Dividing the Donkey: Modern Racism and the Dissolution of North Carolina's Democratic Party, 1963-1968
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- February 26, 2019
- Creator
-
Vogel, Peter
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of History
- Abstract
- Part social, part political history, this work seeks to integrate the voices of ordinary white Tar Heels and their elected officials. Their relationship was dynamic. Politicians both responded to white public opinion on race and helped shape the acceptable contours of those opinions. Though every Tar Heel possessed a nuanced, unique and sometimes contradictory set of opinions on race, during the mid-1960s, most white North Carolinians could be classified either as a racial liberal, racial conservative, white supremacist, or as an advocate for managed race relations. Racial liberals believed in using the power of the government to move the nation toward racial equality. Racial conservatives professed an insincere desire for racial equality but flatly rejected the role of the government in achieving this end. White supremacists believed in the inherent inequality of different races. Finally, proponents of managed race relations worked to make life tolerable for blacks, but excluded them from the political sphere and supported their continued subordination. As managed race relations came under fire both from black activists and white politicians during 1963, most of its proponents became racial conservatives. These terms are not perfect descriptors, but North Carolinians of the era would understand this division and many used a similar taxonomy to discuss the racial issues of their day.
- Date of publication
- spring 2015
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Leloudis, James
- Degree
- Bachelor of Arts
- Honors level
- Highest Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Extent
- 111
Relations
- Parents:
This work has no parents.