Race, Resistance, and Realignment: The Legacy of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace in the Transformation of the Southern Political Landscape

For decades in the mid-20th century in the United States, the Solid South represented a dominant political alignment of the eleven formerly Confederate states which demonstrated overwhelming loyalty to the Democratic Party. This unwavering allegiance to the Democratic Party largely transformed the South into a one-party system that prioritized maintaining racial segregation and limiting federal interference in state governance. The alignment garnered great power on both the state and federal level, utilized by many politicians as an instrumental vehicle for passing legislation and securing political office. Prior to the 1948 presidential election, President Harry Truman squarely opposed the agenda of the Solid South with his progressive civil rights initiatives and proposed legislation. This caused the defection of many Southern politicians from the Democratic Party and prompted the formation of the States’ Rights Democratic Party (also known as the Dixiecrats) led by South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond to challenge President Truman in the 1948 presidential election. The presence of the Dixiecrats in the 1948 election signaled a fracture that was growing between the Solid South and the Democratic Party. In 1968, amidst a turbulent political landscape tainted by growing involvement in the Vietnam War, increased civil rights movement demonstrations, and rising violent crime rates the fracture in the Solid South was once again prominent, whereas approval rankings for President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Democratic Party plummeted. In response to the growing disillusionment by millions of Americans across the country, Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama launched the American Independent Party to challenge Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential election. Following that pivotal election, the South began a political realignment away from the Democratic Party toward the Republican Party, leading to the adoption of the “Southern Strategy” by GOP candidates. While both Thurmond and Wallace failed in their respective political movements, this thesis demonstrates how both political defections contributed to the realignment of the Solid South away from the Democratic Party to support the Republican Party. Comparative analysis of the similarities and differences of the campaign tactics and rhetoric of Thurmond and Wallace’s campaign, specifically the fear mongering, mobilization of cross-demographic resentment, and appeals to Southern Identity, demonstrate how the political transition of the region led to the emergence of the “Southern Strategy,” a political tactic that would be employed by future GOP candidates in presidential elections to secure the votes of white Southerners.