Influence of Southern whites in the Democratic Party

Question 1

What was the attitude of the 3 branches of govt in the years between the end of Reconstruction and the Great Depression?

Answer 1

Supreme Court - invariably endorsed Southern white behaviour

Although most black Northerners voted for Republican candidates, NAACP magazine, ‘The Crisis’, told readers in 1924 - ‘Republicans are just as bad as Democratic and Democratic presidents are little better than nothing’

Congress - unhelpful - influence of Southern whites in the Democratic Party

Question 2

Who did the Democratic party in 1933 consist of?

Answer 2

• The ‘Solid South’
• Urban (mostly Catholic) ethnic voters in the North
• Workers and middle-class liberals across the nation

Question 3

Who were the ‘Solid South’?

Answer 3

• Prior to 1960s - voters in South invariably voted Democrat

- The vast majority of those voters were white

Question 4

How did the Republican role in the Civil War era affect black and white voting for many decades?

Answer 4

• Republicans had initiated the end of slavery
• Had led the North to victory over the South
• Imposed reconstructed on the South

As a result - most black Americans favoured the Republicans Party, while white Southerners invariably voted Democrat

Question 5

What were Southern Democrats determined to maintain?

Answer 5

The social, economic and political inferiority of black Americans and their domination of the Democratic Party in the South helped them to do so.

Question 6

How did the Southern Democrats maintain their supremacy?

Answer 6

1) South’s single-party system - led to the repeated re-election of the same Democrat candidates
2) Long-serving Southern Democrat senators and representatives gained disproportionate influence in the US Congress under seniority rules
3) Gave them over half the committee chairmanships and control of key committees - enabled them to block legislation they opposed

Question 7

How did Southern Democrats compare with other Democrats?

Answer 7

• Were far more conservative and resistant to change than other Democrats, particularly with regard to race

Question 8

Who publicised the many grievances of black Americans in the decades after Reconstruction?

Answer 8

• Ida B. Wells

- NAACP

Question 9

Why did black Americans have grievances in 1933?

Answer 9

The political, social and economic status of black Americans was markedly inferior to that of white Americans, particularly in the South.

Question 10

What was the political status of black Americans in the North and the South, in 1933?

Answer 10

North:

• Had the vote
• A few black politicians - Oscar De Priest - but didn’t win state-wide office - many whites would only vote for white candidates

South:

• Few AAs allowed to vote - white registrars set them impossibly difficult Qs to meet literacy qualifications
• Expensive poll tax - most black Southerners poor
• ‘Uppity’ blacks - tried to exercise the franchise risked violence and intimidation
• Southern politics dominated by Democrats

Question 11

What was the social status of black Americans in the North and the South, in 1933?

Answer 11

North:
- De facto segregation kept urban pop. crowded into ghettos - Harlem (NY) and South Side (Chicago)

South:

• JC Laws - de jure segregation - public places - schools, buses, railroad cars, hospitals, libraries, parks and restaurants
• Black males avoided eye contact with white females - or they’d be accused of harassment
• AAs expected to step aside if white person approached sidewalk

Question 12

What was the economic status of black Americans in the North and the South, in 1933?

Answer 12

North:

• Growing black middle class - 1914 - a. Philip Randolph married wealthy widow who graduated from 1 of few black unis, Howard
• Opportunities better than South - poor education limit prospects of most who migrated
• Some migrants - well-paid work in Detroit car factories or meatpacking houses in Chicago or East St Louis
• Most AA in North poor

South:

• Many AAs in south - sharecropping or tenants farmers - some in industry (e.g. steelworks in Birmingham, Alabama)
• Poor education in segregated + underfunded schools
• AAs across nation constituted majority of unskilled workers - domestic help, shoeshine boys, bellhops, railroad porters and waiters/waitresses

Question 13

What was the legal status of black Americans in the North and South, in 1933?

Answer 13

North:

• Lynching not uncommon - bad treatment in courts and by police
• Malcolm X’s brother Wilfred Little saw little difference between Michigan and South in the 1920s and 30s
• Police gave AAs little or no protection over lynchings and during race riots

South:

• Many whites - considered violence and lynching as acceptable form of race control
• Whites dominated law enforcement - judges and juries all-white - AAs lacked protection under law

Question 14

What is an illustration of the influence of Southern whites in the Democratic Party, in the 1920s?

Answer 14

The fate of anti-lynching bills in Congress.

Question 15

What were the statistics on lynching between 1901 and 1929?

Answer 15

Over 1,200 AAs lynched in South - mostly Georgia (250) and Mississippi (255)

Question 16

How did NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson do to attempt to push anti-lynching legislation in the 1920s?

Answer 16

• Recalled lobbying efforts
• Found congressional ally in Republican Representative Leonidas Dyer - his St Louis district contained increasing numbers of black Americans

Question 17

What did Leonidas Dyer do?

Answer 17

• Shocked by 1917 riot in East St Louis - introduced anti-lynching bill into House in 1918
• Got nowhere in Democrat-controlled Congress

Question 18

What happened, in 1919, when Republicans gained control of Congress?

Answer 18

• NAACP report prompted further consideration of an anti-lynching bill in the House
• Southern Dems tried to stop debate - e.g. refused to come to House Chamber - prevented necessary quorom
• Speaker responded by ordering chamber doors locked and sending Sergeant at Arms to seek out members
• Pressure from NAACP - House passed Dyer bill 231-119 in 1922 - filibustering killed off the bill in Senate
• Reintroduced several times - but Senate rejected every time

Question 19

Why, prior to the Great Depression, was little done to address black grievances?

Answer 19

1) Many whites were racist
2) Most Southern whites determined to maintain supremacy
3) Southern white Dems - considerable power in Congress - impossible to get Congress to pass civil rights legislation
4) No well-established tradition of federal govt intervention to assist disadvantaged

Question 20

How did the Great Depression invariably hit blacks harder than whites?

Answer 20

1) Tens of thousands of Southern AA farmers left land - crop prices dropped
2) Many AA farmers migrated to cities - urban AA unemployment rate 30% to 60% - 4 to 6 times higher than that of whites -
3) Whites organised vigilante groups - Black Shirts of Atlanta to prevent AA employment
4) Unskilled AA workers usually ‘last hired, first fired’ - no effective social security system - disease and starvation frequently resulted
5) AA middle class hit badly
- E.g. - % of AA-owned property in Harlem fell from 35% in 1929 to 5% in 1935 + median income for skilled workers dropped by 50% between 1929 and 1932