James Ault’s July 12 letter, “Southern Democrats on wrong side,” accurately related “sins” of the conservative Southern Democrats. Ending the history lesson in the mid-1960s and concluding that all Democrats should share the blame for their Southern brethren is a disservice to an otherwise well-written piece. More progressive Northern Democrats, in many instances, led change efforts.
The beginning of the end of the Southern Democrats can be traced to 1948 when President Truman, a Democrat, issued an executive order integrating the military. Southern Democrats responded by forming the short-lived States’ Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats), hoping to maintain white supremacy, Jim Crow laws and segregation.
In the mid-1960s, passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, under a Democratic president, broke the bond of the Southern voter with the Democratic Party. It wasn’t a sudden change but started at the national level, over time making it to all levels.
Today, the South is dominated by the Republican Party as it was once dominated by Democrats. Jim Crow is alive and well in the form of today’s voter-suppression legislation that began in many Republican-dominated Southern and border states.
To suggest that today’s Democrats should forfeit their donkey because of the actions of those who have morphed to Republicans seems to have missed its mark.
