The Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for clarity) are an American sociocultural group, of European descent, having origins in the Southern United States and Appalachia. They first emerged as a social caste in the Antebellum South, consisting of white, agrarian, economically disadvantaged laborers or squatters often possessing neither land nor slaves. In contemporary context the term is still used to pertain to their descendants; regardless of present economic status. While similar to other White Americans in ancestry, the Poor White differ notably in regards to their history and culture.
Famous quotes containing the words poor and/or white:
“I thought it a pity that some poor student did not live there, to profit by all that light, since he would not rob the mariner.... Think of fifteen Argand lamps to read the newspaper by! Government oil!—light enough, perchance, to read the Constitution by! I thought that he should read nothing less than his Bible by that lamp.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In my day, we didn’t have the cocaine, so we went out and knocked somebody over the head and took the money. But today, all this cocaine and crack, it doesn’t give kids a chance.”
—Barry White (b. 1944)