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In his monumental study of poverty in Alabama, Poor but Proud, Wayne Flynt artfully yet methodically challenges a thousand stereotypes about poor whites. Far from being toothless rednecks content to spit tobacco, swill rotgut , and blast racoons with Granddaddy’s 12-gauge, the poor whites Flynt described had digni¤ed lives characterized by devotion to family, worshiping a God who offered hope for a brighter future, and coping daily with frenetic changes in a rapidly developing market economy. These folks were hardy stock, not hapless victims, and they could think on their feet, even if some had rarely darkened the doors of a schoolhouse. As opposed to living a life of self-in®icted humiliation and presumed inferiority, Flynt’s Alabamians “created a subculture that had meaning to them, that survived various homogenizing in®uences, and one that they often considered superior to the culture of their economic ‘betters.’”1 Throughout the twentieth century, these poor whites and the similarly impoverished black citizens found few voices that dared to challenge the state’s de¤cient education system, overturn the Black Belt–Big Mule coalition that delineated the hierarchical political landscape, or demand a more inclusive economy. To be sure, mavericks like Julia Tutwiler, Aubrey Williams, Gould Beech, and Jim Folsom, along with a handful of well-intentioned union leaders and activist Christians, made some ripples in the otherwise placid waters of the status quo. Yet these voices were largely powerless to alter a political culture created by powerful interest groups and embraced by the voting populace for cultural, economic, and political reasons. Even when reformminded progressives proved skillful enough to get elected, they stood little chance of enacting their agendas. Depending on the decade and the issue, 8 Divide and Conquer Interest Groups and Political Culture in Alabama, 1929–1971 Jeff Frederick swimming upstream against entrenched pressure groups and their presuppositions about political economy could get one branded a liberal, socialist, communist, outside agitator, or nigger-lover. And striking workers and other dissidents were likely to lose their jobs and maybe even their lives.2 The elites and interest groups that constructed this stulti¤ed system knew exactly what they were doing and proceeded with ruthless precision, even as they baldly stated their intentions: disfranchisement of blacks and poor whites. Having weathered Reconstruction and survived what historian Lawrence Goodwyn called “the Populist Moment,” the Heart of Dixie’s industrial elite and planter remnant conspired to lock in place a system that muted future threats. The state’s 1901 constitution created a compounding annual poll tax of $1.50, a literacy test, property and residency requirements designed to hamstring tenants, and an ambiguous good character litmus test. The poll tax was particularly punitive since many small farmers had already devolved into sharecropping and had little disposable income for voting. Within 20 years, a cumulative poll tax of $30 represented over 20 percent of the annual income for many folk. Any one of these provisions was enough to disfranchise many of the poor; together, they instantly sliced the pool of potential voters by over 200,000. Further indication of elite intentions was evinced by their chicanery during the rati¤cation vote on the new governing document. If the ¤nal vote is to be believed, 12 black belt counties, overwhelmingly African-American in population, voted 32,224 to 5,471 to ratify the very document that was certain to disfranchise them. At least 10 counties cast more votes than they had adult males over the age of twenty-one. Six decades later, many poor and black Alabamians were still locked out of the political process and needed federal intervention to get back on voter rolls.3 The 1901 constitution did more than just restrict suffrage; it created a system of governance under which interest groups prevented progressive ideas from even being considered. Legal scholars J. Michael Allen and Jamison W. Hinds have concluded that the document “teems with special exemptions and privileges granted to particular cities, counties, industries, and interest groups.” Economic elites slashed property taxes, set maximum city and county tax rates, and set limits on tax indebtedness. Power to make even the most pedestrian changes was left to the state legislature. The lack of home rule reduced most legislative sessions to a blizzard of local bills while rendering city and county commissions impotent on many matters. The result is a purposefully inef¤cient state government, a regressive tax system that makes the poor pay disproportionally for middling state services, a thick...

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