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That interaction greatly increased when I took a job at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1989, with Bobby only 60 miles up the freeway at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I want to thank Alex Andre Moulton and Derek H. Alderman for organizing the 2021 session to honor Bobby M. Wilson, a friend and former colleague, at the annual SEDAAG conference in Florence, Alabama. [Extracted from the article]

The Western periphery constitutes one of the primary electoral sections of the United States in presidential history. The Western periphery, although at times volatile, emerged as a Republican stronghold beginning with Dwight Eisenhower's regional electoral sweeps in the 1950s. This electoral epoch of Republican popularity in the West has been referred to as the new Western normal vote. Despite long-sustained presidential successes, since the 1988 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidates have been able to win certain states in the Republican-dominated region. This research examines the historical dynamics of Republican support in the West by identifying shifts in voting behavior between past and present epochs. We attempt to explain recent changes by exploring the historical character of the West, its demographic dynamics, and the recent turbulence within the Republican Party. County-level election returns from 1952 to 2016 are used, along with traditional and folded T-mode factor analysis, spatial regression modeling, and cartographic analysis. We conclude that the region's normal vote is deteriorating, a new electoral pattern is emerging, and these developments correspond with increasing volatility within the Republican Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on reasons behind removal of the Confederate flag from public places of South Carolina after the 2015 Charleston church massacre held in Charleston, South Carolina. Topics discussed include strong religiosity in the country associated with the Confederate symbols, role played by religion on the politicians reaction to the massacre, and religious significance of the battle flag in life of white southerners that acted as a symbol of their fighting forces in the Civil War.

The late John Winberry was a productive scholar over his more than three decade academic career at the University of South Carolina. Professor Winberry may be best remembered today, in terms of his research on the American South, for his important work in the early 1980s on the geography of Confederate monuments found in cemeteries and courthouse squares across the southern landscape. In this paper, we argue that this research still resonates today for two reasons: first, his considerable detail in locating Confederate monuments both in time and space, and second, his observations about the 'place' of these monuments, their meanings, and how these meanings shifted over time. His observations, navigating both modernist and post-modernist paradigms, foreshadowed much of the work that has been done over the past twenty years by a new generation of scholars on the politics of memory in the American South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: High quality election districting plans provide representation to the broadest array of demographic groups possible. In rapidly diversifying countries such as the United States this goal will become of ever greater importance in the future. The quality and legality of districting plans are typically evaluated on the basis of a long list of criteria including contiguity, compactness, population equality, racial equity, the avoidance of splitting local government subdivisions, and the maintenance of communities of interest, among others. Do these criteria facilitate or inhibit the creation of districting plans facilitating high quality representation? Using the perspective of social justice, this paper evaluates current traditional redistricting evaluative criteria based upon the clarity of their goals and whether there are generally accepted methods for judging a plan''s quality. It finds that the goals of some criteria are ill-defined with others having no accepted protocols to judge a plan''s fidelity to these goals. It also argues that political geographers can have an important role in further refining the purpose and measurement of the current evaluative criteria used in the redistricting process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Contentious debates over whether it is appropriate to display the Confederate battle flag in public spaces have been waged across the American South since the late 1980s, with attitudes in these debates largely divided along racial lines. The most vitriolic debates occurred in the four states sanctioning the most prominent displays of the battle emblem: Alabama and South Carolina (where the flag flew over their state capitols), and Georgia and Mississippi (where the battle emblem was incorporated into their state flags). Although there were calls in all four states to address the legitimacy of the battle flag's public display via public referenda, only in Mississippi has a statewide public vote been held. The Mississippi state flag has incorporated the battle emblem in its design since 1894. In April 2001, the state held a public referendum on whether to replace the 1894 flag with a new flag designed by a commission. The proposed new flag deleted the battle emblem and replaced it with a circle of twenty stars, but was rejected by an overwhelming majority of the state's voters. In this paper, we examine the geography of the referendum vote through two different conceptions of electoral politics which aid in explaining the spatial patterns of the votes in Mississippi's flag referendum: the electoral cleavage model and the traditionalist-modernizer model. Through cartographic and statistical analyses, we conclude that both models provide valuable insight into the vote and attitudes towards the Mississippi flag debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term "Bible Belt," a familiar label associated with religion in the South, was coined by journalist H.L. Mencken following his coverage of the Scopes "monkey" trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. It has been used regularly since that time to refer to a religiously conservative or fundamentalist region in the American South and sometimes the Midwest, though its exact geographic extent remains debatable. Geographers have attempted to define the location of the Bible Belt in the past. Most notably Heatwole defined the geographic extent of the Bible Belt in a 1978 article using 1971 data from the Glenmary Research Center. We replicate his effort for 1971, but add cartographic and statistical analyses for 1980, 1990 and 2000. Changes in the Belt's location have occurred as a result of new migrants to the South as well as shifts within the region itself. The Bible Belt region today stretches from northern Texas to western North Carolina, and from Mississippi north to Kentucky. Also the region's core or "buckle" was located in eastern Tennessee in the 1970s, but by 2000 it had moved west to northcentral Texas and southwestern Oklahoma. Dynamism and fluidity as well as tradition continue to be important forces shaping the region's religious landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. armed forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, claiming that the country had weapons of mass destruction ( wmd) which it intended to use against the United States Although evidence of the existence of these wmd was limited, President George W. Bush's administration faced little opposition in taking the United States to war. Using the concepts of 'iconography' and 'banal nationalism,' I argue that the events of 9/11 and the subsequent outpouring of nationalism dampened opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The increased display of the American flag in the aftermath of 9/11 was emblematic of this increase in nationalism and generated additional support for the Bush administration's decision to go to war. This nationalism further created a form of 'collective amnesia' that limited the citizenry's receptivity to information contradicting the administration's narrative, which continues to linger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the conclusion of the American Civil War, the states of the former Confederacy rapidly added sections to their state constitutions and legal statutes to codify racial segregation and limit the social, economic and political options for their African American citizens. These laws became the foundation for the Jim Crow system of racial segregation. Although such laws have been found unconstitutional, some have survived in state constitutions and statutes as legal relicts. Using the traditionalist–modernizer model and Thomas Frank’s concept of the Great Backlash, we examine the electoral geographies of two referenda in Alabama to delete Jim Crow era provisions from the state’s constitution. Although 59% of Alabama voters supported deleting the state’s constitutional ban on interracial marriage in 2000, a slight majority supported maintaining the unenforceable constitutional sections requiring poll taxes and segregated schools in 2004. We find the geographic pattern of voting on both referenda was substantially associated with the traditionalist–modernizer model and Great Backlash as they pertain to race, religious conservatism, and views towards public education and taxes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Southern Black Belt has been variously defined in character and geographic extent. In the nineteenth century settlement focused upon the region's rich dark soils for which it was originally named. The Black Belt became the site of the South's Antebellum plantation-cotton-slave complex. Today many of the counties in the region have large African American populations and are more noted for their lack of economic opportunities than the fertility of their soils. As a result, the Black Belt region is now more commonly defined on demographic and economic factors than soil. Using principal components analysis, this study attempts to define quantitatively the county membership of the Alabama and Georgia Black Belts based upon a set of criteria commonly associated with the character of the Black Belt. It finds the Alabama Black Belt has greater uniformity of character than the Georgia Black Belt, and that growing urbanization has brought economic opportunities to some portions of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the examples of social justice and voting rights in the Southern States. The legislature amended Georgia law to require the presentation of a government issued photo identification as a prerequisite for voting on election day. The reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is a direct means of preventing the implementation of institutional constraints limiting access to the political process by minority voters.

The American South has undergone tremendous change in the past quarter century. No where is this change more apparent than on the region's political landscape. Today minority voters are participating at all levels in the South's political processes. The region has also continued its movement the Democratic to Republican parties? Have these changes received adequate attention in the political geography literature? This paper attempts to identify all articles, book chapters and books on the political geography of the South published in the part quarter century. It finds that there has been a significant increase in the rate of published work on the region's changing political landscape, and that these efforts have appeared in a wide array of outlets. The paper concludes by identifying areas in which additional work would be helpful to fully understanding the South's political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2002, conservative Republican Bob Riley was elected governor of Alabama on a platform of cutting spending and freezing taxes. But within weeks of taking office, Riley proposed a tax reform package which promised to increase the state's tax receipts and reduce its tax code's highly regressive character. The tax reform package was submitted to the voters in September 2003, and rejected by more than a two to one margin. This article examines the electoral politics and geography of Riley's efforts to reform Alabama's tax system including the spatial pattern of voting on the reform package. It finds that Riley's political base of Christian conservatives was substantially responsible for the reform package's defeat. Conversely, those counties providing a majority of their support for the Governor's effort were nearly all substantially African American, and had voted for Riley's opponent in the 2002 gubernatorial election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American South is beset by a series of widespread and vitriolic debates over the meaning of symbols associated with the short-lived Confederate States of America(States of America) (1861& ndash; 1865). The purpose of this article is to examine the debate over the flying of the Confederate Battle Flag in the chambers of the Alabama House of Representatives. The purpose of their march was to demand voting rights for African American Alabamians. The purpose of this article is to examine the geographic pattern of the Alabama House's vote on the placement of the Confederate Battle Flag in its chambers in the context of the South's political culture and religious traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short essay provides a brief introduction to the 2000 U.S. presidential election as well as overviews of the five essays which follow. The purpose of this forum section is to provide a geographic context and evaluation of the 2000 presidential election while emphasizing the role of the State of Florida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2000 presidential election produced over two dozen different law suits including two separate decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. The purpose of this essay is to examine the most important of these decisions, George W. Bush u. Albert Gore, Jr., highlighting its logic and geographic implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short essay provides a brief introduction to the 2000 U.S. presidential election as well as overviews of the five essays which follow. The purpose of this forum section is to provide a geographic context and evaluation of the 2000 presidential election while emphasizing the role of the State of Florida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the electoral geography of three separate anti-gay rights referenda both cartographically and quantitatively. Association of patterns of support for the referenda with voting patterns for the Republican Party in gubernatorial and presidential elections, and with sociodemographic indicators reflective of traditionalist areas; When the three referenda were placed on the ballot in the state of Oregon.

Examines whether there is a connection between the presence of the slogan `Heart of Dixie' on Alabama's license plates and a 1954 Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. How desegregation opponents showed their disgust for federal government; Background information on license plates in Alabama; Definition of `Heart of Dixie'; Details on events surrounding the addition of the slogan on the license plates.

Presents a report that explores the reasons why the United States Republican Party is only becoming competitive in gubernatorial elections in the 1990s, despite experiencing success in Alabama presidential elections 30 years ago. A county-level analysis of both presidential and gubernatorial election returns; The impact of George Wallace's long political career on the Republican lack of success in gubernatorial elections.

Did Congressional influence play a role in the distribution of federal outlays between FY81 and FY86? This study hypothesizes that states with majority party House and Senate delegations and with seniority in the delegations experienced the largest increases in federal expenditures. These two hypotheses are tested for fifteen divisions of federal outlays using a stepwise regression model. The results provide only very modest evidence of any systematic Congressional influence over changes in the distribution of federal outlays during the study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study on the United States Senate's deliberations on whether to renew the patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) insignia design. Controversy generated by the fact that the UDC insignia depicts the Confederate national flag; Senate vote not to renew the patent; Statistical findings that the vote was based largely on party affiliation and regional location of the senators' respective states.

Examines four hypotheses about the effects of political party, race, elector al section, and support for women's issues on the geographical patterns of voting as the Senate vote on the confirmation of Judge Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court included the ballots of one hundred senators from fifty diverse, geographically dispersed states. Cartographic analysis; Race and gender; Analytical results; Discussion; Conclusion s.

Storytelling is recognized as a valid and important method of communicating information and knowledge gleaned from volumes of ever-accumulating data. Practices of data-driven storytelling in journalism and geovisual analytics have contributed to the development of geovisual stories; also called story maps. The benefits of student-focused multi-thematic atlases and digital storytelling methods in education can also be realized in story maps. An online, interactive version of the original paper version of the Wyoming Student Atlas was developed using story mapping technology. Studies on best practices for data-driven storytelling and web map interaction were used to inform the transition of the atlas from a traditional paper format to a collection of story maps. Evaluation of the atlas story maps for educational purposes was conducted by observing students from multiple classrooms as they used the story maps in a lesson. The students and educators responded to a survey after using the story maps. Results of the survey show positive responses to the atlas story maps, including ease of use and preference over a traditional paper atlas. However, certain types of interaction with the map resulted in increased negative or uncertain responses from students concerning their perception of the atlas story maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is a geographical investigation of malapportionment in the United States Senate, using national-level tables and graphs for all census years from 1790 through 2020, and state-level maps for census years 1790, 1820, 1920, and 2020. Senate malapportionment is found to have worsened over time, with geographically varying manifestations. The article proposes an expansion of the Senate using the Method of Equal Proportions, which would considerably diminish the degree of malapportionment if adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifies explanations for the spatial impact of the Ronald Reagan Administration's budget reallocations. State allocations of federal expenditures from the last Carter to the first Reagan budgets; Electoral, wealth, urban-rural and expenditure base effects explanations.