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Deep South Enclaves on the Eve of the Transition

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines four important features of Deep South authoritarian enclaves on the eve of the transition: their political geography, centralization of political authority, party factionalism, ... More

This chapter examines four important features of Deep South authoritarian enclaves on the eve of the transition: their political geography, centralization of political authority, party factionalism, and latent strength of their indigenous opponents. A review of these and other characteristics of these polities suggests that modernization cannot fully explain the variation in Deep South democratization experiences. The chapter considers a causal account emphasizing the importance of regime defenders, opponents, and the institutional topography on which they battled one another. It compares the degree to which authority was centralized in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia and highlights the factionalism within Democratic parties. It concludes with a discussion of black protest capacity on the eve of the transition.Less

Southern Political Development in Comparative Perspective

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This book examines the democratization of authoritarian enclaves in America's Deep South during the period 1944–1972. Through a comparative historical analysis of the experiences of Georgia, ... More

This book examines the democratization of authoritarian enclaves in America's Deep South during the period 1944–1972. Through a comparative historical analysis of the experiences of Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, it shows how the cohesion of elites and party–state capacity contributed to differences in modes of democratization across the Deep South. It suggests that the advancement of Republicans was in part a consequence and a cause of these democratization processes. This introductory chapter discusses some of the alternative perspectives on postwar southern political culture, along with the role of the political economy and black insurgency in southern political development. It also describes the phenomenon of authoritarian enclaves and offers some intuitions about how they might be democratized, focusing on subnational authoritarianism and subnational democratization. Finally, it provides an overview of the book's research design and summarizes the findings to come.Less

Driven from the House of Their Fathers: Southern Enclaves and the National Party, 1947–48

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines President Harry S. Truman's commitment of the National Democratic Party to the cause of racial equality and the responses to them by Deep South authoritarian enclaves. It first ... More

This chapter examines President Harry S. Truman's commitment of the National Democratic Party to the cause of racial equality and the responses to them by Deep South authoritarian enclaves. It first provides an overview of the central state, national party, and southern enclaves during the period 1932–1946 before discussing the causes and consequences of the revolt by the States' Rights Party (SRP), also known as the Dixiecrats. It then considers southern enclaves' growing unease with the national party through the 1930s and 1940s, along with the experiences of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It shows that the Truman shock and responses to it varied within the Deep South depending on different configurations of intraparty conflict and party–state institutions.Less

The Deathblows to Authoritarian Rule: The Civil and Voting Rights Acts and National Party Reform, 1964–72

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines how the federal government and black protest organizations intervened in southern authoritarian enclaves, with a particular focus on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting ... More

This chapter examines how the federal government and black protest organizations intervened in southern authoritarian enclaves, with a particular focus on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the reform of the National Democratic Party during the period 1964–1972. It first considers state authorities' consensus preference for effecting a “harnessed revolution” before discussing the challenges posed by the Civil and Voting rights acts to southern enclaves. It then describes the degree to which outsiders interfered in enclaves' responses to these landmark statutes, including federal oversight of voting rights in the Deep South and deployments by black protest organizations. It concludes by analyzing the McGovern–Fraser national Democratic party reforms of 1968–1972.Less

Harnessing the Revolution?: Three Paths Out of Dixie

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines how the southern authoritarian enclaves experienced different modes of democratization in light of the deathblows of federal legislation, domestic insurgencies, and National ... More

This chapter examines how the southern authoritarian enclaves experienced different modes of democratization in light of the deathblows of federal legislation, domestic insurgencies, and National Democratic Party reform in the 1960s and early 1970s. As enclave rulers came to believe that change was inevitable, most sought to harness the revolution, striking a fine balance between resisting federal intervention without appearing too defiant, and accepting some change without appearing too quiescent. Pursuing a “harnessed revolution” meant influencing the pace of seemingly inevitable change; it served the overarching goals of protecting the political careers of enclave rulers and the interests of many of their political-economic clients. The chapter considers how prior responses to democratization pressures, factional conflict, and party–state institutions shaped modes of democratization. It shows that the growth of Republicans in the Deep South was to varying degrees both consequence and cause of rulers' responses to democratization pressures.Less

Suffrage Restriction under Attack, 1944–47

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Smith v. Allwright that challenged the restriction on suffrage: it invalidated the all-white Democratic primary and struck at the heart of ... More

This chapter examines the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Smith v. Allwright that challenged the restriction on suffrage: it invalidated the all-white Democratic primary and struck at the heart of southern politics—one-party rule based on white supremacy. It first considers the Supreme Court's challenge to the white primary in relation to rulers' dilemmas, opportunities, and options before discussing narratives of enclave experiences with the white primary challenge in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. It then compares outer South and Deep South responses to Smith, showing that Georgia and South Carolina featured more impressive black mobilizations than Mississippi. However, the consequences of these episodes were not driven solely by such forces as economic development or black protest infrastructure. Rather, given different configurations of intraparty conflict, party–state institutions, and levels of black insurgency, Smith and the responses it invoked had different consequences for each enclave.Less

Legacies and Lessons of the Democratized South

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines the legacies and lessons of the southern enclaves' different paths to democratization. It first summarizes the book's findings, showing how, from the abolition of the white ... More

This chapter examines the legacies and lessons of the southern enclaves' different paths to democratization. It first summarizes the book's findings, showing how, from the abolition of the white primary in 1944 until the McGovern–Fraser National Democratic Party reforms of the early 1970s, democratizers assaulted the authoritarian enclaves of the Deep South. It then offers a way to supplement existing approaches to the study of contemporary electoral and economic change, focusing in particular on how the framework of authoritarian enclaves might enhance our understanding of the rise of southern Republicans and the South's uneven economic development. It concludes by considering some implications of the book's findings for the study of the South, American political development, and regime change.Less

Relative Advantage in a Post-VRA World: Black Voter Registration in the Modern South

M. V. Hood III, Quentin Kidd, and Irwin L. Morris

in The Rational Southerner: Black Mobilization, Republican Growth, and the Partisan Transformation of the American South

Although much of the book focuses on explaining GOP growth in the South, this chapter explains how GOP growth also influenced the political mobilization of the African American population. The theory ... More

Although much of the book focuses on explaining GOP growth in the South, this chapter explains how GOP growth also influenced the political mobilization of the African American population. The theory of relative advantage also suggests that, in areas with large black populations, Republican growth will boost black mobilization. This chapter includes empirical results that suggest GOP growth played a role in black mobilization in the Deep South, which standard models of mobilization—the empowerment and resource models—do not address. Evidence is also found at the substate level within Louisiana and North Carolina to support the conclusion that Republican growth led to black mobilization.Less

Mutual Misconceptions

Daniel W. Crofts

in Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union

Chapter Four examines the mutually irreconcilable explanations of current reality that took shape during the five months that followed the presidential election. Its focus is the three most ... More

Chapter Four examines the mutually irreconcilable explanations of current reality that took shape during the five months that followed the presidential election. Its focus is the three most consequential groupings—the prosecession Deep South, the Republican North, and the conditionally pro-Union Upper South. Secessionists insisted that “Black Republicans” planned to unleash slave rebels and revolutionize the white Southern social order. They promised that a new Southern nation could avert the danger, and that the North never would fight to preserve the Union. Most Republicans refused to take the secession movement seriously. They found it impossible to comprehend the reality of Southern estrangement or to entertain the possibility of an extensive mass panic that the Deep South’s leaders could not control. The Upper South’s would-be Unionists attempted to find a formula to resolve the impasse. But by insisting that the federal government renounce any use of force against the seceding states, the Unionists actually provided them cover. The outbreak of war in April 1861 revealed that opinion leaders both North and South had misunderstood and misconceived the situation they faced.Less

Into the Southern “Wilds”

David A. Varel

in The Lost Black Scholar: Resurrecting Allison Davis in American Social Thought

The fourth chapter begins by chronicling the fieldwork of Allison Davis, Elizabeth Davis, Mary Gardner, Burleigh Gardner, and Saint Clair Drake in their community study of Natchez, Mississippi, from ... More

The fourth chapter begins by chronicling the fieldwork of Allison Davis, Elizabeth Davis, Mary Gardner, Burleigh Gardner, and Saint Clair Drake in their community study of Natchez, Mississippi, from 1933 to 1935. It then evaluates the classic book that emerged from that research: Deep South (1941), along with Allison Davis’s memo to Gunnar Myrdal, which informed parts of Myrdal’s highly influential Carnegie Corporation study of American race relations: An American Dilemma (1944). Finally, the chapter explores the reception of Deep South among social scientists and the larger reading public. As many commentators understood, the book resulted in an unprecedented depth and breadth of ethnographic material on life within the southern United States. It breathed life into the world of Jim Crow, and it explained how racial caste and class intersected to stratify life in Natchez. Less appreciated was how Allison and Elizabeth transgressed racial mores in the academy by taking the lead in an interracial community study, with Allison serving as first author of the book.Less

A Locomotive Laboratory of Place: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra

in Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s

This chapter turns to the Duke Ellington Orchestra, concentrating on “Air-Conditioned Jungle” and the four-part The Deep South Suite from the 1946 Chicago Civic Opera House show. Competing voices, ... More

This chapter turns to the Duke Ellington Orchestra, concentrating on “Air-Conditioned Jungle” and the four-part The Deep South Suite from the 1946 Chicago Civic Opera House show. Competing voices, meanings, and representations of the spatial experiences of black America can be heard by closely listening to the music of the Ellington Orchestra. The “Air-Conditioned Jungle” and the four-part The Deep South Suite were both explicitly place-themed, and showed with particular clarity the complexities of the band's musical evocation of American places. “Air-Conditioned Jungle” was a musical place of intense movement and fragmentation, but it was also a place of order through communicative dialogue. The Deep South Suite was the combined product of seventeen musicians and their own personal histories. “Magnolias” and “Happy-Go-Lucky Local” aroused images of the region that are soaked in myth and nostalgia as well as a difficult, often cruel reality.Less

Desegregation of Southern Catholic Institutions, 1945–1970

Mark Newman

in Desegregating Dixie: The Catholic Church in the South and Desegregation, 1945-1992

Many of the values that led southern Catholic leaders to support secular desegregation also led them to desegregate Catholic institutions. In some cases, particularly in parts of the peripheral ... More

Many of the values that led southern Catholic leaders to support secular desegregation also led them to desegregate Catholic institutions. In some cases, particularly in parts of the peripheral South, prelates desegregated Catholic schools, hospitals and churches ahead of secular change. In other instances, especially in the Deep South, ordinaries acted largely in tandem with secular desegregation, although occasionally more extensively, and sometimes partly or substantially in response to federal financial pressure. Some ordinaries eschewed publicity, while others publicly announced desegregation. In deciding policy, all prelates considered the extent or absence of secular desegregation and the nature of public and Catholic lay and clergy opinion in their dioceses, as well as the views of their consultors. Most prelates confined school desegregation to Catholic admissions, thereby restricting its impact because of large African American Protestant enrollment in black Catholic schools and limiting opposition to a change that brought only token desegregation.Less

Eumaeus and Eurycleia in the Deep South: Odyssean Slavery in Sommersby

Justine McConnell

in Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood

The Odyssey, and especially the relationship between Odysseus and Eumaeus, was identified by Thomas Clarkson in his Latin prose composition as a seminal text in the representation and discussion of ... More

The Odyssey, and especially the relationship between Odysseus and Eumaeus, was identified by Thomas Clarkson in his Latin prose composition as a seminal text in the representation and discussion of slavery. This chapter examines the prominent role it continues to play in Jon Amiel’s Sommersby (1993), which is a rare Hollywood attempt to address the social crisis precipitated by the end of the Civil War in post-emancipation Tennessee. The film is set at the precise moment that slavery was abolished in the Deep South, but is, for complicated reasons and in complex ways, based on the plot of the Odyssey. The tension between Odysseus and Eumaeus in Sommersby reveals a (for Hollywood) unusually profound set of insights into the moral, emotional and economic ramifications of radical shifts in the relationship between newly emancipated slaves and their former masters.Less

Introduction

Robert Elder

in The Sacred Mirror: "Evangelicalism, Honor, and Identity in the Deep South, 1790-1860"

This introduction lays out the way that previous histories of evangelicalism in the South have described the conflict between honor and evangelicalism, rooted in their very different ways of ... More

This introduction lays out the way that previous histories of evangelicalism in the South have described the conflict between honor and evangelicalism, rooted in their very different ways of conceiving and constructing individual identity, one premodern and the other usually assumed to be the essence of modernity. It then lays out the argument for evangelicalism instead as a kind “cultural bridge” between two ways of seeing the self, and defines honor and evangelicalism in the way they will be used in this book.Less

The Newest South: Race and Space on the Dixie Frontier

Brenda Plummer

in NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement

Brenda Plummer examines the effect of the U.S. space program on race relations in key areas of the South, and the impact of that connection on popular culture. She also explores the intersection of ... More

Brenda Plummer examines the effect of the U.S. space program on race relations in key areas of the South, and the impact of that connection on popular culture. She also explores the intersection of the struggle for racial equality and aerospace exploration, as both constituted potent narratives of freedom in the American imaginary. Plummer disputes the assumption that NASA as an instrument of modernization and partner in the creation of the New South was implicitly allied with the civil rights movement. While the transformation of parts of the Deep South undeniably broke up earlier political, economic, and cultural patterns, aerospace research and development helped inaugurate a successor regime that neither challenged the structural foundations of racial inequality nor guarded against the production of new disparities.Less

“Blazing Hell”: From Georgia into Alabama

DEREK CHARLES CATSAM

in Freedom's Main Line: The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides

Although the Freedom Riders continued to sing freedom songs, the experiences of South Carolina revealed that the stakes had been raised for them as the movement furthered on towards the Deep South. ... More

Although the Freedom Riders continued to sing freedom songs, the experiences of South Carolina revealed that the stakes had been raised for them as the movement furthered on towards the Deep South. On May 12, of that year, the group boarded buses for Georgia where they would be able to conduct tests in Augusta as well as facilitate meetings in Atlanta. It is important to note that Georgia had a disproportionately distributed power base, especially in rural areas. Through the 1940s, the state had been dominated by the Democratic Party and family demagoguery and by the 1960s it was marked by factionalism. The group then moved on towards Alabama, at which point it was believed that the group would not be able to return. This was because Alabama could be described as an area which fostered disdain for authority as well as having a strong spirit of rebellion.Less

Super Lou’s Chitlin’ Circuit

Marcus Anthony Hunter and Zandria F. Robinson

in Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life

This chapter begins using an intimate moment from a 1966 concert by musician Lou Rawls. Detailing the shared experiences and connections across black communities, this chapter uses Rawls’s insight to ... More

This chapter begins using an intimate moment from a 1966 concert by musician Lou Rawls. Detailing the shared experiences and connections across black communities, this chapter uses Rawls’s insight to outline the six major regions of the South. This chapter completes the geographic and political sensibilities that help form the Black Map and the various regions therein. It concludes with an overview of the three-part treatment of “chocolate cities”.Less