Opinion: How Mississippi set off a firestorm far beyond its borders

The South is America's mirror, a region that reflects ideas about this country that many of us would rather not see reflected in our own visage. While not an ideological monolith, the South's influence on American political culture is nonetheless larger than the region itself. As the historian Grace Elizabeth Hale has written, all Americans "must look clear-eyed and straight at 'the South' we all live in."