From the rising Appalachians near Charlotte to the Low Country of Charleston, and surely in that great crescent of states all the way to Texas, I believe there is a great hunger in the South.

I was struck by this craving as never before in 50 years as a journalist in the South because of the reaction of audiences at Davidson College and in Charleston to a speech I invented for President Obama to give.

It was if the listeners were spiritually famished and the president's words held out the promise that their longing would be satisfied. This feeling of validation has happened for black Southerners with the election of Obama.

The white majority still yearns for simple respect, for the nation to affirm that it is all right to be Southern and for the people of the South to enjoy symbols of their heritage without embarrassment or apology.

You see, for 144 years since the end of the Civil War, the Southern majority has been repeatedly told that it is not good to be who we are. We should be ashamed of who we are.

Southern whites have been regarded as lepers by the national Democratic Party, taken for granted by right-wing Republicans and sneered at by leading GOP moderates.

All signs, seals, symbols and songs native to our culture, according to the national consensus, must be deeply suppressed, and in their place we are told to accept … shame.

This is an unhealthy state of affairs. No people anywhere on Earth should be asked to live on a diet of shame. I remember the cold, unnatural feeling I had in the 1970s on my first visit to Germany because of the absence of any national flags or anthems. It seemed a nation trying to live on the thin gruel of shame.

Natural feelings bred into people as instincts cannot be suborned for long without feeding a caged monster. We have seen that monster loosed, waving an honorable flag with hatred that could and did kill.

Obama's invented words in my two speeches mesmerized the two audiences because they promised a relief from shame, the right to enjoy natural feelings and symbols without embarrassment.

Here is the scene I set for the president (a reminder to regular visitors to this space):

Obama is speaking to a vast audience in the Georgia Dome. A civil rights icon has just introduced him; U.S. Rep. John Lewis said his philosophical "Beloved Community" embraces white soul as well as black soul.

Majority white Southerners in the crowd made nervous by national scorn for their cultural totems wondered how the first black president would treat such explosive symbols as the Confederate flag.

He wrapped symbols in the one-nation theme of his speech: "I am reminded again that we are one undivided America, that the honored dead at Gettysburg wore blue AND gray; they fought under different flags that deserve honor and respect but are equal inheritors of one America, indivisible, because in their fighting and in their dying they made a nation out of a scattering of states.

"It is good that people set aside quiet, peaceful places to remind us that even in defeat, there was nobility of character and the men who fought under such leaders represent universal values of courage, honor and loyalty. Cultural symbols speak to people of important events that happened to them along the way." They deserve respect — and must never be dishonored by being used as symbols of hate.

Cultural reconciliation is a difficult process that requires constant attention through many media and levels, but it begins with a personal visit and sincere invitation. Southerners have always answered the call.

There is no reason to believe they would not volunteer if their president personally invited them to join him in the great restorative enterprise that the nation needs and the world expects.

He will find no greater patriots, none more willing to sign up and sacrifice for their country — if they are recruited with care and respect. A steady presence during his presidency could turn wary strangers away from suspicion and resentment, toward mutual respect, and maybe even friendship.

Releasing the white South from shame, filling the emptiness with feelings of self-respect, would release a surge of powerful emotions that with care and time could be of great benefit to the region and the nation.

A national Democratic Party listened to for the first time in generations could mean the end of a solid no-party South based on race and a normal division of two parties on realistic issues of health, education, environment, etc.

Normalization of the political process for the first time in the South would allow the region to break out of its unnatural state of apartheid and elevate the national dialogue by discounting fringe issues.

We would then be one nation, truly indivisible, the vision Obama projected in his campaign — an historic union he could achieve, if he has the desire and the will to engage in a strategic effort to win over the Southern majority.

It is up to you, Mr. President. You went all the way to Egypt to seek reconciliation between America and the world of Islam.

Will you make the short trip to Atlanta to seek reconciliation with the Southern majority?

Brandt Ayers is publisher of The Anniston Star.