elected policy-makers. The most frustrating problem of the American Negro in politics is that even if elected policy-makers were totally responsive to Negro demands, it is not at all clear that they have it in their power to eliminate the inequality with which three and a half centuries of discrimination have saddled the American Negro.[14]
Thus, apparently, the concerns of early analysts about biracial politics were well founded; the heroic struggle seemed to be running out of steam.
Surprisingly, however, the Old South changed. Despite several centuries of entrenched racism and biracial electoral disasters of the 1960s, Southern politics began evolving in different manner in the 1970s.
Some may debate the merits of the subsequent pace and direction of Southern politics, but the South began—haltingly and stubbornly and constantly pressed by black civil rights groups and the U.S. Justice Department—to address its historical dilemma. As will be shown in the rest of this chapter, the system functionally adjusted in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to incorporate black participation and move toward biracial progress, cultural moderation, and relatively normal politics.[15]
The South’s Cultural Journey of Moderation and Convergence
While the South is still divided, racially, on important political attitudes and partisan inclinations, there is expansive public opinion research showing, with some obvious variations, a blending cultural journey of internal and external dynamics: (a) white Southerners have moderated their views about race and civil rights significantly over the years; (b) there has been substantial Southern convergence with the American nation in terms of racial ideas and behavior.
We should note up front, of course, that racial history still dominates Southern culture. J. David Woodard writes about the continuing interplay of black-white issues in The New Southern Politics (2007):
Racial conflict between black and white has always been the most visible negation of whatever was commendable about the South. No matter how much one admired Southern virtues, be they the genteel manners, bravery in battle, or courage in defeat—there was always the memory of slavery, sharecropper tenancy, and white supremacy. For every word of forgiveness by a leader like Martin Luther King Jr. there was a Southern politician like Ben Tillman or Lester Maddox who needed exoneration. The debate as to how much of Southern politics is governed by class divisions, as opposed to racial ones, continues. One thing is clear, the legacy of white supremacy was the abiding memory of life in the region, and its presence was all the more paradoxical given the deep Christian religious practices in evidence in Southern communities.[16]
This historical legacy of racial conflict is reflected in contemporary patterns of partisan affiliation, as reported by Earl Black and Merle Black in The Rise of Southern Republicans:
Without question the racial divide remains the most important partisan cleavage in the South. Blacks are by far the most united of the three racial/ethnic groups. Favoring Democrats over Republicans by 87 to 10 percent, the extraordinary cohesion of Southern blacks resembles in magnitude and intensity the traditional Democratic attachments of Southern whites. White Southerners, by contrast, are now far more likely (53 to 27 percent) to be classified as core Republicans than as core Democrats.[17]
When we turn our attention to regional-national convergence, the research suggests impressive change (among otherwise mingled data and patterns of continuity). According to Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, and Tod A. Baker in Southern Parties and Elections: Studies in Regional Political Change, “What does seem relatively clear is that the most noticeable nationalization of Southern politics has occurred, and continues to occur, in the region’s political institutions and structures (for example, the party system, the legal system, the structures of influence in Congress).” On the other hand, they then reported data attesting to continued regional differences with regard to school prayer, religion, labor unions, and military policy. Furthermore, they said, “the role of race in Southern politics lingers on, albeit in different form.”[18]
Patrick R. Cotter, Stephen D. Shaffer, and David A. Breaux more recently surveyed the Southern opinion literature, and they found comprehensive evidence of positive change. Their 2006 review showed that white Southern support for the principle of racial equality had increased over time and had reached a high level of support for this position; moreover, they concluded that South-nonSouth differences in attitudes and behaviors were declining:
Overall, research in this area generally shows that white Southerners are different from their counterparts in other regions, although the differences in racial attitudes between white Southerners and others are diminishing . . .
For example, in 1942, 2 percent of Southern whites, compared to 42 percent of nonSouthern whites, said that black and white children should go to the same rather than separate schools . . . During the last half century support for school integration has increased throughout the country, and differences in opinions between the South and the North have diminished, though they have not disappeared. Thus, by 1985, about 86 percent of white Southerners and 96 percent of white nonSoutherners favored white and black children’s going to the same school.[19]
Cotter, Shaffer, and Breaux also found little regional difference regarding ideology and social welfare. They did detect differences in terms of tolerance and cultural issues (crime, gender roles, morality, and school prayer), although those differences seemed to be declining.
The Pew Research Center provided an equally interesting picture of the latest generation of white Southerners, for whom the heroic drama is only a fading memory or homework assignment.[20] The Pew survey, comparing 1987–88 and 2002–03 data, showed that, while black-white differences continue, there has been remarkable convergence between white Southerners and nonSoutherners:
The South remains a more conservative region on racial issues, but the differences between the South and rest of the country are narrowing. Over the past generation, a declining percentage of Southern whites view discrimination as rare and fewer say they have little in common with people of other races, decreasing or eliminating the regional gap on these questions.
We conclude this discussion by acknowledging serious opinion differences between blacks and whites in this region. Attitudinal progress among Southerners over the past few decades has been a piecemeal process, and racism still permeates many aspects of Southern culture. But we suspect that most scholars would agree that the problem has greatly mitigated since the civil rights movement.
We maintain, furthermore, that these blended patterns of cultural moderation and convergence correlate to fundamentally changing regional politics. In the rest of this chapter, we will focus on the more politically pertinent aspects of the Southern system during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
An Established Record of Normalization and Transformation
When we shift attention from public opinion to more consequential activities, we find a full body of scholarship documenting new national, regional, and local patterns—reflecting black empowerment and, in some cases, biracial politics—in the latter decades of the twentieth century. The Southern political system shifted significantly toward the normal practices of broader American democracy.
Partisan and Racial Adjustment: Particularly clear is a new Southern political order shaped by party and racial developments; these adjustments in turn have impacted the American political system.
Earl Black and Merle Black summarized the regional dynamics in The Rise of Southern Republicans:
The old Southern politics was transparently undemocratic and thoroughly racist. “Southern political institutions,” as V. O. Key Jr. demonstrated, were deliberately constructed to subordinate “the Negro population and, externally, to block threatened interferences from the outside with the local arrangements.” By protecting white supremacy, Southern Democrats in Congress institutionalized massive racial injustice