Free Republic

Books Discussed in this Essay: The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South, by Joseph A. Aistrup. The Rise of Southern Republicans, by Earl Black and Merle Black. From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994, by Dan T. Carter.A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, by David L. Chappell.The Emerging Republican Majority, by Kevin Phillips. A myth about conservatism is circulating in academia and journalism and has spread to the 2004 presidential campaign. It goes something like this: the Republican Party assembled a national majority by winning over...

Hollings Stories Laud Racial Record, Skip Segregationist Work Washington Post and New York Times stories Tuesday, on the decision of South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings to not seek re-election, lauded the Democrat for how, in contrast to what occurred in other Southern states, as Governor he had presided over “the peaceful” and “orderly desegregation” of South Carolina’s public schools. But in offering such a positive review of Hollings’ record on race, the newspapers skated over his role as a dogged defender of segregation who only gave in when he realized the fight was hopeless, a favor not afforded to Southern...