Democratic leaders to seek biracial solutions to stubborn historical problems:
One of the wonderful political results of the changes of the 1960s is that it allowed Southerners to focus on issues besides the racial organization of their society . . . Moreover, once African Americans began voting in large numbers, Democratic candidates had extremely strong incentives to turn the focus away from race even as they quietly abandoned conservative positions on racial issues.[33]
Bullock and Rozell provided follow-up observation about the impact of biracial relationships in the new Southern politics:
Even when black votes are insufficient to elect an African American, successful white Democrats depend heavily on this component of their electorates. This reliance makes Democratic legislators more responsive to black policy concerns and has largely eliminated the traditional Southern conservative Democrat from Congress.[34]
A similar impact was noted by Earl Black and Merle Black in the changing character of racial representation over the last three decades of the century:
Democratic conservatism declined because it was increasingly incompatible with the theory and practice of biracial politics. The new realities affected both veterans and newcomers . . . All these Democrats understood the necessity of demonstrably supporting their party in order to promote their institutional careers and sustain their biracial coalitions at home.[35]
The transformation was not limited to Congress. Alexander Lamis found in Southern Politics in the 1990s that white Southern Democratic governors were appealing to both blacks and white voters during the previous few decades:
These leaders—Jimmy Carter in Georgia in 1970 was one of the pioneers—proceeded in the 1970s and 1980s to assemble potent coalitions of nearly all blacks and those whites who had weathered the integration crisis with their Democratic voting inclinations intact. These ideologically diverse, black white Democratic coalitions became a central feature of the South’s politics in the post-civil rights era.[36]
Equally remarkable, according to Lamis, was the stability of those Democratic coalitions in dealing with issues that had plagued the party for many years:
These tensions are not new. The diverse black-white Democratic coalition that took hold in the South in the post-civil rights era has grappled with them for several decades and continues to do so. In the Southern elections of the 1990s, however, this coalition has not collapsed either at the voter or the leadership level . . . A moment’s reflection on the details of the major two-party statewide contests of the 1990s as described in the state chapters should substantiate the continued endurance of the coalition as it underwent its severest test yet in the two-party era.[37]
Substantive Representation: The bottom-line measure of changing Southern politics goes beyond black voting and office-holding to more substantive questions of representation: Does it make any difference in terms of the interests and lives of black Southerners?
Increasingly, research demonstrates a positive answer to this question. Political scientist Mary Herring demonstrated statistically that by the 1980s the black vote was impacting state politicians of both races in this region. Her analysis of roll-call votes in the Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana legislatures concluded:
Although this study presents only a static picture of three Southern state legislatures, it does suggest that fundamental changes have occurred in the political process of the American South. By far the most important finding is the consistent influence of black constituencies on legislative outcomes . . . The strategy of the civil rights movement, focused on obtaining the vote, has begun to obtain significant representational benefits for black voters.[38]
Charles E. Menifield and Stephen D. Shaffer have provided comprehensive corroboration of state level transformation throughout the region in Politics in the New South: Representation of African Americans in Southern State Legislatures. In structured, team investigation of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas (along with an overview of the other Southern states), they showed definite progress in descriptive representation and mixed gains in substantive representation of African American Southerners during the 1980s–90s:
First, as we enter the twenty-first century, it is quite clear that African Americans in Southern state legislature are enjoying some notable electoral and legislative successes. Relative to twenty years ago, African Americans comprise a greater percentage of the membership of Southern state legislatures in twenty of the twenty-two chambers studied, thereby reducing the gap in descriptive representation between the African American state populations and their presence in state legislative bodies. . .[39]
Substantive success has been less striking—Menifield and Shaffer assert “many successes, but also some disappointments.”[40] They report that the black minority in this region succeeded 71 percent of the time on roll-call votes, compared to 95 percent among white Democrats and 62 percent among Republicans; and the authors suggest, based on assessments of other factors, that “the Black Caucus success level is more impressive than it might appear on the surface.”[41]
Moreover, they noted a practice of effective alliances with a variety of key political players:
Lastly, it is evident that African Americans, despite their generally liberal philosophy in a more conservative region of the nation, have been politically astute in forming coalitions in Southern state legislatures. Normally they form winning coalitions with fellow Democrats who are white, and who today exhibit basically “centrist” viewpoints relative to the white segregations of the decades past. However, on occasion, African Americans have formed coalitions with Republican lawmakers, or even backed a Republican gubernatorial candidate if discontented with their treatment by white Democratic colleagues.[42]
Some Interesting Personal Perspectives
More interesting have been the personal stories and biographies of progressive participants about how things have changed in the South as a result of the civil rights movement. The following remarks (from prominent black civil rights leaders, all native Alabamians) demonstrate imperfect but responsive change, and a certain sense of personal pride, in the new Southern politics. We’ll present their positive comments first, followed by their criticisms and challenges.
The most ironic testimony comes from John Lewis, now an Atlanta congressman, a Selma-Montgomery marcher who was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a former Freedom Rider whose family still lives in Alabama. Lewis articulated a strong message of positive change in his recent biography, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement:
No one, but no one, who was born in America forty or fifty or sixty years ago and who grew up and came through what I came through, who witnessed the changes I witnessed, can possibly say that America is not a far better place than it was. We live in a different country than the one I grew up in. The South is different . . . So many things are better . . . There is no denying the distance we have come.[43]
Fred Gray, attorney for Dr. King and Mrs. Parks and a giant of the Alabama civil rights movement, focused on legal changes in his autobiography, Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System:
I have watched the appellate courts in
