From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994

Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History

by Dan T. Carter

A historian traces the role of right-wing reaction to the civil rights movement in Republican politics beginning with George Wallace's entrance on the national scene, arguing that conservatives still exploit racism for political gain. UP.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, 20th Century, Nonfiction

134 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

About the author

Before his retirement in 2007, Dan Carter taught at the University of South Carolina, where he specialized in 20th century U.S. politics and the post-Civil War American South. He graduated from University of South Carolina in 1962 and completed his graduate work in history at the University of Wisconsin and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1967. Prior to accepting his appointment to the University of South Carolina, Carter taught at Emory University from 1970 until 2000.

Reviews

[Del Herman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is 1963 at the University of Alabama. The racist Alabama Southern Democratic governor George C. Wallace decides to personally block the path of three African Americans attempting to enter the school. At this point, Wallace was of the mind of most Americans and political analysts- that the racist white order of the American South was waging a lone battle against the rest of the country- most of whom had been appalled by segregation and the violent reaction to the Civil Rights Movement down south. However, when Wallace began receiving letters of praise for his famous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door from angry whites not only from the South but from around the country, he had a revelation. Racism was alive and well not just in the Jim Crow South but with a sizable minority of Americans all around the country.

In the chaos of the Civil Rights Movement, Wallace decided to do something about it. He planned to go into national politics- to stir up the 1964 Presidential Election (where civil rights had been a more pressing issue than ever), take a serious shot in 1968, and win in 1972. Of course, as with our current president, most people laughed. There was simply no way that this reactionary Alabama governor would ever have a chance at the presidency. By the 1964 Democratic primaries when Wallace entered the primary race, most national Democratic politicians laughed. However, when Wallace stormed the primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland carrying over 30 percent of the vote in each, many were shocked. By the 1968 Presidential Election, Wallace seemed less laughable. The growing racial chaos that had occurred in the country between 1964 and 1968 had poised many once civil rights-friendly Americans against the movement and racial progress. The hour of Wallace had come.

Both the Humphrey and Nixon campaigns worried about Wallace taking their voters- but it soon became clear that it was less the Democrats and more the Grand Ole Party of Abraham Lincoln that should be worried. Southern whites had become friendly with the Republican Party due to Barry Goldwater's candidacy against desegregation. Civil rights hostile whites from other areas of the country despised the liberal policies of the Kennedy-Johnson era. This pushed the moderate Nixon to fan the fears of white Southerners and to promise rollbacks in liberal programs aimed to help disenfranchised black Americans. Of course, Wallace- now running as a third-party candidate- pushed even further right, appearing across the country promising an end to the onslaught of immorality, anarchy, and racial liberation (all of which were more than a little linked) brought on by the changing tides. Come election day, Nixon barely squeaked out a win- but the chief obstacle was not Humphrey but Wallace who won 15 percent of the vote, about three-fourths of which would have went to Nixon had Wallace dropped out.

The Nixon administration then attempted to cut middle ground between the civil rights movement and their racist detractors- promoting policy solutions that would attempt to balance the two out, always keeping an eye on Wallace and his more fervent racial demagoguery. By the 1972 election, Wallace yet again took another crack. The turmoil of the 1960s had continued well into 1972 poising even more Americans to the right. Wallace entered the Democratic primaries and sent shock waves. Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, and New Jersey all went to the Alabama governor. Pennsylvania and Indiana fell only slightly short of a Wallace victory due to the frenzied efforts and outspending of organized labor. It was then that Wallace was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt and was knocked out of the primaries. Nixon then, appearing as the candidate poised against the unholy trinity of immorality, anarchy, and (intersectional) liberation embodied by the Democratic nominee George McGovern, won without batting an eye- carrying 49 states and over 60 percent of the vote (but only 13 percent of the black vote).

However, Nixon in retrospect was a moderate on these issues even whilst he used some nasty campaign tactics to pull away Southern whites and disaffected Democrats. It was only the Tea Party wet dream and former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan who would dwarf him in sheer civil rights hostility (both in rhetoric and in policy). Not only did Ronny Reagan hold a notable 1980 campaign event praising states' rights (and Southerners like myself know what that means) in Philadelphia, Mississippi (seven miles away from where three civil rights workers had been massacred), but throughout his presidency he showed himself to be on the wrong side of almost every civil rights issue- not only did his convoluted "trickle-down economics" push black (and Hispanic and poor white, for that matter) families deeper into poverty, but he gutted federal funding for civil rights, supported no major civil rights legislation aside from a begrudging signature on the 1983 MLK Day initiative, mocked civil rights activists, campaigned with racist southern politicians like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, and probably most damningly- vetoed a bill that would have boycotted the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa (a bill supported by most Congressional Republicans). By the end of his presidency, while Reagan enjoyed immense popularity in white America, his unpopularity was equal on the other side of the racial divide. Polls even indicated that African Americans thought Reagan a racist by a margin of 3 to 1. Reagan one-upped Nixon on virtually all the civil rights issues the California Quaker tried to pursue a (non)-honorable moderation on.

But even beyond the Reagan era- when you look at George HW Bush's victory over Michael Dukakis in 1988, to Newt Gingrich's 1994 coalition of rage formed in the Republican revolution, and to the victories and advances of racist politicians like Jesse Helms in North Carolina and (neo-Nazi) David Duke in Louisiana all the way to Donald Trump's coalition of racist and xenophobic anger in 2016 (leapfrogging both Nixon and Reagan by miles), you see the ways in which the conservatism of the last 50 years has to a shocking degree revolved around fears associated with race. That isn't to say of course that all those who support such conservative candidates are racist or that Nixonite-Reaganite conservatism doesn't bring important elements to our political discourse besides fears of racial discord but it does mean that conservative politics has a lot to answer for in the domain of racial relations. It shouldn't be any wonder to Republicans that African Americans tend to go Democratic by a rate of nearly 10 to 1.

Dan T. Carter's book is illuminating and important. Read it.

[Austin Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this blog post earlier this year and was struck by the concept of 'dog whistle' politicking and the coded language of racism in campaigning. The author of that blog post cites this book, so I did a little research and decided to give it a read. It's a little dated at this point, being originally published 20 years ago; but it's still very topical, as you might imagine. Carter is obviously expert on the campaigns of right wing politicians from the 60s through the 90s, so his take on their use of coded racism as a fulcrum on which to pry white southerners from their historically Democratic voting record is well-made. Towards the end of the book, when he starts the talk of the Bush and Clinton campaigns (circa 1992, not 2016; though you could probably transpose his discussion 20 years with minimal editing) he begins to discuss the increasing influence of television on the spectacle of politics. It would be very interesting to me to hear his opinions on the way campaigns are run today.

I don't read much material that is this academic in nature, so I don't have much context for that sort of review. Having said that, I can tell you that his writing style is easy to follow and he goes to great lengths to cite his sources where necessary. The book was enlightening and, unsurprisingly, still very relevant to our current political climate. I would recommend it if you've ever been curious about the historic shift in voting trends in the south during/after the Civil Rights Movement or if you've ever wondered at the kind of thinking that takes place behind closed doors on political campaigns.

[Jacob Bernhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Carter's masterful analysis provides a valuable insight to a unique perspective on understanding the long-term developments within American political culture. The book is relatively short, contextual examples being crunched within its boundaries. I would've liked to have seen more thorough references provided to support the broad, generalized claims made about Conservative politics throughout the late 20th century. There are aspects of this interpretation I disagree with. There's room for conversation and discussion like with any topic, however, Carter clearly isn't interested in scribing an objective narrative; That's something I tend to avoid when looking to read interpretative history.

[Owen Landrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great slender volume that acts as a primer on American conservatism and it’s race-baiting in the 20th century.

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb book, and the closet we have to a synthesis argument about the rise of post 1968 conservatism.