Speaking as someone who lived all of his youth in the deep South (a good part of that taking place in the 1960s/1970s), there is still, in my mind, an unfortunate duality to the people.
On one hand, you have the hardcore evangelical, ultra-conservative, racist, segregationist, “south will rise again” types who are STILL influential on the overall cultural/political mentality of the region - and honestly I don’t know how many more generations it’s going to take before they are completely marginalized to absolute insignificance.
On the other - which I think speaks for the vast majority of the citizens is group of regular people who are still struggling to reconcile their regional cultural pride with a shared history that quite honestly leaves not a whole lot to be proud of - after all, they were on the losing end of the bloodiest war fought on American soil in this nation’s history.
Making things even more difficult is the fact that the first group is using that “regional pride” hook to keep the rest of their disgusting crap in the common mindset as well.