How the South Became Republican: The Real Story

You've probably heard some version of this story: "After Democrats passed civil rights laws in the 1960s, all the racist Southern Democrats became Republicans, and the South has been Republican ever since." It's simple, it's morally clear, and it's taught in a lot of classrooms.

There's just one problem: it's not what actually happened.

The real story is more complicated, more interesting, and frankly makes more sense when you look at the actual evidence. Let's untangle three questions that usually get mashed together:

1. Did individual segregationist politicians switch parties because the GOP became "the racist party"?
2. Did white Southern voters leave the Democratic Party because Republicans opposed civil rights?
3. Or did the South change for other reasons that just happened to coincide with the civil rights era?

The answer matters, because understanding what really happened tells us something important about how American politics actually works.

First: The GOP Did NOT Become "The Party of Jim Crow"

Here are some inconvenient facts for the simple story:

The Republican Party in the 1960s:

• Passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act with a higher percentage of their votes than Democrats (80% of Republicans vs. 61% of Democrats in the House; 82% vs. 69% in the Senate)
• Passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act with a higher percentage of their votes than Democrats
• Had been the party of Black voters in the South since Reconstruction
• Nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 not because he supported segregation (he didn't), but because he was a libertarian who opposed federal power on principle—including federal civil rights enforcement

If you were a hardcore segregationist Southern Democrat in 1964, the Republican Party was not your natural home. The GOP had just voted overwhelmingly for civil rights. Most Republicans supported integration. The party still identified itself with Lincoln.

That's why so few segregationist politicians actually switched parties immediately. The GOP didn't want them, and they had no reason to come.

Second: Segregationist Politicians Mostly Stayed Democrats

This is the part that really breaks the simple narrative.

The famous segregationists—the ones who signed the "Southern Manifesto" opposing Brown v. Board, who filibustered civil rights bills, who defended Jim Crow—almost all stayed Democrats for the rest of their careers:

• James Eastland (Mississippi): Died a Democrat in 1986
• John Stennis (Mississippi): Retired as a Democrat in 1989
• Richard Russell (Georgia): Died a Democrat in 1971
• Russell Long (Louisiana): Retired as a Democrat in 1987
• Herman Talmadge (Georgia): Defeated as a Democrat in 1980
• J. William Fulbright (Arkansas): Defeated as a Democrat in 1974
• Robert Byrd (West Virginia): Died a Democrat in 2010
• Sam Ervin (North Carolina): Retired as a Democrat in 1974
• Al Gore Sr. (Tennessee): Defeated as a Democrat in 1970

These men didn't become Republicans. They stayed Democrats because their local Democratic machines were still powerful, because the GOP didn't want them, and because their white constituents were still voting Democrat in local elections.

Only ONE prominent segregationist switched parties: Strom Thurmond in 1964. That's it. One guy.

The others? They retired, they died, or they were eventually defeated—usually by younger politicians who didn't carry their baggage. And yes, some of those younger politicians were Republicans. But they weren't Dixiecrat segregationists in new clothing. They were a different generation entirely.

Third: When Did Southern White Voters Actually Switch?

Here's where it gets really interesting. If the story were "racists jumped ship after civil rights," you'd expect white Southern voters to become Republicans immediately after 1964-65, right?

That's not what happened.

Look at the data:

Presidential elections: Yes, the South voted for Goldwater in 1964 (but only the Deep South, as a protest vote). Then it voted for Democrat LBJ everywhere else. Then it voted for segregationist Democrat George Wallace in 1968. Then it voted for Republican Nixon. Then Democrat Carter in 1976. The pattern is all over the place.

Congressional and local elections: This is the key. Southern white voters kept electing Democrats to Congress, state legislatures, governorships, and local offices well into the 1980s and 1990s.

• In 1980, Democrats still held both Senate seats in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina
• As late as 1990, Democrats controlled state legislatures throughout the South
• Democratic governors were common in the South through the 1990s

The South didn't become majority-Republican in Congress until 1994—thirty years after the Civil Rights Act.

If white Southerners were fleeing the Democrats purely because of race, why did it take three decades? Why did they keep electing Democrats locally while sometimes voting Republican for president?

The answer: something else was going on.

So What Actually Happened? Four Big Structural Changes

The real story isn't about one dramatic switch. It's about a slow, generational realignment driven by massive social and economic changes that transformed the South—and happened to coincide with, but weren't caused by, civil rights.

A. The Religious Realignment (This Is Huge)

The evangelical political awakening didn't happen until the 1970s, a full decade after civil rights.

What triggered it?

• Roe v. Wade (1973): Abortion became a galvanizing issue
• School prayer rulings: Supreme Court decisions removing prayer from schools
• The ERA (Equal Rights Amendment): Perceived threat to traditional gender roles
• Textbook controversies: Battles over sex education and evolution
• IRS targeting Christian schools: Federal government threatened tax exemptions

White evangelical and conservative Protestant voters—who had been Democrats for generations—found the Republican Party far more aligned with their religious and moral worldview. This had nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with the sexual revolution, feminism, and secularization.

By 1980, when Reagan won, the "Religious Right" was a Republican constituency. But it formed around abortion, school prayer, and family values—not around opposition to Black civil rights.

B. The Cold War and Patriotism Divide

Southern white voters were intensely patriotic, pro-military, and anti-communist. This was cultural bedrock.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the national Democratic Party shifted dramatically:

• Opposition to the Vietnam War became mainstream in the party
• McGovern's 1972 campaign was seen as anti-military
• Democrats were perceived as "soft" on communism
• The party's base included anti-war protesters, campus radicals, and countercultural figures

For white Southerners who had sons serving in Vietnam, who valued military service, who saw communism as an existential threat, this was a dealbreaker. The Democrats weren't speaking their language anymore.

Republicans, meanwhile, doubled down on "peace through strength," strong national defense, and anti-Soviet rhetoric. That's what attracted Southern white voters—not racial resentment.

C. Suburbanization and the New Southern Middle Class

The South transformed economically between 1960 and 1990:

• Interstate highway system opened up suburbs
• Air conditioning made the region livable year-round
• The Sunbelt economic boom brought industry, jobs, and growth
• White-collar suburbs exploded around Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Nashville

A new class of voters emerged: suburban, middle-class, college-educated, white-collar professionals. These weren't old plantation aristocrats or rural segregationists. They were engineers, managers, real estate agents, small business owners.

These voters cared about:

• Lower taxes
• Property values
• Business-friendly policies
• Less regulation
• Good schools in their suburban districts

The Republican Party's economic message spoke directly to them. The old Democratic coalition of labor unions, rural populists, and urban machines? That didn't resonate anymore.

D. Democrats Moved Left on Cultural Issues

By the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the national Democratic Party had embraced positions that were deeply unpopular with white Southern moderates:

• Abortion rights (most Southerners were pro-life)
• Gun control (the South has deep gun culture)
• Busing (forced integration of schools through busing was widely opposed)
• Feminism and the ERA (seen as threatening family structure)
• Environmental regulations (hurt industry and jobs)
• Affirmative action (seen as reverse discrimination)
• Secularization (the party was increasingly hostile to public religion)

None of these issues are inherently about racism. You could oppose busing without being racist (many Black parents opposed it too). You could support gun rights, oppose abortion, and favor lower taxes without having any racial animus.

But if you held these views, the Republican Party was now your political home, and the Democratic Party was explicitly rejecting you.

The Role Race Actually Played

So where does race fit in? Here's the nuanced answer historians agree on:

Race was the spark, not the engine.

The Civil Rights Movement and the Democratic Party's embrace of civil rights shattered the old New Deal coalition. It signaled that the national Democratic Party had fundamentally redefined itself. That was the earthquake.

But what happened after the earthquake—the 30-year realignment—was driven by religion, economics, culture, foreign policy, and generational change.

Think of it this way:

• 1964–1968: The earthquake hits. The old order breaks.
• 1970s–1990s: The landscape slowly reshapes itself based on new forces.

The South didn't become Republican because the GOP embraced racism. It became Republican because the modern GOP better matched Southern religious identity, economic interests, foreign policy views, and cultural values.

Why the False Story Persists

So why do so many people believe the simple "racist switch" narrative?

A few reasons:

1. It's morally clear: Good guys (civil rights supporters) vs. bad guys (racists). Everyone knows which side they're on.
2. It's teachable: You can explain it in 30 seconds. The real story takes 30 minutes.
3. It's politically useful: Both parties benefit from this narrative for different reasons.
4. There's a kernel of truth: Race was involved. It just wasn't the whole story, or even the main story.

But serious historians—Edward Carmines, James Stimson, Matthew Lassiter, Earl and Merle Black, Robert Mickey—all tell a much more complex story. The data doesn't support the simple version.

One Tight Summary

The South became Republican not because Republicans were hostile to civil rights, but because the Democratic Party moved left on cultural, economic, and national security issues while the GOP better reflected the emerging values of a rapidly changing Southern middle class.

Race broke the dam. Religion, economics, patriotism, and culture determined where the water flowed.

What This Means for the "Jacksonian Democrats to Land Acknowledgments" Question

Now we can circle back to your original question with better context.

The Democratic Party didn't evolve from supporting Indian Removal to supporting land acknowledgments because it "learned" or "became enlightened." The people in the party changed completely.

Old Democratic Coalition (1830s–1960s):

• Southern planters and segregationists
• Western settlers and expansionists
• Rural white farmers
• White urban immigrant workers (Irish, Italian, Polish Catholics)
• Machines in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York

New Democratic Coalition (1970s–present):

• College-educated urban professionals
• Racial and ethnic minorities (Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous)
• Feminists and LGBTQ+ advocates
• Public-sector unions (teachers, government workers)
• Academia and the cultural sector (journalists, artists, nonprofit workers)
• Young voters socialized after the Civil Rights era

These are completely different people with completely different worldviews.

When your coalition is frontier settlers who fought in the Indian Wars, you get Jacksonian removal policies.

When your coalition is college-educated Indigenous activists, ethnic studies professors, social justice advocates, and young urban voters who learned about Wounded Knee in school, you get land acknowledgments.

The party didn't change its soul. The humans inside the party are different humans.

The Big Lesson

Political parties in America are coalitions, not churches. They don't have eternal doctrines or unchanging essences. They're pragmatic organizations that assemble groups of voters to win power.

When the coalition changes, the ideology changes. Always.

The South became Republican because the people who live there found a better fit with the modern GOP's positions on religion, taxes, guns, abortion, patriotism, and culture.

The Democrats shifted on Indigenous issues because the people in their coalition now include voices that view American history through a lens of settler colonialism and restorative justice.

Neither story is about moral evolution. Both are about coalitional evolution.

And that's how American democracy actually works.