Why do Black people vote for Democrats? - Part Two: When the Democrats and Republicans switched sides
Yes, it happened and don't let people tell you otherwise
Welcome to my newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia.
This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of Atlanta to everything else.
This is a continuation of my series ‘Why do Black people vote for Democrats?’. You can read Part One: We started as Democrats, then FDR happened before you dive into Part Two.
At the end of every electoral cycle, one of the biggest questions that emerge afterward is the question of ‘why do so many African Americans vote for Democrats’?
Black Americans are the most consistent voting block in modern history. Black people are not a monolith but their vote seems to be this way. This piece is meant to explain how and why Black people vote the way that they do. And more importantly, dispelling the myth that because they vote the same, they do so for the same reasons.
Written by: King Williams
Edited by: Alicia Bruce
The 1960s is when the Democrat and Republican parties switched sides
Let’s get this out the way now…the current day Democratic and Republican parties of 2021 are not the same as yesteryear.
Both parties did in fact switch their demographic bases, but this was decades in the making, starting with Teddy Roosevelt in the 1916 election, then on a much larger scale with Franklin D. Roosevelt beginning with the 1932 presidential election. Since that time, between 1932 until 1968, the bases would see a schism of white voters over issues of race and gender. Specifically, the increasing White reactions to the Civil Rights, alongside the Black Power, Chicano, student, and women liberation movements. In eight years (1960-68), America changed in ways not seen in decades, and much of it had to do with the second rise of Black voters.
Part One: “Negro Outreach”
Black outreach usually accompanies a losing cycle or an upcoming election cycle of great importance for the challenging party. This outreach often operates on symbolic gestures and anecdotal evidence as a need for gaining the Black vote. Throughout history, this ‘black outreach’ is often accompanied by public appearances in Black media, visits to HBCUs, appeals to Black churches, and/or visiting (often only poor) Black neighborhoods. This strategy then known as ‘negro outreach’ varies little from nearly a century ago to today. Using rhetoric to often reach swing White voters instead of actually addressing the needs of their potential Black voters.
The 1960s and the abandonment of Black voters by the GOP
The 1960 Presidential Election can be seen as the cresting over of the Black vote towards the Democratic Party. Contrary to popular belief, the 1968 presidential election wasn’t an isolated event but rather a culmination of nearly forty years of political shifting amongst White liberals, White conservatives, feminism, and Black voters. When the dust settles, Black people are now Democrats but when it comes to maintaining a loyal bloc of Black voters, the Republicans blew a 3-1 lead in the finals—on purpose.
The black vote was a split ticket vote until the 1960s
In 1960 the majority of African Americans still couldn’t vote in the United States. And those who were able to vote were often African Americans located in California, the midwest, and northeastern, United States. This was the result of the first Great Migration which lasted from the 1910s until the 1930s and reached enough of a critical mass of Black voters in these areas to give FDR the presidency in 1932. The African Americans who could vote left the Republican Party on the presidential level because of The New Deals’ benefits despite being prohibited from most of the gains, programs, or initiatives.
African Americans would vote in the majority for Democratic candidates, while on the local and state levels would vote for the GOP. But even then, those GOP votes would be for candidates who supported civil rights, integration, and desegregation. This gave the northern and western GOP a unique advantage but for varying reasons, they largely abandoned Black outreach for nearly 20 years between the election of Democrat FDR in 1932 and the win of Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
By the 1950s, the GOP had begun to court more aggressively southern white voters. These voters were nearly all southern democrats, who supported segregation, supported states’ rights to continue to discriminate without impunity, and maintain the American apartheid system known as Jim Crow.
Black voters prior to 1964 were often registered as Republicans and voted for national Democratic presidents in part because of the New Deal and civil rights legislation. This was aided by national democrats such as presidents FDR and Truman giving African Americans limited participation in the new deal programs in addition to the beginnings of desegregating the armed services and various branches of the federal government. This move reduced the social, political, and most importantly economic power of white southerners. The GOP incorrectly assessed that the party could never retain Black voters despite the evidence that most African Americans were split-ticket voters, especially down the ballot.
Part Two: Nixon and the GOP blew a 3-1 lead
I. Richard Nixon - Episode I
The 1960 presidential election was particularly interesting for The GOP, Black Republicans, and Black voters overall. In the 1960 presidential election, Richard Nixon had over 25 percent of the Black vote. However, by 1968, 80 percent of all Black voters would-be Democratic voters. How we got there is much less covered in the narrative of why Black people often voted for the Democratic Party.
JFK initially was being considered as Nixon’s VP, before eventually becoming his presidential challenger. It was Nixon who advocated for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 while facing a constant threat of non-passage by southern Democrats and eventual president Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ). And it was Nixon who despite his recorded thoughts on Black Americans, realized that he could potentially win by having it both ways. The white southern Democratic vote was being fissured by pressure to advance civil rights legislation, a vote that Nixon would later help carry into victory in 1968. Then due to his recent history in helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, it was Nixon’s advantage to make broad appeals to Black voters.
II. Richard Nixon and Jackie Robinson
Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson, the first person to integrate into the league, develops a relationship with Richard Nixon in the 1950s.
Robinson notably did not develop a relationship with eventual president John F. Kennedy nor eventual president Lyndon B. Johnson. Robinson has been quoted as saying that he did not like Kennedy. Robinson like many African Americans were not fans of southern democrats like LBJ who, in 1957 attempted to block the Civil Rights Act of that year. That same legislation would be passed with the help of Nixon and other Republicans. Nor did he like the rumors of Kennedy not doing much on civil rights and then dog-whistling to the southern voters. Nixon’s embrace of civil rights and willingness to talk to prominent African Americans is what appealed to Robinson. Robinson throughout the late 1950s develops a relationship with Nixon that he believes is becoming a friendship, this was a mistake.
In 1960 Robinson becomes one of the most prominent African American supporters of Nixon and the GOP. Robinson still believed in the idea of the party of Lincoln, as well as believing that more opportunities would happen under the presidency of the person who helped pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. However, in the 1960 presidential election, the GOP did not invest as heavily into ‘negro outreach’ nor did the GOP try to embrace African American voters in sufficient numbers despite Eisenhower pulling about 40 percent of the Black vote in 1952 and again in 1956. Black voters purposely punished the Democrats for not doing enough to push forward civil rights legislation and providing safety for Black southerners.
III. Richard Nixon and MLK
Richard Nixon in 1957 received a letter of support from Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) that same year as a result of his aiding in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. King was already a national figure and a beloved member of the Black community.

On Oct. 19, 1960, MLK was arrested in Atlanta, just a few weeks before the presidential election. The arrest became national news as both presidential candidates in a tight election would make moves that would seal each other, as well as their party’s fates. Richard Nixon despite moving to help pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, was noticeably not fully on board with supporting MLK in 1960. While Kennedy under the recommendation of his campaign advisory immediately called Coretta Scott-King. As this story began to leak out to the Black press, the image was clear, Kennedy was for King, which means he would be for civil rights. It’s not until MLK was arrested in Georgia and Richard Nixon offers no support and does nothing to help that they have a falling out. But neither political party did much to address civil rights nationally until then.
But despite the story of the single phone call to Coretta Scott-King in 1960 that led to northern Blacks to vote for Kennedy, the narrative wasn’t that simple. JFK called Coretta and MLK said no member of the Republican Party ever called him. Soon after, Kennedy won the Black vote and also won the presidency. Kennedy made appeals to Black Americans by highlighting the need for aid to African nations who were also experiencing upheaval and challenging European colonial rule. Kennedy also sought to meet with Black leaders but only to appease them, while not guaranteeing any explicit promises in order to not alienate southern and pro-segregationist white voters.
Kennedy would win the presidency, as well as win with over sixty percent of the Black vote.
IV. The 1960 presidential election fallout
Nixon’s campaign also had the realization that Black voters would support the candidate who was pushing forth and passing civil rights legislation. This resulted in Nixon being the last Republican presidential candidate to gain more than 20 percent of Black voters in 60 years. 1960 was the last gasp moment for Black voters and the GOP as Nixon carried a whopping (by today’s standard), 32 percent of the vote. By 1964, it dropped to 6 percent. Since then, only Richard Nixon’s wins in 1968 (18 percent), 1972 (16 percent), and Gerald Ford’s 1976 win was the last time a Republican got near 20 percent of the Black vote.
Nixon’s 1960 loss is memorable for a number of reasons:
The 1960s pushed the national Democratic party deeper into issues related to civil rights and away from white voters, especially southern white voters.
The GOP officially abandons the Black vote.
The GOP goes full-tilt toward bringing in varying white groups including southern segregationists, conspiracy theorists (the John Birch Society), anti-Black immigrants (some Italians, some Jews), and southern Christian Evangelical groups.
We also saw the emergence of conspiracy theories of voter fraud ranging from illegal immigrants voting and a more liberal state (Illinois) being alleged of helping Kennedy win, rather than attributing the impact of Black, Brown, and young voters.
The shift of Black voters not just voting for the Dems but identifying as such
It forced Nixon to re-evaluate his subsequent presidential run in 1968
A noticeable increase of white conservatives outside of the south also leave the Democratic party for the GOP
Part Three: Barry Goldwater, White backlash, and the 1964 Republican National Convention
I. White backlash is growing with every move towards civil rights by Kennedy
As the presidential term of Kennedy progressed, the relationship between himself and King was more strained as Kennedy often did not move fast enough to enact legislation or use federal troops to enforce civil rights regulations. But once Kennedy did, southern white voters began to turn cold to the Democratic party, as well as renewed the calls of reducing the role of ‘big government’ that began with the federal government intervening on issues of civil rights in the south throughout the 1950s.
The 1960s push the national Democratic party deeper into issues related to civil rights. Despite much of the legislation not as strong as it could’ve been to protect the rights and liberties of African Americans, it alienated white southern voters. Despite the majority of Black voters feeling a bigger relationship with Kennedy and subsequently LBJ. This is a surface-level understanding of this disillusionment with the Dems in the 1950s and 1960s that should be thought of in terms of region versus party.
II. Barry Goldwater
Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater’s securing the party nomination in 1964 was the nail in the coffin for the Republicans losing the Black vote. In 1952, Goldwater was elected to the US Senate from Arizona on a pledge to reduce federal spending and fight communism. Re-elected in 1958, Goldwater opposed social welfare programs and continued to criticize the Supreme Court on its school integration stance.

Barry Goldwater despite being blown out in the 1964 election by LBJ, is arguably the most important politician in the modern era. Goldwater in one failed presidential cycle has inspired both the modern Conservative and Libertarian political movements in the US. There is no President Nixon, President Reagan, either President Bush’s or no Trump without the arsenic-tinged messaging of Barry Goldwater.
III. The Goldwater campaign for president
The 1964 RBC election saw party contentiousness divided between the coded extremism of Barry Goldwater juxtaposed against the pro-civil rights GOP of George Romney and the northern Liberal Republicanism of NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller. What’s notable of this cycle was that it was Goldwater who defeated the more Liberal, more establishment Nelson Rockefeller to secure the party nomination.
In 1964, during his last year in the Senate, Goldwater sought the nomination for President of the United States. His campaign was a more explicit appeal to southern voters who believed the Democratic party had become too concerned with civil rights and not enough focus on white voters. Goldwater appealed to many southern democratic and national white voters who privately felt dismayed by the notion of the federal government forcing whites into a new way of life.
Goldwater while on the campaign trail visits Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of a brutal killing of three civil rights activists on June 21st of that same year after being arrested by police. As the three activists bodies are discovered on August 4th, Goldwater arrives for a rally a few days later on August 12th, his warm reception as a Republican in the democratic deep south is a sign of the times—for the first time in nearly a century, the Republicans are back in Mississippi. But this Republican is nothing like the Radical Republicans who helped to elect US Senators Hiram Revels or Blanche K. Bruce in the Reconstruction era of the 1870s. Goldwater’s explicitly anti-government, conservatism had a new home and so did white southerners who had become disillusioned with the democratic party of JFK and LBJ.
Before online conspiracy theorists and QAnon, there was the John Birch society
To understand the role of the Black voters rejecting the GOP you must understand Black voters rejecting the right-wing extremism of The John Birch Society. The John Birch Society is an active conspiratorial political organization that gained steam in the late 1950s. The group gained a substantial foothold in the Republican Party in the 1960s because of the nomination of Barry Goldwater during the 1964 Republican National Convention (RNC).
Fringe elements of conspiracy theorists and misinformation are not something limited to the run of Donald Trump. FDR had to combat these elements, as well as the growth of Nazi-supporters in America. But what made that era and the 1950s-1960s era was the growing spread of anti-Black propaganda, especially concerning the civil rights movement and its leaders believing that the leaders were secret communists.
The John Birch Society openly criticized the Eisenhower administration, establishment Republicans, and spread the belief that the media is compromised. This group was initially not embraced by the larger GOP and was even rebuked by then premiere media and conservative thought leadership company, The National Review. The Birchers (as they were called) were critical of communism, socialism, isolationism (the Korean War in the 1950s was a factor) and openly believed that America was being governed by a shadow government. The John Birch Society is the connective link between the Old Right and the birth of the New Right as well as the now presently dangerous Alt-Right. JBS is the culmination of anti-FDR, anti-civil rights, anti-war, and American nationalism since the rise of the one-two punch of Democrats FDR and Truman from the 1930s until the early 1950s.
The John Birch Society being shunned by mainstream Republicans inadvertently aids in creating the rise of right-wing media, right-wing think tanks, and the embrace of conspiratorial extremism. The group reach its peak in the 1970s but not before not only moving political activism within the GOP to the far-right. This embrace of far-right ideology and far-right media would fully coalesce within three electoral cycles in the 1960s, with Nixon’s eventual win in 1968 birthing the modern GOP.
Barry Goldwater brought the far-right fringes to the national level and nothing was the same since
The GOP’s turn towards toxicity started when it tried to court white southern voters in years prior but by 1964 it’s evident, with the nomination of Goldwater, the party of Lincoln will eventually become the party of Trump.
Goldwater announced his candidacy from his home promising far-right and skeptical southern democratic voters "a choice, not an echo" (his campaign slogan) within the GOP. Goldwater positioned himself as a ‘principled conservative’ to the right of Liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller of New York, who had announced his candidacy two months prior. Goldwater often on the campaign also attacked the ‘liberal policies’ of LBJ, in addition to juxtaposing the still widely popular New Deal programs within an insidious cabal of ‘Washington insiders’ who were out of touch with the everyday person. Goldwater’s use of wedge issues, anti-government rhetoric, and white nationalist rhetoric allowed for him to speak to a white voter who privately felt aggrieved by the social movements of the Civil Rights movement, the rising women’s liberation movement, and liberal policies coming out of the White House. He was a white man, positioning himself as the white man’s candidate.
Goldwater’s speeches were the proto-Nixon in speaking to ‘the silent majority, proto-Reagan in creating the character of the ‘fiscal/free-market conservative’ and proto-Trump in openly espousing white nationalist rhetoric. Goldwater’s campaign is also the intersection of the conspiracist, white racists, segregationists, anti-social justice/civil rights, free-market evangelism, modern Libertarianism, media distrust, and political dog-whistling. Goldwater’s campaign marks the solidification of the connection between white evangelical Christians (who were often all of the above) becoming members of the GOP.
Goldwater succeeded by using anti-communist rhetoric to spur up a new version of nationalism. This form of conservatism sought more libertarianism with a focus on free markets, individual liberties, and personal choice. Goldwater also criticized the welfare state which also coincided with the increase of African Americans who received benefits as a result. These same African Americans were often shut out of quality job opportunities in both the south and the northern US as a result of The Great Migration.
Black voters see the GOP as the party of Goldwater and racist white voters, leave en masse
The election of 1964 is the next to last domino to fall in the complete transition for the demographic party switches for both the Democrats and Republicans.
One week before the Republican National Convention, Goldwater (still an actively serving US Senator at the time) voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Goldwater despite aiding in desegregation in Arizona in 1958 stated that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was unconstitutional. As a result, the NAACP opposes his eventual nomination for president. Goldwater didn’t initially disavow the KKK who he embraced while on the campaign trail, as he stated he wouldn’t change their way of life. Goldwater espoused the belief in ‘state rights’ and being anti-civil rights, stating that civil rights and states rights are two ideas that are in competition with each other. Goldwater says he supports Brown v Board, but he believed it is not constitutional even though he supports it (something similar to what the recently Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett also said).
Goldwater himself would say that he was not a segregationist and that he had even been a member of the NAACP in Arizona but often would be campaigning in the south with confederate flags around and people who are known as segregationists. This also includes people such as southern Democrat Strom Thurmond who had publicly talked about, then left the Dems to support Goldwater. Further alienating the GOP from Black voters who may have wanted to turn around during this time period.
Jackie Robinson rails against the RNC
Jackie Robinson supported NY Governor, Republican Nelson Rockefeller. Robinson helped stage a walkout at the 1964 RNC called a ‘Blackout’. At the 1964 convention, there were 50,000 protestors outside the convention protesting the likely nomination of Goldwater. Inside the convention, the few Black delegates in attendance are harassed including one delegate who had his suit ripped off, then set on fire by a Goldwater delegate. That same year Robinson, seeing the party moving towards the man who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, crossed party lines that year by organizing a chapter of Republicans for Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson wouldn’t last long with his support of the Democrats as by 1968 Robinson is back attempting to regain Black support with Richard Nixon.
But the damage had been done, Black voters got the memo, the GOP was now for white people. As a result, Goldwater receives a paltry 6 percent of the Black vote in 1964 while winning 5 southern states for the GOP. The GOP saw its future, it would be southern, aligned with far-right ideology, and most importantly built upon the politics of white resentment. 1968 as a result will be the most consequential election since the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.
PART THREE: White Flight from the Democratic Party - *June 21st (updated)
-KJW
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