Why Does Everybody Relate Southern-Accents To Unintelligence?

I’m a Junior in High-School from a small town in Tennessee, and by small I mean there’s only 500 people in my entire school from pre-k to 12th grade. I love my accent which has a southern twang to it, and it really annoys me when other people “try” and imitate it. It comes out sounding worse then some of our sayings down here, lol.

Even though I love my accent, with all the stereo-types it gets from people believing we’re nothing but a bunch of hicks that don’t have enough education to live with the “rest” of the world, it makes me reluctant to talk in front of people.

Which I can understand why some of the southern accents annoy others because if it sounds fake and too country then it probably ain’t real, and that annoys me also, but it’s really not fair how everybody seems to put us all in the same boat as illiterate and unintelligent. Which brings me to my question, why does almost everybody relate southern accents to unintelligence?