The civil rights movement’s Democratic adoption made southern whites available to Republican appeals.
Evidence
For Weyrich and his fellow political operatives, the rise of the civil rights movement presented a historic opportunity to advance their own agenda. From Reconstruction through the 1960s, southern whites had been a critical part of the Democratic Party coalition. Their support had been essential in realizing the New Deal, although it burdened the progressive legislation of the period with racist policies. When Democrats took the lead in civil rights, however, the southern white population was suddenly in play. Nixon famously committed the Republican Party to the “Southern Strategy”—that is, appealing to the southern, white, formerly Democratic popular vote through populism, racism, and nativism. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 241
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to standard accounts of the Southern Strategy realignment and the GOP coalition shift. — connects to: Civil rights, not other issue concerns, drove Southern whites’ falling approval of Kennedy — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 634; White backlash against the Civil Rights Act delivered the South to the Republican Party — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 519; Civil-rights-era policy shifts drove southern whites into the Republican Party — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 105 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- White backlash against the Civil Rights Act delivered the South to the Republican Party
#corroborates(0.95) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 519 - Civil-rights-era policy shifts drove southern whites into the Republican Party
#corroborates(0.93) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 105 - Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment
#corroborates(0.90) - Southern whites opposed to integration were staunchly Democratic before 1964.
#expands(0.85) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1333 - The racial-views mechanism nearly fully accounts for Southern whites’ partisan shift.
#corroborates(0.82) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 462