What Marion County gave me — and what America is in danger of forgetting

PUBLISHED: January 2, 2026 | www.baltimoresun.com

When I reflect on my upbringing in Marion County, South Carolina, I do not do so out of nostalgia or sentimentality. I return there in my thinking because it gave me a framework for understanding responsibility, morality, loyalty and human nature that has proven far more durable than many of the fashionable ideas now shaping public life. Marion County did not teach me how to protest the world; it taught me how to participate in it, how to carry my share of the load, and how to remain accountable for my choices.

I was raised on a 500-acre cattle farm that remains in my family to this day. That land was not symbolic; it demanded work, coordination and stewardship. My parents paid us to work, not to reward us, but to teach us that labor creates value and that value creates independence. In our household, ownership was not a slogan. It was a responsibility passed down with the expectation that it would be preserved, not squandered. That lesson alone distinguishes my upbringing from much of what I see today in a culture that celebrates consumption without contribution.

There were 10 children in our home, and that experience shaped my understanding of education more than any policy paper ever could. We were raised by the same parents, under the same roof, with the same expectations, yet our abilities and outcomes were very different. Some of us learned quickly. Others struggled for years and required far more attention and patience. That reality makes it impossible for me to accept the simplistic notion that equal conditions produce equal results or that systems alone explain human outcomes. People are different, children learn differently, and pretending otherwise does a disservice to those who need the most help.

One of the most enduring lessons my father gave me came at a train station in South Carolina, when trains still passed through Marion, Florence and Horry County. He had me stand near the tracks as the cars rushed by, windows flashing too quickly to focus on. He told me those windows represented opportunity and warned me that they move fast and do not wait for anyone to catch up. Preparation, he explained, is what allows you to seize opportunity when it appears. That lesson has never left me, and it explains much of what is broken in modern America. Opportunity still exists, but we have failed to prepare people to recognize it, much less act on it.

Reading and learning were central to that preparation. My father insisted that we read our textbooks before class, not because he was harsh, but because he understood that familiarity breeds confidence and confidence breeds mastery. Books expanded my world long before travel ever did. Reading sharpened my thinking, strengthened my communication and instilled a habit of lifelong learning. Today, we express shock that so many children cannot read at grade level while ignoring the fact that we have replaced standards with excuses and discipline with distraction. Learning requires sustained investment, and too many institutions have abandoned that responsibility.

Faith reinforced those expectations in our home. It was not a cultural accessory or a political statement. It was a moral framework that governed how we treated others and how we judged ourselves. Accountability to God preceded accountability to anyone else, and that hierarchy mattered. Morality was not negotiated based on convenience or party loyalty. It was lived daily, often quietly, and without applause. That grounding shaped how I approach both business and public life, where integrity must matter more than advantage.

As I have built businesses and media institutions, those same principles have guided me. I do not view people as expendable resources. I view them as partners whose success strengthens the whole enterprise. Empowerment is not charity; it is a moral and practical obligation. When people have ownership and stake, resentment diminishes and responsibility increases. That lesson, too, came from Marion County, where cooperation was necessary and selfishness was unsustainable.

America today is not suffering from a lack of wealth, technology or power. It is suffering from a lack of moral seriousness. Great civilizations do not collapse because they lack strength; they collapse because they lose restraint and forget the principles that sustained them. We have become too comfortable believing that freedom means the absence of obligation and that prosperity excuses discipline. History offers no support for that belief.

Marion County did not make me who I am because it was perfect. It made me who I am because it was honest. Honest about work, honest about faith, honest about responsibility and honest about human limitations. Those lessons remain relevant, not because they are old, but because human nature has not changed. If America is to endure, it would do well to remember what small towns like mine once understood without needing to be reminded.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.

©️ 2026 Baltimore Sun