This is an interesting topic and you gave a quite thorough response, so I'm going to talk with you point-by-point. There's a lot of interesting history here and I think reasonable people can disagree, but I think it’s pretty apparent that historically Virginia was much more "Southern" than states like Arkansas, Tennessee or Kentucky. I think that difference is key in explaining whey there was more racial amicus in Virginia during the civil rights era than in some other Southern states.
The fact that VA had a large black slave population is pretty much the only thing it ever had in common with the Deep South. There have been significant differences ever since, from the antebellum period up to the modern day, which is why Southerners themselves rather hesitantly describe VA as a Southern state (and many will insist it is not Southern at all).
Having a large Black/slave population is the most distinguishing identifier of “[Deep] Southerness” there is in the textbook. Having different racial groups in close contact is pretty much a prerequisite of a place developing identifiable racial animosity/conflict. Virginia checks that box; its black population (22.1%) is higher than that of West Virginia (3.6%), Kentucky (8.3%), Missouri (11.6%), Arkansas (15.4%), or Tennessee (16.8%).
Moreover, I've never met any credible individual who flat-out denies that Virginia is a Southern state. The recent “de-Southernization” of Virginia is a trend driven almost exclusively by the growth of the D.C. suburbs, which is very recent and doesn’t give us any help in answering OP’s question. I also would argue that the recent trend doesn’t erase the fundamentally Southern core of Virginia culture: its governor wears that funny tie at inauguration, the state’s flagship universities are in Charlottesville and Blacksburg, sweet tea is readily available, etc., etc.
Take, for example, the founding of VA. VA was founded first as the Virginia Company, established with the purpose of finding gold in the New World (there was none in VA, as it turned out), and then later after the colony was established, it was primarily settled by English gentry (some of which actually had ties to English nobility- some of the only settlers in US history that were legitimate aristocrats) with the aim of setting up country estates modeled off of say, Yorkshire. These estates came about around the James River and the Chesapeake Bay, and were originally worked by indentured servants- some of which were black, but many were actually white. The formal establishment of slavery was not until much later in the late 1600s-early 1700s. Contrast now to, for example, SC- which was settled much later by an entirely different group of people, i.e. English slavers coming over from Barbados with the explicit intent of starting plantations. Or contrast to a state like LA, which was not originally an English colony at all.
American Slavery began in 1619 in Virginia. The institution is intimately connected with the state and its elite families going back to its very founding. We can get wishy-washy over where these families or their slaves were coming from, or exactly what crops they were growing and when, but that makes very little difference in:
- 1) Realizing that the economic benefactors of slavery were invested in protecting the institution at all costs, thus leading to the Civil War, and;
- 2) Affecting how the Lost Cause narrative was able to take ahold among Virginian Whites following Reconstruction (which is probably more key to understanding OP’s question of why Virginia was acting more like Mississippi or Alabama when it came to the Southern Manifesto).
The western parts of VA were settled by Scots-Irish, and some Germans, many of which came down from central PA into the Shenandoah Valley along the Great Wagon Road. So to say the state has "less" Appalachian influence than TN or NC.. while perhaps technically true, is quite misleading since a whole half of the state was mostly settled by those who would comprise of modern "Appalachian culture", and for practically the entirety of VA history, to the current day, there has always been a pretty stark difference (both culturally and otherwise) between the mountainous western half, and the piedmont/coastal plain in the east where most of the population is and where the wealthier English planters originally settled.
The parts of Virginia that were mostly settled by Scots-Irish, German and other Appalachian ethnic groups on the Great Mountain Road during the 1740s-1780s (a full 120 years after the Virginian slavers arrived in Jamestown, mind you) largely chose to secede from the state following the outbreak of the Civil War and form West Virginia. Secessionist sentiment in Appalachian Virginia (i.e., Westsylvania) predates the American Revolution. The experiences of Appalachian Virginians were informed by them locating within the state after political and cultural life was already squarely centered around Williamsburg (note: this is actually very similar to the experiences of Appalachian immigrants to Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia; hmmm). Contrast that with Tennessee and Kentucky, where the Appalachian regions of those states were the first to be settled by British/American colonists. That’s an immensely stark difference and, resultantly, Virginia is less culturally Appalachian than more interior Southern states.
Your description of VA being profound in terms of Southern Agrarian culture is, again, explaining the state in a superficial, sort of "junior high textbook" way. VA's plantations were founded at a much earlier date than the Deep South, and in contrast to the Deep South, were primarily tobacco and some wheat. Compare to the Deep South, which was primarily sugar, rice, and of course- cotton. However, VA had few cotton plantations and by 1860, they were practically non existent. The economic interests of state like VA were not necessarily going to be the same as a state like, say, AL, GA, or MS.
I have alluded to this above, but I’ll just reiterate that marginal differences in what types of crops plantations were growing during the Antebellum era is pretty trivial to understanding racial animus during the civil rights era. Reconstruction/Jim Crow/Civil Rights political debates were much more influenced by the racist Lost Cause narrative, which was more potent in Virginia than say, Tennessee or Kentucky, due to the state’s larger Black population.
Which, speaking of economic activity, when you say that VA was the "economic and political center of the CSA," you are again, being misleading. The capital was indeed in Richmond, but was not originally there and moved for political reasons. When you say that VA is the "first state to secede after Fort Sumter", you are obfuscating the history- I'm not sure if intentional or not, but clearly misleading. VA's reasons for secession were not exactly the same as say, SC, and VA was the one of the last states to secede- it was 8th, on April 17, 1861, and did not do so until Lincoln called for states to provide volunteers to recapture the fort. This was after the Montgomery Convention and when the first Confederate Constitution was signed, which was in March and VA was not a signatory at that time. Your mention that VA had many Confederate veterans really says nothing and is a bit of a distraction- VA was by far the largest state in the CSA, so obviously it was going to have the most veterans; that should not be surprising.
Yes, the Confederate capital was relocated to Richmond to reflect the Virginia planters’ historical social and economic dominance over Southern society. Virginia seceded before Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee (which are three former Confederate states with obviously better race relations during the civil rights era, hmmm….). I don’t see how anything in the above quote establishes why Virginia would be “less Southern” than those states.
Also, in terms of economics, it could be said that VA was the closest thing the CSA had to an industrialized state, which is not saying much- but it did have 3 of the largest cities in the top 10 of the confederacy (more than any other state), the confederacy's only real iron works, some of the only shipyards (the only naval yard, I believe), the largest flour mills, a more extensive rail network, and so on. Even in those days, VA was resembling (and had actual links to) the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast much more than, say, MS or AL.
The only proper Confederate “city” would be New Orleans, which was the sixth-largest city in the United States at the time (population: 170,000). The largest Virginian city at the time was Richmond, which had a population of 37,000. Sure, Virginia benefitted from commercial and industrial links to the Northeast (and even Europe) but what made those links valuable was that Virginia was a natural thoroughfare for Deep South cotton and other commodities in transit to northern textile mills. If Virginia had been more economically dependent on the Northeast than the Deep South, it wouldn’t had seceded in the first place.
About the only thing I really agree with is when you state that social structures were insular and restrictive in VA, and that is probably a true statement... there is an argument to be made that VA has been the most elitist state throughout US history- something that perhaps gets closer to the real answer of the OP's question.
That difference exists because Virginia was a Southern, agrarian planters’ society that benefitted immensely from chattel slavery; doesn’t have the same historical influence of Appalachian culture as Tennessee, North Carolina or Kentucky; and because Virginia Whites were much more willing to buy-into Lost Cause narration and Jim Crow due to state’s large Black population. Those factors make Virginia during the 20th century act more like a “Deep South” state than somewhere like Tennessee.
Also, I’ll just make a general comment about the “junior high school”-ness of my responses: Occam’s razor. We don’t need complicated answers where simpler ones will suffice; critical history is taught using arcs and themes because these are generally consistent with observable historical events and trends.
