The Beginnings of The Dixiecrats
Part One: Fielding Wright and the match that set the bridge on fire.
Today, when we think about the Dixiecrats, we often associate Strom Thurmond as the face of this Democratic Party spinoff. While Thurmond was the candidate for president of the Dixiecrats in 1948, he wasn’t the man who came up with the idea, he wasn’t the leader, and in the 1950s, he wasn’t the face of the Dixiecrat-Republican Coalition. Thurmond played his part, and history puts all the Dixiecrats on his shoulders, but it turns out he was responsible for very little of the Dixiecrat origins.
The man who pulled the trigger that set Conservative Democrats along their path toward becoming Conservative Republicans was Mississippi Governor Fielding Wright.
In January 1948, the issue of segregation engulfed the entire country. The Washington DC Evening Star called it “Civil Rights Hysteria.”[1]
The then-president, Harry S. Truman, had formed a civil rights protection committee in 1946, and in December 1947, they released the now infamous report called “Secure These Rights[2].” The report contained several recommendations. Among the recommendations were eliminating segregation based on race, color, creed, or nationality from American life and the passage of the Fair Employment Practices Act, prohibiting discrimination in private employment.
White America was hysterical. They called this committee report “communism and unconstitutional,” and that January 4 article in the Evening Star described it as “the most mischievous document that has been published since Marx and Engels produced the Communist Manifesto 100 years ago.”
As January 1948 rolled in, the lawsuits stacked up one after another.
Federal courts in Western Virginia upheld Greyhound Bus’ right to segregate their passengers. The NAACP was to argue the separation of races in courtrooms with the Mississippi Supreme Court[3]. And South Carolina was in a legal battle regarding white primaries[4].
The Supreme Court had already deemed whites-only primaries unconstitutional in 1944 with the Smith v. Allwright decision regarding white primaries in Texas. January 1948 brought a decision from the US Fourth Circuit of Appeals stating that Black South Carolina residents were entitled to vote in Democratic primaries[5].
At the US Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall and Loren Miller argued that restrictive covenants in Louisville, which forbade Black families to live in white areas, were unconstitutional[6].
The fight for equality and civil rights was in full swing in America.
When the newly elected Mississippi Governor, Fielding Wright, gave his inaugural address on January 20, it became the match that set the Conservatives bridge on a slow-burning fire, leading to the Conservatives’ separation from the Democratic Party.
During his fiery speech, he warned the Democratic Party unless it stopped promoting “anti-Southern” legislation, Southern Democrats would secede from the National Party[7]. He spent most of his speech focused on the intrusion upon the South with anti-segregation, Truman’s Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), anti-lynching bills, anti-poll tax bills, and other legislation aimed at defeating racial discrimination. Wright even accused the National Democratic Party of seeking to wreck the South and all its institutions.
He declared, “The South will no longer tolerate being the target for legislation, which would not only destroy our lives but which, if enacted, would destroy the United States of America.”
Wright spoke about how the Southern Democrats had always adhered to the National Democratic Party. Then he added, “When the national leaders attempt to change those principles for which the party stands, we intend to fight for its preservation with all means at our hands. I would regret to see the day come when Mississippi or the South should break with the Democratic Party in a national election.”
He claimed that Southerners were already solving racial problems in a wholesome and constructive manner. “Here in Mississippi and in the South,” he said, “maybe found the greatest examples in human history of harmonious relationships ever recorded as existing between two so different and distinct races as the white and the negro, living so closely together and in such nearly equal numbers.”
Before Fielding Wright’s speech, there had been a little chatter in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama about the Southern Democrats seceding from the national Democratic party. But with his inauguration speech, Southern Democrats drew a line in the sand.
By 1948, many Black Americans had already been unaligned with the Republican Party. They used their voting power to elect Harry S. Truman for president as the Northern Democrats shifted to a more progressive platform on civil rights[8]. Governor Wright’s line in the sand would eventually push the Southern Conservative Democrats to align with the Republican Party by the 1970s.
Mississippi Senator and Conservative Democrat James Eastland, who later became a crucial figure in the Dixiecrat-Republican Coalition, endorsed Wright’s stand against civil[9] two days after his inaugural speech. He issued the following statement in the Durant News:
“Governor Wright has spoken to the sentiment of the overwhelming majority of the people of the South. We have blindly followed party leaders, regardless of what the issues were. As a consequence, we are ignored and looked down upon by both parties. Our institutions are despised by the politicians of every group North of the Mason and Dixie lines.
“Both the Democratic and Republican leadership today is attempting to force the repeal of segregation laws, destroy our dual school system, our social institutions, and reconstruct us by using the power of the Federal government against us.
“Their objective is to gather the votes of organized minorities in the North who are not in the bag and who are not to be taken for granted. The Northern drive against the South is based upon the cold-blooded propositions that our people will be foolish and weak enough to continue to meekly follow the party line, even though the party is bent upon our destruction. The people of the South must take their stand. If we do not take political action, we will be socially and economically destroyed. We have within our hands the power to stop this drive against us. We hold the balance of power in the nation.”
The Mississippi State Legislature passed a resolution endorsing Governor Wright’s warning, and on January 23, Senator Eastland entered it into the US Congressional Record.
James Eastland wasn’t the only politician to have a quick response to Wright’s threats.
Alabama Governor “Big Jim” Folsom was also enamored with the idea[10]. He asked the Alabama delegates to the National Democratic convention to back him for president as a favored son only a week after Wright’s speech. He said, “The head of our party in Washington is a nice man, but he’s not running our party anymore.”
Arkansas Governor Ben Laney said he didn’t know if he could prevent the imposition of civil rights legislation, but he was ready to take extreme measures[11]. In 1948, Black people in Arkansas already weren’t voting because of white primaries[12], so they started a party called the Arkansas Negro Democratic Association[13]. White primaries didn’t end in Arkansas until 1950[14].
In the first few days of February 1948, Louisiana Senator John Overton wrote a letter to his constituents urging them to call on Southern Democratic leaders to hold a convention and organize a new Southern Democratic party[15]. Senator Overton was a would-be Dixiecrat, as he opposed unions, rent control, and civil rights. However, in early May 1948, 72-year-old Overton went to the hospital with an intestinal obstruction and died just days later[16].
On February 5, 1948, Fielding Wright called a statewide meeting in Mississippi to put the revolt plan against the national Democrats[17]. He said in an interview, “I am confident that this militant leadership on the part of Mississippi, the most Democratic state in America, will spread like wildfire across the entire South and sweep before it all those who today stand as enemies of our institutions and our ways of life.”
The Southern Democratic Governors already planned a conference in Florida to consider an education report and consider the adoption of Regional Colleges on February 7, 1948[18]. In the weeks leading up to the summit, rumors flew about a showdown with Southern Governors over leaving the Democratic Party[19].
Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, the 80th Congress was entering its second session. The 80th Congress, President Harry S. Truman, infamously dubbed “The Do-Nothing Congress” during his 1948 presidential campaign.
1947 was the first time that Republicans had won the House or Senate since the 72nd Congress. The Republican-controlled Congress had a focus on pro-business legislation and opposed most of Truman’s Fair Deal bills. The 80th Congress was the legislative body that passed the Taft-Hartley Act[20] and the Marshall Plan[21].
The Taft-Hartley Act was widely criticized and protested by the ACLU[22] as an infringement of workers’ rights. Southern Democrats sided with Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill. While the Senators who pushed the Taft-Hartley Act had bitterly opposed labor unions, they presented the bill to the American people as an incentive to production and a balancing wheel for labor-management relations[23]. That wasn’t true.
Taft-Hartley permitted the government to get 80-day court injunctions against ‘national paralysis’ strikes, such as railroad or coal mine tie-ups. It outlawed a ‘closed shop,’ which only hired union members. It prohibited union-controlled health and welfare funds. Taft-Hartley permitted a ‘union shop’ when most workers voted for it, made unions subject to a lawsuit for violation of contracts, and outlawed jurisdictional strikes and secondary boycotts. The Taft-Hartley law would become intertwined with the civil rights fight for more than a decade after it initially passed.
Liberals and Conservatives in Congress have fought over the Taft-Hartley Law and right-to-work legislation since it passed.
President Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act[24], and the Do-Nothing Congress overruled his veto[25]. The impact of Taft-Hartley was especially severe on Black American workers. In 1947, the AFL President, William Green, said, “Regardless of the denials of its sponsors, the law does sanction slave labor and involuntary servitude. The smooth propaganda artists responsible for the Taft-Hartley law also try to convince the Negroes that the law protects them from discrimination in hiring and firing. The Act is interested solely in protecting non-union, scab labor, and strikebreakers from discrimination[26].”
The second session of the 80th Congress began on January 6; Truman made his priorities clear in his 1948 State of the Union Address. Helping Europe and Asia, cutting taxes, bringing down the cost of living, rent control, military preparedness, and health insurance were all his top issues[27].
As the session got into swing, Republicans and Southern Democrats teamed up to cut spending in the Marshall Plan[28]. The “Do-Nothing Congress” birthed the Dixiecrat-Republican Coalition, and this joining of forces would eventually reshape the entire face of politics.
[1] Donald R. Richberg, “Civil Rights Hysteria,” Evening Star (January 4, 1948)
[2] Records of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights Record Group 220, The Harry S. Truman Library
[3] The Jackson Advocate, “State Supreme Court Asked to Rule on Question of Separation of Races in Court Rooms,” (January 10, 1948)
[4] The Ohio Daily Express, “Showdown on Negro Suffrage in the South,” (April 6, 1948)
[5] Jackson Advocate, “Negro Citizens Expected to Vote in Southern Primaries This Year,” (January 17, 1948)
[6] The Detroit Tribune, “Highest Court Hears Covenant Argument,” (January 17, 1948)
[7] The Durant News, “Wright Warns National Dem Leaders,” (January 22, 1948)
[8] Gould Lincoln, “GOP to Block Truman From Carrying the Ball,” Evening Star, (February 5, 1948)
[9] The Durant News, “Eastland Endorses Wright’s Stand,” (January 22, 1948)
[10] Hazel Brannon, “Through Hazel Eyes,” The Durant News, (January 29, 1948)
[11] The Ohio Daily Express, “Prepare for Trouble, Governor Tells Police,” (May 21, 1948)
[12] Jackson Advocate, “Arkansas Negroes Advised to Join White Party,” (August 23, 1947)
[13] The Voice, “Seeks 10,000 Members,” Lincoln, Nebraska, (November 20, 1947)
[14] Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Arkansas Negro Democratic Association
[15] Associated Press, “Revolt Starts Talk of Southern Democrat on Truman Ticket,” Evening Star, (February 4, 1948)
[16] Evening Star, “Senator Overton, 72, Member of Congress Since 1931, Dies,” (February 14, 1948)
[17] Associated Press, “Mississippi Governor Calls Meeting to Map Party Revolt,” Evening Star, (February 5, 1948)
[18] Associated Press, “Negro College Offered to South if Regional Schools are Adopted,” Evening Star, (January 19, 1948)
[19] Evening Star, “Southerners Threaten Break with Truman on Civil Rights Plan,” (February 3, 1948)
[20] Carl Cahill, “Senate Passes Labor Bill with Tremendous Majority; State Faces Worker Crisis,” The Wilmington Morning Star, (July 7, 1948)
[21] Evening Star, “Aid Bill Signed, Truman Hails it as Momentous,” (April 3, 1948)
[22] The Chicago Star, “Group Protests Hartley-Taft Bill,” (May 17, 1948)
[23] Carl Cahill, “Senate Passes Labor Bill with Tremendous Majority; State Faces Worker Crisis,” The Wilmington Morning Star, (July 7, 1948)
[24] Evening Star, “A Political Veto,” (June 21, 1947)
[25] The Wilmington Morning Star, “Senate Overrides Truman’s Veto of Taft-Hartley Labor Measure,” (June 24, 1947)
[26] The Potters Herald, “Green Said Negroes Hit Hard By T-H,” (September 11, 1947)
[27] Evening Star, “Message’s Importance Leads Truman to Deliver it in Person,” (January 5, 1948)
[28] The Nome Nugget, “Not Possible to Foretell Cost of Marshall Aid Plan,” (January 28, 1948)