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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/demise-of-the-southern-democrat-is-now-nearly-complete/ar-BBglyRv
White supremacist Democrats seized control of the South after the end of Reconstruction, the period that followed the Civil War. They instituted so-called Jim Crow laws disenfranchising African-American voters, who favored Republicans, the party of Lincoln. The so-called Solid South all but unanimously supported Democrats for more than half a century, with states like South Carolina and Mississippi routinely offering Democrats more than 95 percent of the vote, even to losing presidential candidates.
The Democratic hold on the South in presidential elections began to change in 1948, when the Democratic National Convention backed President Harry Truman’s position on civil rights. Many Southern Democrats left the convention and nominated Strom Thurmond as the presidential candidate of the States’ Rights Democratic Party.
But Southern Democrats would continue to dominate state and local politics for decades longer, slowly yielding to Republicans only after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, after which Mr. Thurmond switched to the Republicans and became the first senator from the party to represent the Deep South since Reconstruction.
The demise of the Southern Democrat is not coincidental. It reflects a complete cycle of generational replacement in the post-Jim Crow era.
Bingo
White supremacist Democrats seized control of the South after the end of Reconstruction, the period that followed the Civil War. They instituted so-called Jim Crow laws disenfranchising African-American voters, who favored Republicans, the party of Lincoln. The so-called Solid South all but unanimously supported Democrats for more than half a century, with states like South Carolina and Mississippi routinely offering Democrats more than 95 percent of the vote, even to losing presidential candidates.
The Democratic hold on the South in presidential elections began to change in 1948, when the Democratic National Convention backed President Harry Truman’s position on civil rights. Many Southern Democrats left the convention and nominated Strom Thurmond as the presidential candidate of the States’ Rights Democratic Party.
But Southern Democrats would continue to dominate state and local politics for decades longer, slowly yielding to Republicans only after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, after which Mr. Thurmond switched to the Republicans and became the first senator from the party to represent the Deep South since Reconstruction.
The demise of the Southern Democrat is not coincidental. It reflects a complete cycle of generational replacement in the post-Jim Crow era.
Bingo