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There And Back Again: Oklahoma’S Metanarrative As A Southern State, Kenneth P. Schell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The perspective to view Oklahoma as a Southern state where racial policy sets the tone for the land is not new, but previous scholarship argued that Oklahoma’s Southern foundation began during the period of statehood in 1907 and ceased following court and legislative action during the Civil Rights Era. This work argues that Oklahoma’s Southern turn commenced much earlier, during the Five Tribes' relocation to Indian Territory following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This Southern base cemented itself in the very fabric of the land when the Five Tribes joined the Confederate States during the war for secession and, …