The Emergence of Republicanism in the Urban South

THE EMERGENCE OF REPUBLICANISM IN THE URBAN SOUTH Stanley D. Brunn and Gerald L. Ingalls* “The name (R epublican) offends m y sensibilities but actu­ ally in some ways it is more like the old D em ocratic party I once believed in.” ( A 70-year-old dow ager in Florida) “I think if you’d put them in a sack and shake them up, you w ouldn’t know which . . . jum ped out first.” (A w hite mail carrier in rural G eorgia) INTRODUCTION. T he South is in a state of change. (1) No longer is the stereotype o f a languid, agricultural society dominated by a distinct arcadianism accurate. E conom ic developm ent in the form of expanding trade, com m erce and industry have diminished agriculture’s econom ic pre-em inence and reduced southern rusticness by spawning widespread urban growth. Coincident with this urban developm ent is political change. If any one factor has contributed to the distinctive southern stereotype, it was politics. The term South becam e synonymous with “Dem ocratic” and with “solid.” Furthermore, if any one factor con­ tributes to the im age o f a changing South today, it is also politics. The walls of the D em ocratic bastion-South have been cracked. Elections from 1948 to 1968 offer evidence that from the standpoint of national electoral politics the South may still be “D em ocratic” but it is no longer “solid.” Since 1948, w e have witnessed the advent of successful chal­ lenges by Republican and third party candidates to National Dem ocratic party slates at all levels of com petition throughout the South. In this study the primary concern is with the “emergence” of the Republican party as a serious contender for southern electoral college votes, since, in agreement with Alexander Heard: “. . . in the long run Southern conservatives will find neither in a separatist group nor in the Dem ocratic party, an ade­ quate vehicle of political expression. If this is true, they must turn to the Republican Party.” (2) Third parties have fared notoriously poorly in American politics, and there is little reason to expect highly sectional-oriented parties, such as the Am erican Independent party in 1968, to persist as vehicles o f effec­ tive long term protest. (3) Thus, one vehicle o f national “political expres­ *D r. B ru n n is a ssocia te p rofessor o f g e o g ra p h y an d in th e C om p u ter In stitu te tor S o cia l S cie n ce R esea rch at M ich igan S tate U n iv ersity an d M r. In ga lls is a d octora l ca n d id a te at th e sa m e in stitu tion . T h e pa p er w as a ccep ted fo r p u b lica tion in J u n e 1972. 134 So u t h e a s t e r n G e o g r a p h e r sion” for southern voters has becom e the Republican party; hence, its “em ergence” in the South. The principal concern here is with the urban South, since it is here that this em ergence is most clearly delineated. “The growth of cities contains the seeds o f political change for the south.” (4) THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE URBAN SOUTH. In his m onu­ mental work on southern politics, V. O. Key alluded prophetically to the role that the cities o f the South w ould play in bringing about political change. Given the inherent political conservatism of the rural South, the most conceivable arena for change was and is the city. As Donald Strong points out, examining the city as a focus for party change is not without historical precedent, since, “in the late 1920s and 1930s, the children of immigrants in the great northern metropolises m obilized their full voting strength to offset Republican upstate margins . . . with D em ocratic pluralities.” (5) In subsequent examinations o f the results of the 1952 (6) and 1956 (7...