savannah is pretty different from Atlanta which is pretty different from Valdosta which is pretty different from Mountain City. In Alabama, Demopolis – on the Mississippi border where I worked doesn’t have the same vibes as Muscle Shoals. The same smaller regional differences exist in Arkansas, the Carolinas, Virginia and Kentucky. The South is massive. So, anyone who wants to confine it to Foghorn Leghorn or “Gone with the Wind” stereotypes is coming up short.

The culture of the South

This is where things get interesting. I am maybe not uniquely qualified to talk about this subject but certainly qualified. Born in North Carolina, I was raised in the two separate segments of Indiana – the rustbelt North and the Appalachian adjacent South.

We moved to East Tennessee when I was a teen. I spent a few years living and working in South Alabama. I’ve traveled extensively through every state that would be traditionally considered Southern and spent more time in Georgia than some people who live there.

And I have for years known that my relatives in Southern Indiana have more in common with the people of East Tennessee than they do in many communities in the Northern part of their own state. Going by geography or the Mason Dixon Line, Indiana is 100 percent not the South. But I promise you that my Papaw’s people – and my Nanny’s would have easily fit right in the mountains of East Tennessee.

The amorphous thing that is considered the culture of the South – which I don’t want to reduce to sweet tea and large pickups – isn’t confined to what we think of as the South at all. Travel in the rural parts of Indiana, Southern Ohio, West Virginia and even into mountain pockets of Pennsylvania and you would swear you were close to Newport or Johnson City or maybe Hendersonville. North Carolina.

Someone from Spartanburg, South Carolina wouldn’t feel particularly out of place in Bedford, Indiana. Or even Wheeling, West Virginia from a cultural point of view. Now, if you leave Ocala, Florida in January and drive to some place in rural Pennsylvania, you’ll notice a difference. But that’s climate not culture. And I did get to have a snowball fight in Florida this year, so even that may be changing.

So, is Tennessee the South?

The culture of the South is growing. As such, any attempt to try and ignore that fact by limiting the definition of the South to “places where they had plantations” is missing the point.

Is Tennessee the South? Yes, of course it is. From Memphis to Murfreesboro to Knoxville to Hartford, Tennessee is in many ways the epicenter of the South.

Did you see the online debate on which states are in the South? Let us know what you think in the comments!