In 2018, the Abbeville Institute hosted a Summer School on Southern music. I gave a talk titled “That’s What I Like About the South” based on the song written by Andy Razaf and made famous by Phil Harris in the 1940s. Much has changed in eighty years, but the things that Harris and Razaf “liked about the South” have not: good food, good people, good company, and sunny weather.
Of course, in the 1940s, the South was a fine place to visit, and her people were an important and respected part of the American population. You wouldn’t know it based on the characterization of Southerners in the modern media. From Hillary Clinton’s “Deplorables” to constant references to the now debunked “very fine people” comment from Donald Trump in 2017, many mainstream American elites consider Southerners to be the drag on American society, the backwards others in the pursuit of American “progress.”
You know differently. Southerners made America. For the first eighty years of American history under the Constitution, Southerners dominated the general government, and as we made clear in our recently released, “Virginia First—The 1607 Project”, the South and the Southern tradition have much to offer to modern America. Our focus in this effort was not the Southern tradition as a whole, but a small (thought important) part of the Southern world, Virginia. The Southern tradition would not exist without it.
This was our crowing achievement of 2024, and we appreciate everyone who contributed to the effort. Like Phil Harris in the 1940s, we wanted to present a positive view of the South and reorient the American story back to its Virginia roots. You can still spread the word by sharing the Project far and wide. Go to https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/1607-project/ for more information.
In the last year, the Institute added nearly 200 articles to our now virtual library of Southern thought, https://abbevilleinstitute.org. We are very proud of our authors, and we appreciate their contributions to our mission of exploring what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition. You may not agree with everything we publish, but we hope the essays prove to be thought provoking. That is the goal.
We held two virtual summer schools in 2024 with 20 students from around the globe, including high school students from Korea and California, and undergraduate and graduate students in political philosophy, law, psychology, art, and history, including a student from Poland. The Southern tradition is international. We handed out $9000 in scholarship money. Excerpts from the two winning essays are included in this newsletter. Thank you to everyone who contributed to our scholarship fund.
We published two new books at The Abbeville Institute Press in 2024 and have more in the works. We also hosted half a dozen Zoom webinars on various topics in the Southern tradition and started our first virtual Abbeville Institute book club.
In other words, 2024 was a great year at the Institute. We have much more in store for 2025, including two in person conferences in Columbus, Georgia, one in February and another in October. We hope to see you there or at one of our virtual events, and that when you leave, you’ll be singing “That’s what I like about the South.”
Have a look at our 2024 newsletter below. As you can see, we’ve had a good year at the Institute. Please help us in our mission to “explore what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition” by making a tax deductible donation. We have a lot in store for 2025, and your generous contributions make it all possible.
