Where Does The Term 'Redneck' Come From? How Redneck Culture Was Originally Far Left
By January 9, 2021
The term "redneck" has been used for over a century to describe (sometimes derogatorily) white, working-class people without higher education from rural America and/or the South. While some may use it to belittle others, some find solidarity, identification, and humor in the term. Comedian Jeff Foxworthy, for instance, made his entire fortune off the word with his wildly successful "... you might be a redneck" routine. But just where did this term come from, and how did it become so popular?
The Sunburn Theory
It's always hard to know just where a word originated, especially slang words, as they leave little behind in terms of paper trails. However, the general consensus is that around the late 19th century, people likely began calling white field workers "rednecks" due to the sunburns they routinely received on the backs of their necks after hours of toiling in the sun.
By the 20th century, "redneck" was a common classification of white field workers or farmers, and not necessarily in a negative sense. For example, the Democratic Party advertised an upcoming election in a Mississippi newspaper in 1891 by boasting that "the 'rednecks' [would] be there," along with other slang terms for various blue-collar professions. Over the next decade, white, working-class people began to self-identify as "rednecks" and even began wearing red handkerchiefs around their necks in a display of pride in their region and profession.
The Red Neck Army
The term became ubiquitous in the 1920s due to a massive uprising of coal miners against their company's anti-union enforcers. Things took an ugly turn when a pro-union sheriff by the name of Sid Hatfield, who had previously been involved in a gunfight that left several officers and the town mayor dead after the Stone Mountain Coal Company attempted a mass eviction, was assassinated in August 1921 in an ambush by private agents employed by Stone Mountain.
Thousands of miners from the region convened in Matewan, West Virginia to aid unionization efforts and demand the release of prisoners, wearing red handkerchiefs around their necks to identify one another and show solidarity, becoming known as the "Red Neck Army." The ordeal ended in the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest battle since the Civil War, that left dozens dead on both sides.
