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323 e p i l o g u e The Perilous Climb The opportunities and pitfalls of democracy are central to the story of North Carolina politics and of American politics in general. Since the first half of the twentieth century, North Carolina has taken dramatic strides forward . But with political freedom and party competition may come greater risk of paralysis in government. Conflict has been a constant in the American political realm and if anything has intensified in the early twenty-first century. Four themes stand out in the evolution of democracy in North Carolina: racial transition, the rise and consequences of two-party politics and the related ideological battles, the central role of elections, and how individuals—especially those who assumed leadership roles—made a difference . As a southern state, North Carolina’s political and social systems long stood on a foundation of white supremacy. Schoolchildren learned that the Declaration of Independence proclaims that “all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This American ideal is based in part on opposition to oppression, whether that oppression is imposed by sources from within or without. The rhetoric was lofty, but the reality was that by common agreement among many whites, these words did not apply to blacks before the Civil War. Afterward, they did—at least in the official words of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. For women, full political rights did not come until still later. Much of the white South fought tooth and nail to preserve the racial caste system until blacks took to the streets and demanded change. National leaders found southern segregation an embarrassment in international relations. By the early 1960s, the civil rights revolution was gripping the land. Within the South, especially North Carolina, a few elected 324 / Epilogue officials began to support more racial equality, some overtly and others covertly. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation in public places. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated political stratagems that southern states had adopted to block African Americans from voting. Race remained a powerful undercurrent in politics. Yet over the decades, attitudes gradually began to soften. As late as the 1990s, a majority of my students of all races said that we would not in our lifetimes see an African American as president of the United States. Even those who believed that a black might one day win the presidency were not so bold as to predict that he or she would in the process gain North Carolina’s electoral votes. Racial cleavages will, in all probability, persist for decades to come. Moreover, many churches, fraternal organizations, and clubs are likely to remain mostly black, white, Asian, Hispanic, or otherwise nondiverse. Be that as it may, the transition from a caste system built on white supremacy to one that embraces racial equality has unquestionably been one of the greatest events in the history of North Carolina and the American South. The pressures for change reflected both moral and political forces within North Carolina and the country at large. In his 1949 classic, Southern Politics in State and Nation, V. O. Key Jr. argued that two-party systems provided more responsible government than systems dominated by one party. He cited several reasons. First, the presence of two identifiable parties—Democratic and Republican, liberal or conservative—enables ordinary voters to distinguish the ins from the outs. If things go wrong—corruption, incompetence, failure—the presence of a two-party system makes it easier to punish or throw out the incumbents and replace them with another party. Second, at least to a point, organized political parties stand for a coherent set of principles. Under the old southern one-party systems, people of many persuasions camped inside the Democratic Party. It was difficult to know what, if anything, the party as a whole stood for. Key argued that “one-party systems” were really no-party systems, though he acknowledged that the North Carolina Democratic Party contained competing factions that vaguely resembled parties. Third, Key believed that one-party systems benefit the society’s haves rather than its have-nots. The rich and well-educated understood the system’s byzantine nature and consequently could penetrate the halls of power through contacts and money. Others lacked the ability or means to do so. If Key, a man of liberal instincts, were alive today, he...

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