Suffrage Restriction under Attack, 1944–47

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Southern Politics ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Black Protest ◽  
Intraparty Conflict ◽  
Party State ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Smith v. Allwright that challenged the restriction on suffrage: it invalidated the all-white Democratic primary and struck at the heart of southern politics—one-party rule based on white supremacy. It first considers the Supreme Court's challenge to the white primary in relation to rulers' dilemmas, opportunities, and options before discussing narratives of enclave experiences with the white primary challenge in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It then compares outer South and Deep South responses to Smith, showing that Georgia and South Carolina featured more impressive black mobilizations than Mississippi. However, the consequences of these episodes were not driven solely by such forces as economic development or black protest infrastructure. Rather, given different configurations of intraparty conflict, party–state institutions, and levels of black insurgency, Smith and the responses it invoked had different consequences for each enclave.

Driven from the House of Their Fathers

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Deep South ◽  
National Party ◽  
Central State ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Intraparty Conflict ◽  
Party State

This chapter examines President Harry S. Truman's commitment of the National Democratic Party to the cause of racial equality and the responses to them by Deep South authoritarian enclaves. It first provides an overview of the central state, national party, and southern enclaves during the period 1932–1946 before discussing the causes and consequences of the revolt by the States' Rights Party (SRP), also known as the Dixiecrats. It then considers southern enclaves' growing unease with the national party through the 1930s and 1940s, along with the experiences of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It shows that the Truman shock and responses to it varied within the Deep South depending on different configurations of intraparty conflict and party–state institutions.

The Beginning of the End for Authoritarian Rule in America:Smith v. Allwrightand the Abolition of the White Primary in the Deep South, 1944–1948

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
Democratic Rule ◽  
Intraparty Conflict ◽  
The U.S

In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court inSmith v. Allwrightshocked the southern body politic by invalidating the white-only Democratic primary. Interpreting the eleven states of the old Confederacy as enclaves of authoritarian rule, this article views Smith as beginning a long process that culminated in the early 1970s with the consolidation of democratic rule in America. Smith v. Allwright transformed the politics of all eleven enclaves, challenging rulers in their roles both as party officials and as lawmakers. Filtered through various configurations of intraparty conflict, political institutions, and black insurgency, however, the ruling shaped the politics of each enclave differently. This article compares the ruling's effects on three similarly-situated enclaves—Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. It suggests how Smith v. Allwright positioned these enclaves differently as they faced several other democratization challenges over the next three decades. The article closes with a discussion of how southern enclaves ultimately took divergent paths out of Dixie, why these different modes of democratization matter today, and how the reframing of southern political history developed here engages with recent research on America's distinctive democratic development.

Harnessing the Revolution?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Party State ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter examines how the southern authoritarian enclaves experienced different modes of democratization in light of the deathblows of federal legislation, domestic insurgencies, and National Democratic Party reform in the 1960s and early 1970s. As enclave rulers came to believe that change was inevitable, most sought to harness the revolution, striking a fine balance between resisting federal intervention without appearing too defiant, and accepting some change without appearing too quiescent. Pursuing a “harnessed revolution” meant influencing the pace of seemingly inevitable change; it served the overarching goals of protecting the political careers of enclave rulers and the interests of many of their political-economic clients. The chapter considers how prior responses to democratization pressures, factional conflict, and party–state institutions shaped modes of democratization. It shows that the growth of Republicans in the Deep South was to varying degrees both consequence and cause of rulers' responses to democratization pressures.

Deep South Enclaves on the Eve of the Transition

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Causal Account ◽  
Black Protest ◽  
Democratic Parties

This chapter examines four important features of Deep South authoritarian enclaves on the eve of the transition: their political geography, centralization of political authority, party factionalism, and latent strength of their indigenous opponents. A review of these and other characteristics of these polities suggests that modernization cannot fully explain the variation in Deep South democratization experiences. The chapter considers a causal account emphasizing the importance of regime defenders, opponents, and the institutional topography on which they battled one another. It compares the degree to which authority was centralized in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia and highlights the factionalism within Democratic parties. It concludes with a discussion of black protest capacity on the eve of the transition.

Partisan Journalism and the Rise of the Republican Party in South Carolina, 1959–1962

2013 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sid Bedingfield
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Professional Standards ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Deep South ◽  
American Press ◽  
The U.S

When political journalist William D. Workman, Jr., resigned from Charleston’s News and Courier and announced plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 1962, he said it would be “unethical” to combine “objective reporting with partisan politics.” Yet Workman’s personal papers reveal that, for three years, he and editor Thomas R. Waring, Jr., had been working with Republican leaders to build a conservative party to challenge Deep South Democrats. Workman’s story provides an example of how partisan activism survived in the twentieth-century American press, despite the rise of professional standards prohibiting political engagement.

scholarly journals Segregation Academies Then and School Choice Configurations Today in Deep South States

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Marilyn Grady ◽  
Sharon Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
School Funding ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Public School Funding ◽  
The U.S

In the following article, we present a brief historical review of segregation academies and their impact on students and public schools. Based on the review, we provide a portrait of the vestiges of segregation academies that appear to be currently re-emerging in different educational configurations throughout the U.S. and particularly in Deep South states. The purpose of a historical study is to provide a descriptive overview of specific social problems confined within a predetermined timeframe (Danto, 2008). This historical review’s purpose was to address the following inquiry: What were the characteristics of Deep South segregation academies designed to circumvent Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka? In what ways are these characteristics manifested in 2015 school choice configurations in the Deep South states, specifically Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina? To what extent, if any, did these manifested characteristics affect 2015 public school funding in Deep South states?

Motherhood and the Invention of Race

Hypatia ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Martinot
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Specific Analysis ◽  
The U.S ◽  
English Colonies

This article attempts to do two things: reveal a continuity of structure in white supremacy in the U.S. between its initial invention in the seventeenth-century English colonies and the present, and advance a specific analysis of a moment in the process of that invention that involved the domination and redefinition of women. That moment was provided by the matrilineal servitude statute passed in Virginia in 1662. To highlight the meaning of this statute, the article begins with a portrait of a contemporary case in which a black woman is convicted of murder for bearing a stillborn child in South Carolina. By mapping a homology of structure between the earlier statute and the contemporary instance, a continuity in the structure of racialization is revealed that places it at the very foundation of the culture of the U.S.

A Black Political Insurgency in the Deep South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sid Bedingfield
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Deep South ◽  
National Convention ◽  
First Time ◽  
The U.S

This chapter chronicles the role of McCray and his newspaper in the NAACP’s battle against the all-white Democratic Party in South Carolina. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Smith v. Allwright, which outlawed race-based party membership rules, white Democrats in the state erected new barriers to black participation in Democratic Party politics. In response, McCray and his allies used his newspaper to launch an insurgent political organization, the Progressive Democratic Party, which took its fight against the state’s white Democrats all the way to the national convention in Chicago in July. After three years of legal and political battle, McCray and the NAACP managed to overthrow the all-white primary in South Carolina. In August 1948, black South Carolinians voted in a Democratic Party primary for the first time since the rise of Jim Crow rule in the state in the 1890s.

Southern Political Development in Comparative Perspective

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
To Come ◽  
Party State

This book examines the democratization of authoritarian enclaves in America's Deep South during the period 1944–1972. Through a comparative historical analysis of the experiences of Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, it shows how the cohesion of elites and party–state capacity contributed to differences in modes of democratization across the Deep South. It suggests that the advancement of Republicans was in part a consequence and a cause of these democratization processes. This introductory chapter discusses some of the alternative perspectives on postwar southern political culture, along with the role of the political economy and black insurgency in southern political development. It also describes the phenomenon of authoritarian enclaves and offers some intuitions about how they might be democratized, focusing on subnational authoritarianism and subnational democratization. Finally, it provides an overview of the book's research design and summarizes the findings to come.

“Integration with Dignity”

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Mickey
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Black Education ◽  
The State ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black Protest ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter examines how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a crisis over the desegregation of Clemson College in South Carolina. Prior to Brown, South Carolina's rulers sought to preempt the invalidation of state-mandated segregation by improving black education. After the ruling, they launched a strategy of massive resistance: decrying, deterring, and deferring threats to white supremacy in the public sphere. The chapter first reviews the state of black education before Brown and South Carolina's attempts to preempt the decision. It then considers the state's responses to Brown in the 1950s and early 1960s, showing that its leaders attacked both white civil society and black protest organizations. It also describes how the state bolstered its institutional resources to manage democratization pressures and concludes with an assessment of how politicians capitalized on ruling party cohesion and an improved coercive apparatus to navigate the Clemson crisis.

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