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 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.
