Whiteness and the Emergence of the Republican Party in the Early Twentieth-Century South

Studies in American Political Development, page 1 of 20, 2020. ISSN 0898-588X/20 doi:10.1017/S0898588X19000208 © Cambridge University Press 2020 Whiteness and the Emergence of the Republican Party in the Early Twentieth-Century South Boris Heersink, Department of Political Science, Fordham University Jeffery A. Jenkins, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California In the post-Reconstruction South, two Republican factions vied for control of state party organizations. The Black- and-Tans sought to keep the party inclusive and integrated, while the Lily-Whites worked to turn the GOP into a whites-only party. The Lily-Whites ultimately emerged victorious, as they took over most state parties by the early twentieth century. Yet no comprehensive data exist to measure how the conflict played out in each state. To fill this void, we present original data that track the racial composition of Republican National Convention delegations from the South between 1868 and 1952. We then use these data in a set of statistical analyses to show that, once disfranchising laws were put into place, the “whitening” of the GOP in the South led to a significant increase in the Republican Party’s vote totals in the region. Overall, our results suggest that the Lily-White takeover of the Southern GOP was a necessary step in the Republican Party’s reemergence—and eventual dominance—in the region during the second half of the twentieth century. INTRODUCTION the region to the Democrats, with one-party Demo- cratic rule becoming the status quo for the next Following the conclusion of the Civil War, the Grand three generations. Old Party (GOP) was in ascendance. Led by super- Scholarship on Republican Party politics has little majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republican to say about the GOP’s role or makeup in the South leaders sought to remake the social fabric of the after Reconstruction. Aside from some works that nation through a radical reconstruction of the examine the national party’s ill-fated “retreat” from former Confederate South. While meaningful civil its radical vision during the Gilded Age,1 research and voting rights reforms would be made to enfran- on Southern Republicanism is largely limited to the chise and elevate blacks, the “Radical Republican” post–World War II era—specifically, the decades fol- vision for a colorblind society would be short lived. lowing the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Within a decade, the white South—embodied in the when a realignment of the white South helped Democratic Party—rose up and wrested control of create a new (and vibrant) Republican Party in the all state governments in the former Confederacy. ex-Confederate states.2 This is not surprising, as With the Compromise of 1877, the national Repub- lican Party began to slowly move away from their Reconstruction-era goals. And by the turn of the twen- 1. See Vincent De Santis, Republicans Face the Southern Question: – tieth century, with disfranchisement laws spreading The New Departure Years, 1877 1897 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959); Stanley Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirt: throughout the South, the GOP had all but conceded Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro, 1877–1893 (Blooming- ton: Indiana University Press, 1962); Xi Wang, The Trial of Democracy: Black Suffrage and Northern Republicans, 1860–1910 (Athens: Univer- E-mail: [email protected] sity of Georgia Press, 1997); Charles W. Calhoun, Conceiving a New E-mail: [email protected] Republic: The Republican Party and the Southern Question, 1869–1900 Acknowledgments: We thank John Aldrich, David Bateman, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006). Robert Mickey, Eric Schickler, Charles Stewart, and Richard 2. See, for example, Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of M. Valelly for comments and suggestions. We also thank Anthony Southern Republicans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Sparacino, Jennifer Simons, Henry Ashton, Jordan Carr Peterson, 2002); David Lublin, The Republican South: Democratization and Parti- and Nicholas G. Napolio for their research assistance. san Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); 1 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. USC - Norris Medical Library, on 05 Feb 2020 at 20:14:29, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898588X19000208 2 BORIS HEERSINK AND JEFFERY A. JENKINS the GOP had almost no congressional presence in the ensure and protect civil and voting rights for blacks. South after Reconstruction—with the small number In short, the Lily-Whites espoused white supremacy, of Republican House seats drying up almost entirely based in part on the argument that the only way the by 1900—and Republican presidential candidates Republican Party could become electorally competi- generally failing to capture electoral-college votes in tive again in the South (once disfranchisement laws the South between 1880 and 1948.3 were the norm) was by becoming an all-white party. While it is true that the GOP’s Southern wing had Understanding these post-Reconstruction racial no meaningful impact on national political outcomes divisions within the Southern GOP is important, we after Reconstruction, it did retain a level of influence argue, for two reasons. First, the Lily-White takeover in one respect—within the party itself. That is, the of the Republican Party in the South effectively South continued to play a role in the Republican closed off the last remaining avenue for meaningful National Convention, with Southern delegates main- political participation for black southerners during taining their seats and voting rights—and most the era. Second, Lily-Whiteism may have spurred importantly, their ability to choose the GOP’s presi- the Republican Party’s reemergence in the second dential candidate. Indeed, for a time, the South com- half of the twentieth century. That is, by becoming a manded around a quarter of Republican convention “white party,” the GOP may have put itself in a pos- delegates, even as it lacked the ability to wield influ- ition to actively compete for white Southern votes ence for the GOP on Election Day.4 This continued after the national Democratic Party’s active embrace convention presence is relevant in two ways. First, it of civil rights during the 1950s and beyond. allowed Southern states to be pivotal in some Repub- Despite the importance of the Black-and-Tan versus lican presidential nomination contests long after they Lily-White conflict, little scholarly attention has been ceased to matter on the national stage.5 Second, it given to it. Existing studies on the topic, which are provided some level of ongoing political representa- sparse and cursory in description, have suggested tion for blacks, as they were increasingly excluded that presidents and other national party leaders from participating in other forms of democratic polit- often shifted their alliances between the two rival ics back home. organizations, based on perceived strategic advan- But while Southern states would maintain tages (i.e., by discerning which group could be substantial representation at Republican National more easily or cheaply “bought”). This research has Conventions, black southerners would not. Research held that the Lily-Whites took control of most Repub- has shown, though mostly anecdotally, that struggles lican state party organizations in the late nineteenth between two groups of Republicans—the Black-and- century, with an additional wave of Lily-Whiteism Tans and the Lily-Whites—in the late nineteenth occurring during President Herbert Hoover’s admin- century and early twentieth century resulted istration.7 But when and how this conflict between the eventually in the exclusion of black Republicans Black-and-Tans and Lily-Whites played out specifically from the Southern GOP.6 The Black-and-Tans were across Southern states does not exist. Work is thus the descendants of the Reconstruction-era GOP, and needed to more systematically examine the rise of were composed of blacks and (a minority of) whites the Lily-Whites and analyze how their conflict with who supported a more inclusive party. The the Black-and-Tans affected black political represen- Black-and-Tans fought to keep the legacy of Recon- tation in the South, Republican Convention politics, struction alive, by stressing the need to preserve the and Southern GOP development more generally. rights of blacks—especially in the face of intimida- In this article, we present new data that track the tion, violence, and legal maneuvers to disfranchise racial composition of Republican convention delega- and segregate. The Lily-Whites sought to restrict tions in Southern states from 1868 through 1952. party membership to whites only, while distancing These data—which match individual Southern dele- themselves from Reconstruction-era efforts to gates to original census forms, thereby allowing us to identify the racial composition of each state’s delegation—provide crucial insights into the development of Lily-Whiteism across the South. Robert Mickey, Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian — fi — Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944–1972 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Importantly, these data for the rst time allow us University Press, 2015). to identify when particular state delegations became 3. The sole exceptions to this were Warren G. Harding in 1920 Lily-White dominated and which states managed (winning Tennessee) and Herbert Hoover in 1928 (winning (for a time) to buck the Lily-White trend. Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia). “ ” 4. Boris Heersink and Jeffery A. Jenkins, “Southern Delegates To assess whether the horserace between and Republican National Convention Politics, 1880-1928,” Studies in Black-and-Tans and Lily-Whites actually affected the American Political Development 29 (2015): 68–88. 5. Ibid. 6. For background on the composition and arguments of the Black-and-Tans and Lily-Whites, see Hanes Walton, Jr., Black Repub- 7.

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