What black folk have suffered in America is American. Has nothing to do with political parties at all.
Even wikipedia can't keep the lie going....
Dixiecrat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and white supremacy in the face of possible federal intervention. Members were called Dixiecrats. (The term Dixiecrat is aportmanteau of Dixie, referring to the Southern United States, and Democrat.)
The party did not run local or state candidates, and after the 1948 election its leaders generally returned to the Democratic Party.[
Really?
In the decades that followed Reconstruction the Democratic Party experienced change and evolution regarding its official views on a number of issues including
Civil Rights and
Integration. Southern Democrats had begun to feel extremely uncomfortable in the party that they viewed as having become far too liberal. In 1947 President
Harry S. Truman gave a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (
NAACP) that called for the federal government to be the vigilant protector of the civil rights of all Americans. Truman repeated the phrase "all Americans" leaving no doubt that he meant African Americans should be among those who were guaranteed equality of opportunity. This speech was anathema to the southern Democrats who were staunch supporters of
Segregation and the preservation of "white power". In 1948 the Republicans, for the second time, chose New York governor thomas e. dewey to be their presidential candidate. In July 1948 the Democrats held a convention in which they nominated Harry S. Truman, the former vice-president who had succeeded franklin d. roosevelt when the latter died on April 12, 1945. The linchpin of the 1948 Democratic Party platform became its support for civil rights legislation. Many Democrats were wary of supporting the platform because they feared that the party would splinter over the opposing views of civil rights. The delegates from the southern states were vocal in their opposition, and other delegates began to waver. Then hubert h. humphrey, the delegate from Minnesota and mayor of Minneapolis, gave a speech in which he urged his fellow delegates to "get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forth-rightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey's passionate words were the catalyst for the majority of the Democratic Party delegates to vote for the platform planks that called for a federal anti-lynching law, the
Abolition of poll taxes in federal elections, desegregation of the armed forces, and creation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee that would prevent racial discrimination in federal jobs.
As many had feared, a majority of southern delegates, including all 22 members of the Mississippi delegation and 13 from Alabama, walked out of the convention and formed their own party—the States' Rights Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats, as they were also known, held a one-day convention on July 17, 1948, in Birmingham, Alabama, in which they nominated South Carolina governor strom thurmond for president and chose Mississippi governor Fielding L. Wright as their vice-presidential candidate.
The States' Rights Party sought to take votes from both the Democratic and Republican parties by emphasizing the sovereignty of the states and by denouncing Truman and the Democratic Party's proposed civil rights legislation as an immense threat to the states. In Alabama the Dixiecrats succeeded in preventing President Truman's name from being placed on the election ballot.
The Democratic Party was greatly weakened by the defection of the conservative Dixiecrats and also by the liberals who had left to join the
Progressive Party that nominated former vice president and secretary of agriculture Henry A. Wallace to be its presidential candidate. Nevertheless, President Harry S. Truman won reelection. Although Truman was reelected over Dewey by a very narrow margin, that vote resulted in the biggest upset in the history of United States presidential campaigns.
The States' Rights Party carried South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. Thurmond and Wright received approximately 1.2 million votes and 39 electoral votes.
In 1954 Thurmond was elected as a Democratic senator. Thurmond joined with other conservative Democrats and used the filibuster and other political strategies to oppose civil rights legislation. Thurmond was reelected in 1956 and 1960. In 1964 Thurmond led a number of conservative southern national and state elected officials who switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Thurmond was reelected in 1966, 1972, 1978, 1984, 1990, and 1996. After being reelected in 1996 the 94-year-old Thurmond, announced that he would finish out his term but would no longer run for reelection.
Dixiecrat
