New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the United States as a whole, reject the economy and traditions of the Old South, and the slavery-based plantation system of the prewar period. The term was coined by its leading spokesman, Atlanta editor Henry W. Grady in 1874.

Comer Vann Woodward was an American historian who focused primarily on the American South and race relations. He was long a supporter of the approach of Charles A. Beard, stressing the influence of unseen economic motivations in politics.