Studies in American Political Development, 27 (October 2013), 1–31. ISSN 0898-588X/13 doi:10.1017/S0898588X13000072 # Cambridge University Press 2013 First to the Party: The Group Origins of the Partisan Transformation on Civil Rights, 1940–1960 Christopher A. Baylor, College of the Holy Cross One of the most momentous shifts in twentieth-century party politics was the Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights. Recent scholarship finds that this realignment began as early as the 1940s and traces it to pressure groups, especially organized labor. But such scholarship does not explain why labor, which was traditionally hostile to African Americans, began to work with them. Nor does it ascribe agency to the efforts of African American pressure groups. Focusing on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), this article attempts to fill these gaps in the literature. It explains why civil rights and labor leaders reassessed their traditional animosities and began to work as allies in the Democratic Party. It further shows how pressure from the new black-blue alliance forced the national Democratic Party to stop straddling civil rights issues and to become instead the vehicle for promoting civil rights. NAACP and CIO leaders consciously sought to remake the Democratic Party by marginalizing conservative Southerners, and eventually succeeded. The partisan transformation on civil rights is arguably became the party of states’ rights. The civil rights the most important twentieth-century case in Ameri- transformation arguably presaged the future partisan can politics in which parties changed positions on division on cultural issues as well. How and when did an entire dimension of political conflict. At the turn the parties change? of the twentieth century, the Democratic Party was Not long ago, leading scholarship held that that the widely viewed as the party that had initiated secession, fundamental change occurred in the 1960s. In par- obstructed Reconstruction, and institutionalized Jim ticular, Carmines and Stimson argue that Republicans Crow. As late as the 1930s, there were few signs that and Democrats resembled each other on civil rights the party would represent the interests of African until 1964, when Democratic Party elites led their Americans. Though sponsoring the New Deal, party’s evolution on civil rights.1 Recent scholarship which was popular among black voters, few Demo- has challenged this account and argues that realign- cratic leaders wanted a colorblind distribution of its ment took place in the 1940s. Among the revisionists, benefits. Some in the party supported civil rights legis- Farhang and Katznelson contend that southern lation, but Franklin Roosevelt was famously reticent Democrats began to ally with Republicans in the on this subject, and the party’s entrenched southern 1940s to limit the power of labor unions and the wing was adamantly opposed. All in all, the Demo- new political regime they were creating.2 Chen, cratic Party was little more promising as an ally to Mickey, and Van Houweling also find that California African Americans than was the party of Lincoln, Republicans were more likely to oppose Fair Employ- which had not prioritized civil rights in decades. Yet, ment Practice Commissions (FEPCs) in the same in the 1960s, Democratic Party leaders passed decade, and Chen finds similar patterns in other several landmark civil rights laws while Republicans states.3 Feinstein and Schickler suggest that the I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for extensive 1. Edward Carmines and James Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race and thoughtful feedback, which was much more detailed than and the Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton the norm for journal submissions. John Zaller and Scott James University Press, 1989). also provided insightful responses to several drafts of this paper. I 2. Sean Farhang and Ira Katznelson, “The Southern Impo- thank Eric Schickler for substantial comments on an early sition: Congress and Labor in the New Deal and Fair Deal,” version. My colleagues at Wellesley College, including Tom Burke, Studies in American Political Development 19 (2005). Nadya Hajj, Hahrie Han, Bill Joseph, Marion Just, Joel Krieger, 3. Anthony S. Chen, Robert W. Mickey, and Robert P. Van Hou- Paul MacDonald, and Lena Zuckerwise, made helpful suggestions weling, “Explaining the Contemporary Alignment of Race and on a practice talk based on this paper. Finally, Ayobami Laniyonu’s Party: Evidence from California’s 1946 Ballot Initiative on Fair insights on the NAACP and Kira Newman’s suggestions on Employment,” Studies in American Political Development 22 (2008): grammar and clarity are gratefully acknowledged. 204–28; Anthony Chen, The Fifth Freedom: Jobs, Politics, and Civil 1 2 CHRISTOPHER A. BAYLOR Democratic Party coalition partners led state Demo- delegates.6 Georgia Senator Richard Russell’s failure to cratic parties to adopt more racially liberal platforms get his presidential nomination off the ground at the than Republicans did.4 Schickler, Pearson, and 1952 convention was another meaningful signal of Feinstein provide evidence that “meso-level” party the party’s direction. activists influenced the national party through Con- From the vantage point of the 1930s, the alliance gress, where northern Democrats were more likely between the NAACP and CIO that helped bring to support discharge petitions in favor of civil rights.5 about these outcomes was anything but a forgone I concur with the revisionists in tracing the parti- conclusion. Labor had a record of hostility to san transformation on civil rights to the 1940s. In blacks. But the alliance overcame this history and the research presented below, I delve more deeply forced the national Democratic Party to meet a into the interest group origins of the civil rights minimum threshold of support for civil rights. This movement. The Congress of Industrial Organiz- threshold was unacceptable to many Southerners, ations (CIO) and the National Association for the some of whom never supported national Democratic Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), groups candidates after bolting the 1948 convention. that were not initially friendly toward one another, Without strategic pressure from external groups, it is forged a new alliance that aimed, as a matter of con- likely that African Americans would have spent scious strategy, to remake the Democratic Party as more time without a party, and it is possible that the the vehicle of their policy interests. While the Democratic Party would have maintained the same NAACP was one among many civil rights groups, it balance between northern and southern interests as was the principal civil rights group working with it had in the 1930s. Many northern Democratic the CIO in its effort to bring African Americans leaders had shown themselves quite willing to con- into the Democratic Party and drive out the agents tinue cooperating with southern segregationists of southern segregation. This paper examines both even after it was clear that the demographic base of the cause of the alliance—changing organizational the party was changing. needs and goals—and the transformative effect of To use Barry Goldwater’s metaphor of “hunting this alliance on the Democratic Party. The motives where the ducks are,” the alliance of the CIO and behind the alliance included both groups’ policy NAACP did not simply attract politicians to new agendas as well as the need to sustain themselves as hunting grounds. It created a hospitable ecosystem organizations. The groups worked to finesse their for ducks that changed the hunters’ behavior. It was differences in the interest of an effective political an environment in which labor and civil rights tra- alliance. velled together, so that disturbing one was likely to Before the McGovern-Fraser reforms, national disturb the other. This new environment offered party conventions were the locus of national power nourishment—door knockers, prestige endorse- within the parties. At party conventions of the ments, registration of friendly voters—to rising poli- 1940s and 1950s, the CIO sought to realign the ticians who would commit to the cause. party by gaining delegate support for nominees Part of the reason that political scientists have over- and platforms satisfactory to liberals and civil rights looked the role of the CIO and the NAACP in chan- activists. Platforms and nominations do not, of ging the Democratic Party is that they have only course, bind the “party-in-government” to do any- recently focused on the role of groups, rather than thing whatsoever. But activists nonetheless viewed national politicians, in defining parties. Political their convention struggles as meaningful, and cor- scientist E. E. Schattschneider asserted that pressure rectly so. Extensive behind-the-scenes maneuvers at groups are “rarely organized to deliver votes” or the 1944 convention led to the vice-presidential nomi- “conduct an active campaign in the electorate.”7 But nation of the racially moderate Harry S. Truman, rather he overlooked the possibility that groups could than the South Carolina segregationist James Byrnes, as remake nominating coalitions. And he overlooked the back-up to the visibly moribund Franklin Roosevelt. as well the active efforts of unions and civil rights Adoption of a racially liberal platform at the 1948 con- leaders to mobilize their followers, some of whom vention signaled a strengthening commitment to civil were otherwise inattentive to politics, for this rights, which led directly to a walkout by many southern purpose. A political science and social movement 6. One political scientist writes that platforms act “as a window through which to view factional fights and a means to assess their Rights in the United States, 1941–1972 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni- relative strength.” Jo Freeman, “Feminism vs. Family Values: versity Press, 2009). Women at the 1992 Democratic and Republican Conventions,” 4. Brian Feinstein and Eric Schickler, “Platforms and Partners: PS: Political Science and Politics 26 (March 1993), 26.