States Rights Democratic Party
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States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats)
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|---|---|
| Founded | 1948 |
| Dissolved | 1948 |
| Split from | Democratic Party |
| Merged into | Democratic Party |
| Ideology |
States' rights Racial segregation Social conservatism |
| Political position | Right-wing to Far-right |
The States' Rights Democratic Party (usually called the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States. It originated in 1948 as a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party determined to protect states' rights to legislate racial segregation from what its members regarded as an oppressive federal government. Supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. The Party opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and white supremacy in the face of possible federal intervention. Its members were referred to as "Dixiecrats", a portmanteau of "Dixie", referring to the Southern United States, and "Democrat".
The party did not run local or state candidates, and after the 1948 election its leaders generally returned to the Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats had little short-run impact on politics. However, they did have a long-term impact. The Dixiecrats began the weakening of the "Solid South" (the Democratic Party's total control of presidential elections in the South).
The term "Dixiecrat" is sometimes used by Northern Democrats to refer to conservative Southern Democrats from the 1940s to the 1990s, regardless of where they stood in 1948.
By the 1870s, the conservative voters of southern United States were heavily voting Democratic in national and presidential elections, and apart from minor pockets of Republican electoral strength in Appalachia plus Gillespie and Kendall Counties of central Texas, forming what was known as the “Solid South”. The social and economic systems of the Solid South were based on Jim Crow, a combination of legal and informal segregation acts that made blacks second-class citizens with little or no political power anywhere within the southern United States.
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