Southern Opposition to Civil Rights in the United States Senate: a Tactical and Ideological Analysis, 1938-1965 Keith M
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2003 Southern opposition to civil rights in the United States Senate: a tactical and ideological analysis, 1938-1965 Keith M. Finley Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Finley, Keith M., "Southern opposition to civil rights in the United States Senate: a tactical and ideological analysis, 1938-1965" (2003). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1611. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1611 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 Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. SOUTHERN OPPOSITION TO CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE: A TACTICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS, 1938-1965 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Keith M. Finley B.A., Gettysburg College 1995 M.A., Southeastern Louisiana University, 1999 August 2003 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to Dr. William Cooper, Dr. Charles Royster, and Dr. Charles Shindo for their comments on this manuscript. Dr. Gaines Foster went far beyond the call of duty in reading and commenting on this dissertation. As a mentor, he has been exemplary in every way. It has been an honor to work with him. I would also like to thank Dr. Sam Hyde of Southeastern Louisiana University for overseeing the thesis out of which this work emerged. He has been a source of inspiration throughout my graduate career. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and patience. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER I OPENING PANDORA’S BOX................................................................... 19 II THE ORIGINS OF STRATEGIC DELAY................................................. 66 III THE BATTLE BROADENS....................................................................... 114 IV DIVISION IN THE RANKS........................................................................ 162 V VICTORY THROUGH COMPROMISE.................................................... 223 VI “THIS IS WHERE THE BATTLE WILL BE WON OR LOST”................ 274 VII INEVITABLE DEFEAT.............................................................................. 329 CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................... 359 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................... 369 VITA.................................................................................................................................... 386 iii ABSTRACT Contrary to many historical accounts that depict white resistance to civil rights legislation in the United States Senate as relying exclusively on filibusters and overt racism, southern senators followed a more moderate approach in the late 1930s when they realized that civil rights activism would continue until Jim Crow collapsed. Adopting a tactic of strategic delay that enabled them to thwart civil rights advances for decades, they granted minor concessions on bills only tangentially related to civil rights and emasculated more substantive measures, rather than always utilizing the filibuster. The level of northern support for a given civil rights proposal dictated which approach southerners employed. As southern senators altered their legislative strategy to counter greater public support for civil rights, they also transformed their arguments, crafting their claims to appeal to northerners. Southern senators linked their defense of segregation with the nation’s founding principles and depicted themselves as the guarantors of the federal system as defined by the Revolutionary generation. At the same time, they limited the use of overt racism that had formerly served as their primary defense of segregation. Despite the advantages accrued by following a conciliatory approach at the federal level, southern senators proved unwilling to intervene on the state level. This decision undermined their long-term objective of preserving segregation. Unlike southern senators, local politicians did not moderate their actions or their rhetoric because they answered only to their white constituents, not a national audience. By not challenging racial demagogues in the South, southern senators allowed the extremism that resulted from “massive resistance,” especially white assaults on non-violent civil rights protestors, to flourish. As a result, many northerners by iv the 1960s began to question the long-standing southern claim that Jim Crow produced racial harmony. Southern senators then abandoned strategic delay and lost their fight to preserve segregation. Had they succeeded in delaying the crucial votes on desegregation only a few years so that they occurred in the context of black violence in the late 1960s, rather than white violence of the early 1960s, southern senators might have succeeded in prolonging the life of Jim Crow. v INTRODUCTION Most historical assessments of America’s civil rights struggle focus either on the fight by the African-American community or on the leaders who directed the political coalition that championed black legal and political equality. Many approach the civil rights movement from the “top-down” by studying figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Lyndon Johnson who they consider the central actors in the civil rights drama.1 Other historians focus on the movement from the “bottom up,” often by replicating the theoretical foundation of slave studies with their emphasis on community consciousness.2 Still others explore specific facets of the struggle such as particular events or places,3 judicial and legal developments,4 presidential 1Examples of the biographical approach include: David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: W. Morrow, 1986); Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper Perennial, 1982); Michael E. Dyson, I May Not Get There From Here: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Free Press, 2000); Paula F. Pfeffer, A Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); Denton L. Watson, Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws (New York: Morrow, 1990). 2Jack M. Bloom, Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); James W. Button, Blacks and Social Change: Influence of the Civil Rights Movement in Southern Communities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Richard A. Couto, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round: The Pursuit of Racial Justice in the Rural South (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991); John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Knopf, 1979); Richard H. King, Civil Rights and the Idea of Freedom (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996); Stephen F. Lawson, In Pursuit of Power: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America Since 1941 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991). 3Dan Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979); David R. Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis: T. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Robert J. Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Glenda A. Rabby, The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida (Athens: University Of Georgia Press, 1984); Mary A. Rothschild, A Case of Black and White: Northern Volunteers and the Southern Freedom Summers, 1964-1965 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982); Howard Smead, Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press, 1988). 4Michal R. Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987); David Garrow Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); Charles V. Hamilton, The 1 2 policies,5 or civil rights organizations.6 Despite an enormous amount of literature devoted to civil rights, only a limited number