Malcolm X Quotes
What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise.
X, Malcolm. Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. Edited by George Breitman, Grove Press, 1965.
This was art of the Nixon "Southern Strategy" to alienate the white supremacists and racists from the Democratic Party with Civil Rights legislation and rhetoric, and get most of them to become Republicans. But as Phillips observed, when Negroes began voting in significant numbers in the South the party switching really accelerated.
Roosevelt’s New Deal would have been impossible without the support of the Southern segregationists.
At that time, all the racist segregationists of the South were Democrats, unlike in the latter part of the 20th century where, after the Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, pushed through the Civil Rights Act, the segregationists accepted an invitation to switch to the Republican Party. In the 1930s, FDR’s Congressional majority depended on these segregationists. This is why, even though the New Deal liberalized most of American life, FDR did very little about racial equality and Civil Rights. In the 21st century, Republican Administrations could not do much about the remaining equality and civil rights issues. The racists of America, although far fewer in number, voted for the Republicans and were an important part of their base, just as they had been for FDR during the New Deal.
It was used as a whipping boy and led to a re-alignment of Southern politicians to the Republican party.
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
