

" Solid South": Arkansas voted Democratic in all 23 presidential elections from 1876 through 1964 other states were not quite as solid but generally supported Democrats for president. Blacks had formerly been aligned with the Republican Party before being excluded from politics in the region, but during the Great Migration African Americans had found the Democratic Party in the North and West more suited to their interests.) Background (This referred to the Southern Democratic Party's control of presidential elections in the South and most seats in Congress, partly through decades of disfranchisement of blacks entrenched by Southern state legislatures between 18. The Dixiecrats represented the weakening of the " Solid South". The Dixiecrats' presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond, became a Republican in 1964. After the 1948 election, its leaders generally returned to the Democratic Party. Its members were referred to as "Dixiecrats", a portmanteau of " Dixie", referring to the Southern United States, and "Democrat".ĭespite the Dixiecrats' success in several states, Truman was narrowly re-elected. They opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and other aspects of codified racial discrimination in the face of possible federal intervention. Supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. While many Democrats in the South had shifted toward favoring economic intervention, civil rights for African Americans was not specifically incorporated within the New Deal agenda, due in part to Southern control over many key positions of power within the U.S. In the 1930s, a political realignment occurred largely due to the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. They wished to protect the ability of states to maintain racial segregation. Truman, a member of the Democratic Party, ordered integration of the military in 1948 and other actions to address civil rights of African Americans, many Southern white politicians who objected to this course organized themselves as a breakaway faction.

It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition to members of the Democratic Party in the North. The States' Rights Democratic Party (whose members are often called the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States, active primarily in the South.
