Southside, Virginia: Background information when reading Holy City

Southside, Virginia

This article relates to Holy City

The area where author Henry Wise's Holy City takes place—Southside—encompasses a swath of counties in the southern portion of Virginia's Piedmont region. Southside stretches from the James River south to the North Carolina border and extends as far east as Isle of Wight and Southampton Counties, bounded along the western edge by the foothills of the Blue Ridge.

Its history is rich in landmark events. In the nineteenth century, Southside comprised counties with some of Virginia's largest enslaved populations, and the region was the setting of two of the most dramatic episodes of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1865, led to Robert E. Lee's eventual retreat from the city on April 2 and his surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9. In the twentieth century, Southside emerged in the national consciousness again during the fight for civil rights for Black Americans. In Prince Edward County in 1951, Black students at the Robert Russa Moton High School went on strike protesting unequal educational facilities.

Southside is historically the state's major center of tobacco farming, and the southeastern parts of the region have been known for producing cotton and peanuts. In the twentieth century, textile and furniture industries came to the areas around Danville and Martinsville, but in the twenty-first century, economic hardships increased as factories shuttered and tobacco production declined. As the protagonist in Holy City laments, "Euphoria County at times seemed to be a tangent, like an unmaintained road going nowhere. Many of the neglected houses were inhabited by vagrants and users, those who lived tobacco's tragic legacy…"

The economic challenges currently facing Southside (and Southwest), Virginia stem from the decline of four major industries: furniture, textiles, tobacco, and mining. In a 2023 report by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the authors found that "the region has seen a loss of production and employment over the last four decades, beginning in the 1980s. Across Southwest and Southside, over $2.2 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 60,000 jobs disappeared from just those four industries alone."

The change in Southside fortunes over the decades is being addressed and compared to how well businesses and investments are doing in other parts of Virginia. In a 2022 Cardinal News article, editor Dwayne Yancey calls out the economic inequality across the state by citing some sobering statistics: "‌Today the state's poorest locality is Emporia, with a median household income of $27,063." Emporia may have served as inspiration for Wise's fictional Euphoria County.

Yancey draws from recent Fortune 1000 and Inc. 5000 lists to view the disparities, which he argues could be ameliorated by fostering entrepreneurship. Many of Virginia's emerging companies are gaining access to critical funding, he says, but "we see other parts of Southwest and Southside not growing any companies that have merited such funding." Still, there are signs of hope, as groups are forming in Southside (and beyond) to encourage entrepreneurship in their communities.

With his heartfelt debut novel, Wise puts Southside in the spotlight. Hopefully, as economies shift and change, so too shall the fortunes of this once vibrant and historic region of Virginia.

Map showing Southside in Virginia
By Ali Zifan (CC BY-SA 4.0), adapted from image by Alexrk2 (CC BY 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This article relates to Holy City. It first ran in the July 17, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.