Racial Realignment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Power Bases ◽  
Congress Of Industrial Organizations ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Racial Policy ◽  
The 1960S

Few transformations in American politics have been as important as the integration of African Americans into the Democratic Party and the Republican embrace of racial policy conservatism. The story of this partisan realignment on race is often told as one in which political elites—such as Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater—set in motion a dramatic and sudden reshuffling of party positioning on racial issues during the 1960s. This book instead argues that top party leaders were actually among the last to move, and that their choices were dictated by changes that had already occurred beneath them. The book shows that the two parties' transformation on civil rights took place gradually over decades. The book reveals that Democratic partisanship, economic liberalism, and support for civil rights had crystallized in public opinion, state parties, and Congress by the mid-1940s. This trend was propelled forward by the incorporation of African Americans and the pro-civil-rights Congress of Industrial Organizations into the Democratic coalition. Meanwhile, Republican partisanship became aligned with economic and racial conservatism. Scrambling to maintain existing power bases, national party elites refused to acknowledge these changes for as long as they could, but the civil rights movement finally forced them to choose where their respective parties would stand. Presenting original ideas about political change, the book sheds new light on twentieth and twenty-first century racial politics.

The Changing Politics of Race in the South and Its Impact on National Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-107
Author(s):  
Charles S. Bullock ◽  
Susan A. MacManus ◽  
Jeremy D. Mayer ◽  
Mark J. Rozell
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The South ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Voter Suppression ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Party Dominance

The long era of racial segregation and black voter suppression coincided with the old “Solid South” of Democratic dominance of the region. Among African Americans who could vote, they were loyal to the GOP, the party of Lincoln. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the civil rights movement more generally moved Southern blacks to the Democratic Party. The emergence of African American voters’ rights and their realigning to the Democratic Party have had the most profound impact on the politics of the region of the past half century. Today, Southern African Americans vote at about the same rate as whites and in some recent presidential elections have exceeded white participation. As whites realigned to the GOP, African Americans became a key component of the Democratic Party dominance of the South, with substantial influence on legislative priorities.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Partisan Realignment ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The New Deal

This introductory chapter provides a background of the civil rights realignment. The conventional account treats the civil rights realignment as the disruption of one stable partisan alignment and its replacement by another alignment in which race played a defining role. The critical decisions driving this process occurred in the 1960s as national party elites grappled with the question of how to respond to pressure from civil rights activists. The choices made at the center then reverberated throughout the political system, gradually remaking both parties at the mass and middle levels. In contrast, this book argues that the partisan realignment on civil rights was rooted in changes in the New Deal coalition that emerged in the mid- to late 1930s, not the 1960s. Rather than realignment starting in Washington and diffusing out and down, state parties and locally oriented rank- and-file members of Congress provided a key mechanism for pro-civil rights forces to capture the Democratic Party from below.

“Defend Your Manhood and Womanhood Rights”

2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-194
Author(s):  
Modupe Labode
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Municipal Election

This article analyzes African Americans’ protest against the movie The Birth of a Nation in Denver in 1915 and the protest’s impact on the May 1916 municipal election, in which African Americans shifted their support from the Republican to the Democratic mayoral candidate. This essay contributes to the scholarship on African American activism during “the long civil rights movement” and the role of the idea of respectability in that activism. This essay first argues that protests against this film had political as well as cultural significance. African Americans’ political activism in the West furthers our knowledge of black activism in the early twentieth century. Finally, this essay contributes to understanding the local roots of African Americans’ shift from the Republican to the Democratic Party during the early twentieth century.

From Many to Few

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey D. Fields
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
Black Political Behavior ◽  
Black Voters

This chapter examines the historical relationship between African Americans and the Republican Party. In contrast to their current unexpected status, it used to be common for blacks to support the party. Abolition was at the center of the party's creation, and African Americans were a critical constituency. Only in the 1930s did the majority of African Americans start supporting Democratic candidates in presidential elections. While shifts in how each party handled economic issues precipitated black voters' exodus to the Democratic Party, it was the Republican Party's response to the civil rights movement and demands for racial equality that produced its antagonistic relationship with blacks. In tracing this history, it becomes clear that black political behavior develops in concert with shifts in the broader political context.

Race and Gender

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Temin
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Latino Immigrants ◽  
Dual Economy ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S

Racism, or racecraft, began when African slaves first were brought to America. Slaves were not included in “all men” who were created equal, and the Civil War did not make African Americans equal citizens. Jim Crow laws and actions prevented them from voting and getting a decent education until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The backlash from this movement led to a dual economy. Women also were not full citizens until the 20th century, and their right to full equality is still being contested. Latino immigrants more recently have entered racecraft on a par with blacks, as in pejorative statements about black and brown people.

scholarly journals THE RESPONSE OF THE MODERATE WING OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT TO THE WAR IN VIETNAM

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON HALL
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Urban League ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
Lyndon Johnson ◽  
The 1960S

This article explores the response of the moderate wing of the civil rights movement to the war in Vietnam. The moderates, made up of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and leaders such as Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, were initially opposed to the civil rights movement taking a stand against the war. This reluctance was the result of a number of factors, including anti-communism and their own closeness with the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. Crucially, it also resulted from their own experiences of the black freedom struggle itself. The article also documents and analyses the growing anti-war dissent amongst the moderates, culminating in the decision of both the NAACP and the Urban League to adopt an anti-war stance at the end of the 1960s. Despite this, they remained unenthusiastic about participating in peace movement activities, and the reasons for this are explained. Finally, the article suggests that the war was important in exposing existing divisions within the civil rights movement, as well as in generating new ones.

“Out of These Ghettos, People Who Would Fight”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Gold
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Rent Control ◽  
Community Power ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines the rent strikes that erupted in Harlem and other ghettos in the 1960s. Ideologically, the rent strikes blur the line between civil rights liberalism and Black Power. Rent strikers renounced the liberal integrationist vision—moving out of the ghetto—that had animated the previous decade's black housing struggles. Instead they sought to improve conditions and build power within the segregated neighborhoods where they, like most African Americans, actually lived. This chapter considers the rent rebellion launched by ghetto residents, drawing inspiration from the burgeoning civil rights movement and support from New York's longtime tenant advocates. It shows that this rent rebellion won modest material improvements and contributed to a growing movement for community power in the ghettos. One of the strikes' main achievements was to galvanize tenants throughout New York City at a critical moment in the long-term fight over rent control. The chapter also discusses issues of gender and race in the Harlem rent strikes.

West of Jim Crow

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
White Schools ◽  
Black Bodies

This book follows California’s history of segregation from statehood to the beginning of the long civil rights movement, arguing that the state innovated methods to control and contain African Americans and other people of color. While celebrated in popular discourse for its forward-thinking culture, politics, and science, California also pioneered new ways to keep citizenship white. Schools, streetcars, restaurants, theaters, parks, beaches, and pools were places of contestation where the presence of black bodies elicited forceful responses from segregationists. Black Californians employed innovative measures to dismantle segregation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; they borrowed some tactics from race rebels in the South, others they improvised. West of Jim Crow uses California to highlight the significance of African American resistance to racial restrictions in places often deemed marginal to mainstream civil rights histories. Examining segregation in the state sheds light on the primacy of gender and sexuality in the minds of segregationists and the significance of black women, black bodies, and racial science, in the years preceding the modern civil rights struggle. California has much to teach us about the lives of African Americans who crossed the color line and the variety of tactics and strategies employed by freedom fighters across the United States.

Racial Realities

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Natsu Taylor Saito
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Structural Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
American Indian Movement ◽  
The 1960S

In the 1960s, global decolonization and the civil rights movement inspired hope for structural change in the United States, but more than fifty years later, racial disparities in income and wealth, education, employment, health, housing, and incarceration remain entrenched. In addition, we have seen a resurgence of overt White supremacy following the election of President Trump. This chapter considers the potential of movements like Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock water protectors in light of the experiences of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and other efforts at community empowerment in the “long sixties.”

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