SOUTHERN POLITICS REVISITED

In: Public opinion quarterly: journal of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Band 20, Heft 2, S. 405-412

Abstract

An analysis by counties of the results of the 1948 & 1952 presidential elections in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana & Alabama tends to confirm the hypo advanced, by V. O. Key & others according to which it is the whites of the black-belts who have the deepest & most immediate concern about the maintenance of white supremacy. Thurmond In 1948 & Eisenhower in 1952 both received notably higher %'s of votes in the `Negro' counties (those containing over 60% Negroes among the pop) than in the 'white' counties (those containing less than 30%). In view of this continuity, & in view of the small number of Negroes voting in the states in question, it is clear that this situation is the result not of the Negro vote, but of the fact that the reaction of the white pop is %'ally more violently hostile to racial equality in regions where there are more Negroes, & found in Thurmond in 1948, & in Eisenhower in 1952, the best defender of the status quo. This reaction, coupled with the hostility of many Southern Democrats toward the econ & soc program of the Democratic Party as a whole, seemed in 1952 well on the way toward the creation of a 2-party system in the Deep South, in which the Democrats & Republicans would have been supported respectively by the same soc groups as elsewhere in the US. This process has been greatly slowed down as a result of the reaction against the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the public Sch's. The possibility of an eventual realignment will hinge on the policies of both parties towards civil rights. IPSA.