In the 10 days between Atlanta magazine’s request for a sit-down with former governor Roy Barnes to discuss the impact of the Charleston church shootings and the actual interview, a lot happened: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds in Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act and affirmed the rights of same-sex couples to marry, and Governor Nathan Deal ordered a redesign of Georgia’s state-sponsored license plate that features the Confederate flag. It was a historic week for the nation—especially in the South, which once again was cast as the “other,” a region unable to resolve the tension between its past and the pull of modernity. Barnes, a throwback to Georgia’s once mighty but now dismantled Democratic machine, was eager to talk about the South’s contradictions. And, as the governor who oversaw the revamp of Georgia’s state flag back in 2001—which removed the battle emblem and arguably cost him reelection in 2002—few are more uniquely qualified.

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