Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1998 The ewN South Gubernatorial Campaigns of 1970 and the Changing Politics of Race. Donald Randy Sanders Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Sanders, Donald Randy, "The eN w South Gubernatorial Campaigns of 1970 and the Changing Politics of Race." (1998). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6760. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6760 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. 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THE NEW SOUTH GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGNS OF 1970 AND THE CHANGING POLITICS OF RACE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Randy Sanders B.G.S., University of New Orleans, 1984 M.A., University of New Orleans, 1990 August 1998 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 99 02662 UMI Microform 9902662 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.................................................. iii CHAPTER 1 MIGHTY PECULIAR ELECTIONS...................... 1 2 A CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE................. 14 3 ARKANSAS........................................ 62 4 FLORIDA......................................... 143 5 SOUTH CAROLINA.................................. 221 6 GEORGIA......................................... 277 7 CONCLUSION...................................... 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................. 325 VITA....................................................... 334 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT In 1970 four young racially moderate Democrats won the governor's chairs of Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia. These southern gubernatorial elections and the subsequent inaugural speeches signaled a transformation of racial politics in the region. As the campaigns began, however, persistent ambivalence concerning the pace of integration and court-ordered busing of school children to achieve racial balances tempted many politicians to exploit these concerns. Their efforts failed; southerners had decided to obey the law. The successful candidates understood that the electorate had come to this decision with varying degrees of enthusiasm and that their campaigns must reflect this ambivalence; they must eschew the rhetoric of resistance without uttering strong words in favor of desegregation and busing. The 197 0 gubernatorial campaigns marked the first time in southern politics that those who refused to exploit racial prejudice won office. Elusive evasion of racially charged issues appealed to a moderate electorate that had grown weary of upheaval. The finessing of race by the men who would become the New South governors of 197 0, however, set an example that subsequent candidates would follow and missed an opportunity to establish a morally binding biracial coalition that could have strengthened the southern wing of the Democratic party beyond 1970. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 MIGHTY PECULIAR ELECTIONS In 1970 four young racial moderates won the governor's chairs of Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia. Although their campaigns each reflected unique aspects of their states' contemporary circumstances, history and political idiosyncrasies, taken together the four races reveal a great deal about the politics and condition in the South at the time. The winning candidates in each of the four gubernatorial campaigns eschewed the traditional politics of racial antagonism and demagoguery. "Always before, you could tell right easy how somebody stood on the nigras," said a retired Georgia farmer, puzzled by the racial stance of the gubernatorial candidates during the election in 1970. "I don't say it isn't a good thing, but it does make for a mighty peculiar election."1 Peculiar elections did indeed signal a change across most of the South. South Carolina Governor John West believed that 1970 marked the first southern election with "racial overtones where the moderates won." Florida Governor Reubin Askew saw the election of moderates across the South as "a departure from the custom wherein the person who took the hard racial line always won." Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers asserted that his election and the victories of Governors Carter in Georgia, West in South Carolina and Askew in Florida were not coincidences, but 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the result of "a cry for new leadership in the South." These elections prompted both the southern and the national media to herald a new South. Time magazine placed Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter on its cover and wrote of a "New Day A'Coming in the South" in the accompanying story that also included Bumpers, Askew and West. "Something remarkable and significant is happening in this part of the country," James Reston wrote of the South in the New York Times. "The men who have been appealing to regional and racial prejudice are declining." The elections of 1970 signalled the arrival of "a new market of southern governors," observed southern journalist Edwin Yoder, "all young, all anxious to put the slogans, the fears, the divisions, the despairs of the sixties behind them." Even a radical journal, the Progressive, joined in the celebration: "The coming of a 'New South' that will reject race and regional prejudice has been heralded prematurely a number of times, but now, at last, it may be nearing a reality -- if some new Southern governors keep the pledges they made at their inaugurals. "2 In Arkansas, Democrat Dale Bumpers won a Democratic primary victory over former Governor Orval Faubus, who symbolized southern intransigence when in 1957 he ordered the state militia to prevent school integration in Little Rock. Bumpers downplayed the busing issue while Faubus sought to make it the center-piece of his 1970 campaign. 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Bumpers took office promoting a vision of a future that "must be shaped and shared by all Arkansans: old and young, black and white, rich and poor."3 In Florida, Reubin Askew defeated the incumbent governor who during the campaign took over a school district to thwart a court-ordered school desegregation plan that included busing. Askew took office with a pledge of "equal rights for all of our people, . black as well as white.114 In South Carolina, the incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor John West ran against a Republican who frequently voiced fiery anti-integration rhetoric. "The politics of race and divisiveness," West declared in his inaugural address, "have been soundly repudiated in South Carolina." West promised to run a "color blind" administration that would "eliminate from our government any vestige of discrimination because of race, creed, sex, religion or any other barrier to fairness for all citizens."5