1. LESSON 3
The Solid South Shifts

2. Shifting Sands of Party Politics
The “solid south” were southern Democratic states who blamed the Republican party for the Civil War and Reconstruction.
After the New Deal, ideals changed and many Democrats begin supporting African Americans and equal civil rights.
Black voters began to shift their support from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party started supporting the civil rights movement.

3. Angry Democrats
Many Southerners felt like the Democratic Party no longer represented their interests.
The Democratic Party started to split.
In 1948, many South Carolinians walked out of the Democratic Party convention to form a third political party to protest party support for an anti-lynching law.

4. The Dixiecrats
New third party led by South Carolinian, Strom Thurmond.
Thurmond:
Ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948
Wrote a Southern Manifesto, condemning the Brown decision and urging people to continue segregation
Filibustered the civil rights act of 1957
After the Dixiecrat party died, switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

5. The Election of 1948 Progressive (Liberal Democrats) Democrats
Shifting Sands of Party Politics
The Election of 1948
Progressive (Liberal Democrats)
Democrats
Dixiecrats
(Southern conservatives)
- Supported reelection of President Truman.
- Supported civil rights, including anti-lynching laws and fair employment practices.
- Wanted to preserve the “Southern way of life.”
- Opposed anti-lynching laws.
- Vowed to block creation of FEPC.
- Didn’t think President Truman was doing enough to keep FDR’s New Deal programs going.

6. Why was it so surprising that Democratic candidate Harry Truman defeated Republican candidate Thomas Dewey in the 1948 presidential election?

7. The New Political Parties
After the short lived Dixiecrat party died out, many angry white southern Democrats switched to the Republican party
African American voters continued to switch over to the Democratic party, who now solidly supported civil rights legislation.
In the 1970s, the new Democratic party would also support the Women’s Rights Movement that was reborn as a result of the Civil Rights Movement.

8. More Political Changes in SC
SC continued to show its commitment to improving education, even after the 1970s, by passing several pieces of legislation
Education Improvement Act of the 1980s
Education Accountability Act of the 1990s
Adoption of the Common Core State Standards in the 2000s
Sales tax was adopted to help fund education.
Even with all the commitment to improvement, an achievement gap still persists.