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The Conversation
The Conversation
Politics
Joseph Patrick Kelly, Professor of Literature and Director of Irish and Irish American Studies, College of Charleston

Small-town America's never-ending struggle to maintain its values hasn't always been good for US democracy

Country singer Jason Aldean sings in front of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn. Jason Aldean

For better and worse, the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, has come to represent the overlooked cultural divisions between urban and small-town America.

The courthouse was the site of the lynching of a Black teenager in 1927. It also served as a rallying spot for white vigilantes who assembled there during race riots in 1946.

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