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Southern strategy
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For the British strategy in the American Revolutionary War, see Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War.
The Southern United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau
In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to a Republican Party strategy of gaining political support for certain candidates in the Southern United States by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3][4][5]
Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery before the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.
The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater[6][7] in the late 1960s.[8] The strategy was successful in winning 5 formerly Confederate states in both the 1964 and 1968 presidential elections. It contributed to the electoral realignment of some Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black voters to the Democratic Party. As the twentieth century came to a close, the Republican Party began attempting to appeal to black voters again, though with little success.[8]
In 2005, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized to the NAACP for ignoring the black vote and exploiting racial conflicts.[9]
Southern strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
