, African Americans and the Democratic Party
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Historically, African Americans were strong supporters of the Republican Party after the Civil War. Throughout the nineteenth century, The Republican Party were perceived as the champions of Emancipation while the Democrats were associated with white supremacy. However, by the Great Depression and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1936 presidential campaign, African Americans had made a dramatic shift toward supporting the Democratic Party. African American support for the Democratic Party has remained steadfast in the sixty years since the New Deal. To a great extent, the change in African American perceptions of the two parties has changed because of the remarkable transformation these parties underwent from the beginning of the twentieth century through FDR's 1936 election. This paper will focus on the three presidential elections between 1928 and 1936 because this period saw the dramatic shift of the black vote to the Democratic Party. It will also look at the relationship between black political activity and the Democratic Party in the decades after the 1936 presidential election. Although generally disenfranchised from the political process in America, African Americans had been strong supporters of the Republican Party through the end of Reconstruction. However, the Republican and Democratic Parties began changing their respective focus on their political base as American industrialism became more sophisticated and developed. John Whiteclay Chambers II described t
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trust the traditionally anti black Democrats. They still feared that electing a Democrat for president would open the door for racist Southern Democrats to control all branches of government. The question of FDR's health was important to African Americans because they feared if something happened to him, then his white supremacist running mate, John Nance Garner of Texas, would become president (Franklin and Moss, 1988, 345). Thus, in the 1932 election, FDR only captured small numbers of the African American vote. For example, in Chicago, where black political activity was strong, only 23% of the Black vote supported the Democrats. Nevertheless, this represented a significant increase over previous elections (Franklin and Moss, 1988, 345).
The slow but steady rise in black defections from the Republican Party can be attributed to discontent with Herbert Hoover's social and economic policies from 1928 to 1932. Hoover increasingly courted white Southern voters and was responsible for the growth of the Republican party in that region. Hoover also reduced the patronage traditionally reserved for black Republicans. Finally, Hoover's laze faire economic policies ensured benefits for large corporations but brought no relief to
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2407
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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