I love North Carolina, the state of my birth.  I’m a Tar Heel born and bred. 

Let me tell you a few facts about its history.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1585-7 colony on Roanoke Island failed, so most of the state’s first European settlers migrated to North Carolina from Virginia a few decades after the 1607 Jamestown settlement. There has always been a very close connection between the two states,  My mother’s ancestors migrated from Virginia to North Carolina in the 1790s. My father came south from Halifax County, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina, a year or so after his first wife’s death in 1926.

Some Virginians tend to think of themselves as patricians, descendants of cavaliers.  North Carolinians have no such pretensions.  Referring to the neighboring states of Virginia and South Carolina, a North Carolina author once described his state as “a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit.”

Small landholders predominated in North Carolina, and there were relatively few large slave-holding plantations. In 1860, near-half to more than half the population of deep south states were black. Mississippi and South Carolina topped the list with 56.2 and 57.2 percent respectively. By contrast, North Carolina’s blacks made up only a third of its population. Also, along with Virginia, there were more free blacks in North Carolina than in other southern states.

As the Civil War approached, North Carolinians were very reluctant to leave the Union; and when South Carolina and other deep south states seceded after Lincoln’s election the state’s leaders urged a wait and see policy, hoping the conflict could be resolved.  When Virginia seceded in April 1861, North Carolina found itself surrounded by the coming rebellion.  Final peace efforts failed, and the Tar Heel state seceded on May 20, 1861, the next to the last state to do so.  It was a fateful and tragic decision, but under the circumstances North Carolina’s leaders appear to have had no other choice.

Despite its reluctance to enter the war, the state did more than its share during the struggle. North Carolinians served and fought for a variety of reasons.  Many volunteered, others were conscripted; and they joined with friends and neighbors to resist what many considered Northern aggression.  It was the natural and expected thing to do.  Probably no more than 15% were actual slaveholders or sons of slaveholders.

It was a devastating conflict.  With a total population of less than one-million (only 662,000 of whom were white and thus eligible to serve) approximately 125,000 North Carolinians  bore arms during the Civil War, and an estimated 40,000 of these men died in battle or succumbed to disease.  It is hard to imagine these numbers.  As a percentage of the population, it would be the equivalent of America losing approximately 5 million war dead in World War 2, more than ten times our actual loss. Casualties like these are a profound shock to any society.  Some towns lost virtually all military age males.

The state slowly recovered in the years after the war, and the scars of conflict remained visible in the countryside and were embedded in the hearts and minds of survivors for many years afterward. 

As the 20^th century dawned, North Carolinians embraced progress.  Tobacco was the agricultural cash crop, and North Carolina led the nation in tobacco production; and soon the state also led in cigarette manufacturing, cotton textiles, and furniture.  The economy boomed and the state’s population grew.

Beginning around 1960, the tobacco industry was hit hard by increasing health concerns.  Then textiles and furniture production began to suffer from a rising tide of foreign imports. Tobacco farmers lost their markets, and small factory towns throughout the state experienced shuttered factories and the loss of jobs. 

Fortunately, North Carolina had excellent leadership.  Here I give special credit to former governor Luther Hodges, a man who came to state government in the 1950s after a career in business.  He had a vision for the future, and under his leadership North Carolina began to build a high-tech business environment based on its excellent university system.  The Research Triangle came into being, the pharmaceutical industry exploded, and the state’s piedmont area experienced rapid population growth. 

As a result of its slave-holding and Jim Crow past, the state had its share of racial problems during this turbulent period, but good goverment and good sense usually prevailed. Both whites and blacks profited from the expanding economic opportunities, and racial tensions were gradually minimized.

Slowly the state’s improving economy is beginning to touch some of the old factory towns.  A sense of optimism prevails.

Thanks, North Carolina.  I’m proud of you.  You have a wonderful “can do” spirit. 

May the good Lord continue to smile on you.

State Motto: Esse Quam Videri (To be rather than to seem)