Atlanta’s moderate coalition allied blacks with affluent whites against white workers

Evidence

Close analysis of voting results made it clear that working-class whites, who sided the most consistently with segregation, were in fact a lost cause. In the 1953 primary, for instance, Hartsfield received 90 percent of all votes cast in a typical black precinct and 60 percent in a typical upper-income white precinct, but just 29 percent in a precinct of lower-income whites. Running for reelection in 1957, the mayor maintained the allegiance of his core constituents but saw his working-class white support plummet to 17 percent. By all appearances, such voters could be safely ignored. … In this regard, the Hartsfield coalition represented, in the words of another study, a “tacit alliance” of blacks and upper-middle-class whites against the working-class whites of Atlanta. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 100

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s earlier material on how desegregation-era coalitions split working-class whites from elites — parallels the cross-class dynamics in White Noise and class-subordination scholarship. — connects to: Atlanta’s celebrated moderation masked intense resistance to residential integration — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 19; Atlanta whites resisted desegregation less violently than northern whites did — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 38; Atlanta’s moderate image concealed its status as a center of African American strength — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 40 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Racism and self-interest aligned white labor against Black workers across all labor factions #qualifies (0.78) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 949