The Civil Rights Movement and Economic Issues in Present-Day SC

Reasons for the emergence of the Democratic Party as the dominant political party in South Carolina prior to and following the Civil War

In the mid- twentieth century, political parties shifted in South Carolina as a result of the evolving position of the Democratic Party on issues of race and other issues of interest to conservative Southerners. In order to understand this shift, students must first understand why South Carolina and the rest of the South were solidly Democratic prior to the emergence of the modern civil rights movement.

Reasons for the Republicans Control of the State Government during the Reconstruction Era

Although many Lowcountry planters supported the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton in the early years of the republic , as the political power of the national Federalists waned and that of the backcountry and the Lowcountry of South Carolina equalized , South Carolina became predominantly Democratic-Republican and then Democratic. In the pre-Civil War period, the Republican Party emerged as a coalition of groups opposed to the expansion of slavery into the territories. South Carolina seceded as a result of the election of the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860 .

In the Reconstruction period, when the so-called radical Republicans attempted to reconstitute South Carolina’s government to include active participation by freedmen, the majority of the white population refused to participate in the Republican government, ultimately “redeemed” the government of South Carolina by returning it to white control, and subsequently disenfranchised the African American voter . Blaming the Republicans for both the war and Reconstruction, South Carolina, like other southern states, voted solidly Democratic and became a part of what was known as the “solid South.”

Significance of Strom Thurmond and the formation of the Dixiecrat Party

Conservative Southerners and South Carolinians initially supported the New Deal of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt but became suspicious of Roosevelt as he increasingly attracted African American voters in the North to the New Deal. Shortly after World War II ended, President Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the military (1948) and supported the inclusion of planks in the Democratic Party platform (1948) supporting anti-poll tax legislation and federal protection against lynching measures aimed at rectifying the deplorable conditions for African Americans. Incensed at this intrusion into the affairs of the states, many delegates from the South walked out of the Democratic National Convention.

They formed their own party, which became known as the Dixiecrats, and named South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate. Thurmond carried South Carolina in the 1948 presidential election. Although Thurmond and other South Carolinians returned to the Democratic Party after the Dixiecrat’s defeat, this was the beginning of the end of the solidly Democratic South.

Issues and events that led to the resurgence of the Republican Party during the 1950s and 1960s

In 1947, the Supreme Court ruled in Elmore v. Rice that the white primary was unconstitutional and later ruled that segregation of the public schools was also unconstitutional (Brown v. Board of Education) . South Carolina’s Senator Strom Thurmond continued to lead resistance to recognizing the rights of African Americans. Thurmond opposed implementation of the Brown ruling by writing the Southern Manifesto condemning the Brown decision and encouraging resistance to desegregation. Senator Thurmond holds the record of twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes for his filibuster against the passage of a civil rights act that would provide some federal protection for the right to vote (1957).

As Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson responded to the Civil Rights Movement with support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, southern Democrats, most notably Strom Thurmond, withdrew their support for the president and the Democratic Party. Thurmond changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican (1964). South Carolina has voted for the Republican presidential candidate since 1964 with only one exception in 1976 when Georgia’s Jimmy Carter carried the state. Republican candidate Richard Nixon was supported by Thurmond in the 1968 election. He won further support with his ‘southern strategy’ of resisting the expansion of civil rights protections and thus appealing to southern voters. Ronald Reagan appealed to South Carolinians because of his stand on taxes and the Cold War.

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