The term "Red Necks" was derived from individual

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The term "Red Necks" was derived from individuals wearing a red handkerchief

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The word redneck has a sordid history that blends class, perseverance, race and prejudice. Many calling themselves rednecks today see it as an expression of pride and some, like comedian Jeff Foxworthy, have even found commercial success with the word.

But not everyone finds the expression funny.

“I see the bombing of four little girls, the turning of dogs on people, the spraying of water hoses on people, the beating of people, the blocking of people from college, that’s what the word means to me,” said Pastor R.L. Gundy, state president for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Gundy, who is black, said he didn’t believe Johnson was racist but redneck can’t be separated from a history where it was proudly used by bigots.

City Councilman Don Redman, who is white, said the word doesn’t have a negative meaning at all.

“It’s a country person,” Redman said. “My wife has a bunch a relatives from Georgia and she calls them her ‘redneck relatives from Georgia’ and there’s nothing wrong with that. I can’t imagine a person getting upset about someone using the term redneck.”

This illustrates the dramatically different views of the term many have, driven largely by the word’s history.

Lower-class whites

The word likely comes from the 1880s, according to Stephen Cresswell, a history professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College and author of “Rednecks, Redeemer, and Race: Mississippi After Reconstruction.”

It started as a derogatory term of expressing prejudice against lowerclass whites who worked farmland, the historian said.

The construction of the word either comes from the red necks that workers would develop during the long hours in the sun or from the red bandanas they would wear to keep the sun off their necks, he said. But soon those workers started using the word themselves and even forming political blocks to elect more farmers and agriculture workers to office, Cresswell said.

“Even in the early 1900s some of the rednecks were starting to call each other rednecks as kind of a point of a pride because they worked with their hands and didn’t have a desk job,” he said.

That pride is what’s driven the popularity and longevity of the term and allows entertainers like Foxworthy, whose publicist said he was unavailable this week, to become immensely successful.

‘History of violence’

But over time, the word took on different meaning for African-Americans, said William Link, a professor of history at the University of Florida and author of “The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930.”

“African-Americans might regard redneck as a term that may be threatening because of the history of violence perpetrated on blacks, often by a class of whites seen as rednecks — the lynching or urban riots that you had in that period,” Link said.

The tension between whites and blacks, particularly between whites calling themselves rednecks, persisted as those workers left the farms for factory and textile jobs.

“One aspect of what we’re talking about is competition for jobs with white textile workers, people who might be known as rednecks, fearing that blacks could take their jobs or housing,” Link said.

And this is the history Gundy is reflecting on.

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