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Conclusion with legal and political equality procured, at least in theory, with the landmark legislation of 1964 and 1965, the civil rights movement splintered as the focus of the crusade shifted northward to the economic injustices that impeded the advancement of the nation’s black community. When the protest e≠ort expanded, it fractured over its objectives and divided over the nonviolent philosophy that once proved so successful in the South. White opposition, as it developed in the U.S. Senate, also fragmented, albeit for di≠erent reasons. Born in the 1930s to stem the nascent civil rights crusade, the unified southern Senate bloc lost its focus once the reason for which it existed—maintaining white supremacy—collapsed under the weight of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. After the passage of the Housing Rights Act of 1968, Richard Russell o∞cially relinquished his leadership role over what remained of the southern caucus. The group that staggered on as a mere shadow after 1965 no longer had the power or the troops it once had, or a clear set of “southern interests” to defend. The demise of the caucus did not diminish the political strength of Dixie’s senators. Many of them, including Richard Russell, John Stennis, James Eastland , Allen Ellender, John McClellan, and Herman Talmadge, still chaired important Senate committees and thus continued to dominate the legislative process in the chamber. A shift in national opinion toward greater conservatism , however, gradually eroded the size of the Democratic majority in the Senate. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), Republicans regained control of the Senate for the first time since 1955, reducing southerners to minority status on the committees they once headed. When conclusion 307 Democrats recaptured the chamber following the 1986 election, eight of the Senate’s fifteen standing committees again fell under southern control, but these leaders were “bona fide national Democrats” who, unlike their regional predecessors, consistently voted with the national party. When Richard Russell and Harry Byrd occupied the chamber, southern senators shared many of the ideological tendencies of chamber Republicans and often voted with the GOP in what observers called a “conservative coalition.” This coalition, which emerged in response to President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court with more liberal justices, eroded over time, especially after the 1960s, when the national Democratic Party became more centrist. In the 1970s and 1980s, the conservatism that typified southern opposition to civil rights became a national characteristic, a development that eroded the alliance between Republicans and southern Democrats.1 Following their losses in the 1960s, southern senators adapted to post– Jim Crow politics. Although in the twilight of his career, Richard Russell, for one, still had some moments of personal triumph. The retirement of Arizona’s Carl Hayden after forty-two years of Senate service finally opened the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, a position the Georgian had long coveted but thought he would never attain because of Hayden’s seeming immortality. On 3 January 1969, Russell was elected president pro tempore of the Senate, an honor bestowed on the chamber’s most senior man. In March 1969, physicians discovered a tumor on Russell’s left lung. The Georgian’s health steadily declined until his 21 January 1971 death from pulmonary emphysema. Richard Russell outlived his beloved “southern way of life,” but his historical legacy would forever remain linked with the cause to which he devoted much of his Washington career. 1. Numan V. Bartley, The New South, 1945–1980 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996); Charles S. Bullock III and David W. Brady, “Party, Constituency, and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. Senate,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 8 (February 1983): 29–43; Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 1 August 1987, 1699–1705; Richard Fleisher, “Explaining the Change in RollCall Voting Behavior of Southern Democrats,” Journal of Politics 55 (May 1993): 327–341; M. V. Hood III, Quentin Kidd, and Irwin L. Morris, “Of Byrd[s] and Bumpers: Using Democratic Senators to Analyze Political Change in the South, 1960–1995,” American Journal of Political Science 43 (April 1999): 465–487; Keith T. Poole and R. Steven Daniels, “Ideology, Party, and Voting in the U.S. Congress, 1959–1980,” American Political Science Review 79 (June 1985): 373–399; Kenny J. Whitby and Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., “A Longitudinal Analysis of Competing Explanations for the Transformation of Southern Congressional Politics,” Journal of Politics 53 (May 1991): 504–518. [18.191.46.36] Project MUSE...

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