What Will Become of the "Solid South"

Many decades ago I visited Atlanta for the first time. I remember people watching in the downtown and noticing the confidence of black people there. They were successful and projected the aura of doing things their own way and blending to no one. I've been back to Atlanta countless times since then and wondered how it could be part of the conservative South. As anyone who follows politics knows, it now votes solidly for Democrats and has liberal mayors. The State of Georgia itself has voted for Democratic Party Presidents. 

A state with one of the largest atheist groups is Alabama. I had a friend in theater at the University of 
Alabama. Theater productions there included gay themes not acceptable in other parts of the state but were welcomed there. 

One of the largest Unitarian Universalist churches in the country is in Bible Belt Tulsa, Oklahoma. That city suffered a huge race riot where the black business area was burned down and many killed. Tulsa is the home of Oral Roberts University.

Today the Christian press had a story about recovery from the hurricane last year and it effect on the area around liberal Ashville, North Carolina. A small city 10 miles from Ashville was hard hit and now many months later low-income people who lost their homes are still struggling for food and housing. The article noted that, while Christian churches were trying to help provide for these unfortunate souls, there was concern that a large Pagan church in nearby Ashville was untouched by the storm and started immediately distributing help. Another site claims Ashville has the largest Pagan community in the entire South. One of the conservative Christians interviewed all but said Christians should be accept help from the Pagans.

Does is seem to you that both politics and religion are churning and changing? It does to me. And what direction they will go, especially in the South, is less predictable than in generations past.