Did the parties switch? A look into how the South and the Democrats evolved

Have you ever heard that the first movie in the Whitehouse was a film made by Klan members? The film called “Birth of a Nation” was shown to President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, and after watching it he said, “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation – until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country”. Wilson showed how Southern Democrats captured certain aspects of what the South believed in from the Revolutionary War until the late 20th century. Democrats in the South played a large role in the United States in the election of Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen before 1948. The Democratic party swept the South in presidential elections with large margins of over 50 percent; after 1948 the South went back and forth with different parties though the Democrats still held onto state houses, governorships, and a majority of other positions. 60 years later in 2010, the Democrats lost the majority in three state houses and the control of Congress, specifically seats in the South. The Democratic Party has had a major role in politics, especially in the South and its role has changed since 1940.

By the 1940s America was over 150 years old and two political parties had taken over the American political system, the Republicans and the Democrats. The Democrats had President Franklin Delano Rosevelt (“FDR”) serving four terms, the most terms of any president. FDR was seen as a uniter with a focus on populist issues concerning labor and the economy; he also led the US in World War Two. The Republican side had failed after the 1932 election when the incumbent president Herbert Hoover who was blamed for The Great Depression was defeated by FDR. FDR swept the South getting 98.03% of the votes in South Carolina. FDR was able to keep South Carolina with large margins along with the rest of the South in subsequent elections.

In April of 1945, the 32nd President of the United States FDR died and Vice President Harry Truman (“Truman'') from Missouri became President. By 1948, the War was over and there was a presidential election. Truman, the incumbent President and Democratic nominee, like Roosevelt, was a moderate on Civil Rights. If a bill were passed they’d sign it but they would not go out of their way to try to end segregation. Truman won the nomination very easily and spoke at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia where he and his running mate said “Senator Barkley (D-KY) and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it — don't you forget that!" and he attacked the "Do-Nothing 80th Congress''. Before Truman spoke, the Mayor of Minneapolis Minnesota Hubert Humphrey gave the first Democratic Party “sanctioned” speech on Civil Rights where he spoke about the need for change. Several Southern Democrats, especially governors like Fielding Wright, Governor, from Mississippi who had promoted segregation, walked out of the convention after Humphrey said no to segregation and how it was the Democrat's job to expand Civil Rights. Two Weeks after Humphrey’s speech Truman would make the first change to Civil Rights in the federal government where he signed an Executive Order to desegregate the military Truman's 1948 campaign ran on a more liberal Civil Rights plank than FDR's. but his Republican opponent Thomas Dewey, a supporter of Civil Rights as Governor of New York years before the election.

After the Democratic Convention and the walkout from the convention by Southern Dixiecrats which is a term used to define Southern Democrats in favor of segregation rather than support Truman, a group of Dixiecrats gathered and drafted young South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond (“Thurmond”) for President and Fielding Wright for Vice President. The Dixiecrats' goal was to prevent Truman from winning and attempt to enforce Civil Rights. The Dixiecrats were unsuccessful in their goal but they won over a million votes and carried four Deep South states. Truman went on to win and carried all the other Southern states not won by Thurmond. Truman was able to keep the border states and other Southern states because of two reasons: Truman was from Missouri, a border state. Truman had Alben Barkley, a Southerner as his vice president. Barkley was the Senate Majority Leader and a Southern Democrat. Additionally, there were a lot of “yellow dog” Democrats who were Southerners categorized who would rather vote for a yellow dog if he was the Democratic nominee this term was created after the Civil War when Democrats refused to support Republicans because Abraham Lincoln was one. Many Southerners still felt content with Truman's views on segregation. Truman had only desegregated the military and he did not pledge to do much more. In his successful campaign, he only spoke once on Civil Rights in a speech in Harlem, New York to over 5,000 African Americans.

Truman's Presidency passed with a larger attitude shift on Civil Rights where a majority of Americans started to agree with a Civil Rights platform. Many Americans had fought in World Two with African Americans and saw how Americans of all races were the same and had to work together in the war along with the current issues of problems with the economy and tensions with the Soviets. Former World War II general and popular figure Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, was also moderate on Civil Rights, but as opposed to his opponent Adlai Stevenson, (“Stevenson”) Democratic governor of Illinois. Stevenson's platform had no mention of Civil Rights and his Vice Presidential nominee was a Senator from Alabama John Sparkman who was a segregationist. The Democratic Party wanted him to be the Vice Presidential nominee so they could win Southern support back. Eisenhower won by a lot with Stevenson winning only nine states and not even winning his home state and only receiving wins in Southern states. Eisenhower’s term included one of the most influential Supreme Court decisions, Brown versus Board of Education which banned school segregation. The main justice on the case was Earl Warren, the former Republican governor of California who was Thomas Dewey’s running, made in 1948. Warren a liberal Republican, pushed for Civil Rights in the 1948 campaign, and his defining moment was that Supreme Court case.

The decision to ban school segregation was not well received in the South. In the fall of 1957 Democratic Governor of Arkansas, Orval Fabus blocked 9 African Americans from being let into the Little Rock Public School which had been segregated its whole existence. There were large scale riots and protests which led to President Eisenhower sending in the National Guard to let the students in. Fabus had risen to prominence in this action and received gratitude from groups like the KKK and the Citizens' Councils who were both groups who tried to maintain segregation.

Another Democratic Governor who opposed school integration was Alabama Governor George C. Wallace (“Wallace”). In 1963 the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa had planned to finally enforce the Brown decision by attempting admission of Black students. When the Governor heard this he decided he would block the students from entering on the basis of separate but equal and the institution of states rights. Wallace was able to hold the students off for a while until, just like his predecessor Eisenhower, President John F. Kennedy (“JFK”), a Democrat from Massachusetts federalized the National Guard to help let the students in. Wallace repeatedly blocked them himself. Hours later after an executive order and a proclamation from JFK, Wallace finally moved. His attempt at blocking the students skyrocketed Wallace’s popularity and dislike throughout the country. A Year later JFK was assassinated and Lyndon B. Johnson (“LBJ”) took office, and he pledged a focus on Civil Rights. Wallace was against this and he attempted to defeat LBJ in the 1964 Democratic Presidential primary. He was, however unsuccessful and LBJ went on to pass the Civil Rights Act of 64 and Voting Rights Act and he wrote other executive orders to attempt to end racial segregation. (2020 President LBJ Wrestled With Social Justice, War, and Unrest. His Legacy Is Still Relevant)

Four years later as the Vietnam War started and escalated, Wallace rose back to prominence as he decided to run for President under the banner of the American Independent Party. He wanted the National Democrat party to see the problems of the South and like most Southern Democrats, Wallace ran on an end to integration and a continuation of FDR’s Programs which were very fiscally liberal.

Wallace energized the Southern vote along with the Labor Union vote. Wallace lost the election but carried 5 states and had almost 10 million votes. Wallace returned to the Democratic Party and attempted to win the nomination in ‘72 and ‘76. He became a born-again Christian and apologized to Civil Rights leaders and even went to the Graduation of one of the students he blocked from entering the school. Wallace's attitude shifted was caused wjen he was shot by a young liberal anti-Vietnam protesters.

Jimmy Carter was a Moderate to Liberal Democratic governor of Georgia who was pro-civil rights and ran and won the presidency in 1976 using the modern Democratic framework as we know off today. The next Democratic president and the most recent one from the South Bill Clinton was also able to use the modern Democratic Party platform which included young voters and African Americans as opposed to the past filled with segregationists.

When Bill Clinton was president his liberal economic policy was unpopular in the South and instead they supported the more consecutive trickle down economics “reaganomics” policy started by Ronald Reagan. The Dixiecrat segregationists were very fiscally liberal as they wanted to see poor white Southerners advance as opposed to younger and minority Southerners. By the 1980s and ‘90s voters in the South were less reliable on government and race played a smaller factor in their voting pattern. So changing demographics along with support for “reaganomics” is what turned the South red.

In 2024 the most recent film shown in the White House was the movie “Till” which is about the lynching of a young African American in a town in Mississippi. This In contrast to the 1915 movie shows the shift in the Democratic Party from showing and praising racist movies to then screening an award-winning film about the fight for equality in the 1950s.