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CHAPTER 22
POLITICAL PRACTICES TODAY
I. The Southern Political Scene
The future might belong to liberalism, but the South of today is mainly
ruled by its conservatives. Though the South, as part of the United States,
has, in the main, the same political forms as the North, the activity which
goes on within these forms is strikingly different. The difference not only
makes internal politics in the South distinctive, but it influences the activi-
ties of the federal government. Although there are local and occasional
variations which will be considered presently, the South exhibits the follow-
ing major political divergences from the rest of the nation:®
I. For all practical purposes, the South’* has only one political party.
In the 1940 election, for example, 76 per cent of all votes were cast for the
Democratic candidate for President. In the extreme cases of Mississippi
and South Carolina, 98 per cent of the votes went to the Democratic
candidate.^ This causes the primary to be far more important than the
general election. In fact, the general election—most important in the
North and West—is usually a formal ritual to satisfy the demand of the
federal Constitution. While there is often a real contest in the primaries,
on the whole the struggle is one between personalities rather than issues.
Although the Democratic party holds unchallenged power over most of
the South, this party is not a highly organized political unity. Politics is
decentralized.^
• The data on Southern politics presented in this chapter are for the most part taken from
Ralph Bunche’s seven-volume study, “The Political Status of the Negro,” unpublished manu-
script prepared for this study (1940). Bunche’s investigations, carried out with the help
of several field-workers, are particularly rich in material on the South. A significant pro-
portion of the counties in all Southern states was actually visited, and local correspondents
from a few areas were used. The present author also made three trips throughout the South
and gave special attention to the political scene.
**In this chapter we are including in the South only the Upper and Lower South
(Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia). The Border states (Delaware, Kentucky,
Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia) have two-party systems (Oklahoma does also, but
we shall consider it as in the South because it disfranchises Negroes). The people living in
the District of Columbia have no vote.
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