Blacks in the New Deal: The Shift from an Electoral Tradition and ist Legacy
Anchor Academic Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-95489-331-7 (ISBN)
The transformation of the Black vote from solidly Republican to solidly Democratic did not happen instantaneously, but rather it developed over decades of maturing as a result of the amalgamated efforts of Presidents and Black leaders. The move of Black voters toward the Democratic Party was part of a nationwide trend that had occurred with the creation of the Roosevelt Coalition of1936. This national shift would make the Democrats the majority party for the next several decades including a very decisive margin of Black voters in the balance of power.
Abdelkrim Dekhakhena is an assistant professor of American civilization and literature at the Department of English Language and Letters, University of 8Mai 1945, Guelma, Algeria. He is a leading researcher in American Studies. He has conducted research at Nanterre University- Paris 10 in France and the University of Jordan, Amman. He has published different articles on American democracy, the war on terror, the Middle East and Africa online in Social Science Research Network (SSRN eLibrary). View his research on his SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=2057954
Text Sample:
Chapter, Introduction:
No group of American minority voters shifted allegiance more dramatically in the 1930s than Black Americans did. Up until the New Deal era, Blacks had shown their traditional loyalty to the party of Lincoln by voting overwhelmingly the Republican ticket. By the end of F.D. Roosevelt s first administration, however, they tremendously voted the Democratic ticket. The decades long, wholesale attachment of Blacks to the party of Lincoln, with its laudable efforts to support Blacks (Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction) was understandable and inevitable enough. The anomaly was the massive shift by Blacks to the Democratic Party, traditionally identified with its long list of constant anti-Black and premeditated opposition to Black liberation: opposition to emancipation and Reconstruction, and with an ongoing record of all forms of racial discrimination, segregation, disfranchisement, exclusion, white primaries, and white supremacy.
Having aligned themselves earlier with Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation rather than with Democrats of Southern Jim Crow and White Supremacy, what made African Americans switch to the Democratic Party during the Depression era? The transformation of the Black vote from solidly Republican to solidly Democratic did not happen instantaneously, but rather it developed over decades of maturing as a result of the amalgamated efforts of Presidents and Black leaders. The move of Black voters toward the Democratic Party was part of a nationwide trend that had occurred with the creation of the Roosevelt Coalition of 1936 - a coalition that was kept by the increasing interests of the different counterparts during the Depression. This national shift would make the Democrats the majority party for the next several decades including a very decisive margin of Black voters in the balance of power.
This happened despite the paradoxical fact of its occurrence in the New Deal administration of the Democratic Party that had traditionally denied Blacks their basic civil rights. The party s earlier position and strategy against Blacks and their basic civil rights had not been ancient history. In addition, its Southern strategy along with Roosevelt s inclination to racist practices and segregation during his incumbency, for fear of jeopardizing his New Deal measures, undermined liberal efforts to advance the issue of Black civil rights. Nevertheless, when Roosevelt s promises of a New Deal for all Americans- the promise of providing jobs and better life were not very appealing, the incessant wooing of Democratic political machines and the effort of many liberal Democrats created the adequate atmosphere that prompted Blacks to join the party.
The question of why African Americans shifted their historical allegiance to the Republican Party in the Depression era evokes some interesting questions. Firstly, was a vote for Roosevelt only the result of economic welfarism in the African- American community? Secondly, did Roosevelt and his administration support basic civil rights? Thirdly, was there any motivating emotional factor to boost this vote? Or simply, was that shift due mainly to a rise in political consciousness among Black people and more precisely among Black voters that matured by the time of the New Deal? And finally, what eventually was the subsequent effect and legacy of that shift?
To answer these and other questions, the present study is an attempt to look into the inner dynamics and motives that led Blacks to vote for their oppressors rather than for Republicans. A deep analysis of the Blacks shift and its legacies contributes largely to the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of the Democratic Party in other ways as well. Thus, the current work treats the shift within a Black protest framework, by focusing on Black activism and individual experiences within a communal context.
As a matter of fact the allegiance of Black voters see
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 20.11.2014 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 155 x 220 mm |
| Gewicht | 325 g |
| Themenwelt | Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeine Soziologie |
| ISBN-10 | 3-95489-331-2 / 3954893312 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-3-95489-331-7 / 9783954893317 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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