Transforming Political Parties

Something that has intrigued me throughout our study of African-American history is the transformation of political parties. Through the Jim Crow and civil rights eras and into the present, it is interesting to track how both the Republican and Democratic parties have responded to African-American voters.

A recent article in The Atlantic, "The Last Southern Democrat," reminded me of this transformation. The story talks about Democrat Mary Landrieu, the senior United States senator from Louisiana. Yesterday, she lost a run-off election to Republican Bill Cassidy. Now, Democrats do not hold "a single governorship, Senate seat, or legislative chamber from the Carolinas to Texas," as the article predicted would happen before the results of the election were announced. While Landrieu was the last Southern Democratic Senator (except for one in Florida), it's slightly unfair to call her the "last Southern Democrat": for example, Memphis's Congressman, Steve Cohen, is a Democrat. However, it's clear to see the stark differences between a region where "Democrats were once so loyal it was said they would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican."

In the South as in most of the United States, voting has usually fallen along racial lines. In Louisiana today, "The approximately one-third of the population that is black is overwhelmingly Democratic, but white voters have fled the party. Landrieu, who got 33 percent of the white vote in 2008, drew just 18 percent of whites in last month's primary." A particular race fleeing from a political party is not rare in American history, however.

During Reconstruction, the large majority of African Americans were Republicans. As the party of Abraham Lincoln and the authors of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, this makes sense. Perhaps surprisingly, African Americans were not even allowed to attend Democratic conventions until 1924. In addition to African Americans, the Republican party was also the first to support women's suffrage. The first African Americans and women elected to Congress were Republicans. How, then, did the Republican party lose its reputation as the "civil rights" party?

During the Great Depression, many African Americans supported Roosevelt's New Deal tactics, especially during his second term. In 1936, he received 71% of the African-American vote. In 1960, about two-thirds of African Americans identified with the Democratic party. Although significantly larger than a few decades before, a large difference still remains between that figure and the 90% who identify with the Democratic party today.

According to one article, Freedom Summer played a large role in the shift of the remaining number of African Americans toward the Democratic party. In particular, the response of many Republicans—and Barry Goldwater in particular—pushed the remaining African Americans away from the Republican party, and toward the party of Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

The article on Mary Landrieu helps identify the similar shift of Southern whites away from the Democratic party. Some held on for a fairly long time after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. I found the quote in the article from Mike Foster, the former two-term Republican governor of Louisiana (who himself turned away from the Democratic party in 1995), very telling; although the author notes she didn't ask him about race, he said, "I don't think it's racial. . . You know, the races have gotten along down here for years. Look at what's happening in Ferguson right now. We don't have a bunch of people running out in the street hollering about that."

Further reading: 

How the GOP Lost the African American Vote, and Their Civil Rights Reputation

Why Did Black Voters Flee the Republican Party in the 1960s?

Party Realignment and the New Deal