# Why do African Americans support the Democrats- the party of slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2013, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393 "2013-09-09T07:05:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/61 "2013-09-12T14:54:11Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > When one is forcefully removed from their native home and enslaved in a foreign land, the last thing that individual would do is to go on and support anything contrived by their captors. If anything, it’s the Back-to-Africa movement instituted by the likes of Marcus Garvey that African Americans should have been fervently supporting. So if they “went back to Africa”, they’d be happy, you’d be happy, and the problem is solved, right? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/62 "2013-09-12T14:56:15Z")
Most of history says otherwise, I think, and from what I can tell it doesn’t have much to do with the thread. I am going to go ahead and put my Moderating hat on and tell you you had better not call African-Americans (or any other racial group) a “sad little bunch,” if that’s what you were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/63 "2013-09-12T14:56:50Z")
A quick poll of the four African-Americans I work with shows they have no interest at all in moving to Africa. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/64 "2013-09-12T14:58:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The Republicans [spent decades pandering to and recruiting racists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy), and have earned the reputation as the party of white racism. It doesn’t really matter what they were like a century-and-a-half-or-so ago. This. There are various transitional times in between where things were not completely sorted out, but for the past couple decades at least, we have sorted things out to be almost the reverse of where they were 150 years ago. Farmers on the Great Plains stuck with Republicans all along, but pretty much everyone else flipped sides. Progressive Northeasterners and blacks went from Republican to Democratic and conservative Southern whites went from Democratic to Republican. And we get stuff like the Trent Lott or Haley Barbour scandals, after which they get repeatedly reelected by their Southern white base. I mean, just look at the [electoral map of 1860](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1860.svg). This is all supposed to be some big coincidence? Don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/65 "2013-09-12T15:13:34Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > When one is forcefully removed from their native home and enslaved in a foreign land, the last thing that individual would do is to go on and support anything contrived by their captors. If anything, it’s the Back-to-Africa movement instituted by the likes of Marcus Garvey that African Americans should have been fervently supporting. So you’re saying slaves that came over on ships should have opposed their captors and tried to get home… I think they were a bit ahead of you on that. It’s just, you know, chains and whips and murder and stuff made it kinda tough. ---
**Author:** ![thepillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@thepillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thepillar)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/66 "2013-09-12T15:15:32Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > A quick poll of the four African-Americans I work with shows they have no interest at all in moving to Africa. The OP was wondering why African-Americans, in spite being subjected to centuries of premeditated and organized atrocities, would still support the perpetrators of the same. If however, this quick poll of yours is anything to go by and an actual representation of the sentiments held by the majority of African-Americans, then there’s nothing to discuss here. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/67 "2013-09-12T15:35:44Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > The OP was wondering why African-Americans, in spite being subjected to centuries of premeditated and organized atrocities, would still support the perpetrators of the same. If however, this quick poll of yours is anything to go by and an actual representation of the sentiments held by the majority of African-Americans, then there’s nothing to discuss here. The perpetrators of those atrocities are long dead. The OP was wondering why African Americans generally support the political party that many of those perpetrators belonged to. And this is an interesting question, with some very interesting answers that have been provided by many. In short, African-Americans started to support the Democratic party because a Democratic president signed Civil Rights, and started to overwhelmingly support the Democratic party in the decades following when the Republican party tried to appeal to white southern racists (the Southern Strategy) by using coded and uncoded appeals to racism. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/68 "2013-09-12T15:42:31Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This. There are various transitional times in between where things were not completely sorted out, but for the past couple decades at least, we have sorted things out to be almost the reverse of where they were 150 years ago. Farmers on the Great Plains stuck with Republicans all along, but pretty much everyone else flipped sides. Progressive Northeasterners and blacks went from Republican to Democratic and conservative Southern whites went from Democratic to Republican. And we get stuff like the Trent Lott or Haley Barbour scandals, after which they get repeatedly reelected by their Southern white base. > > I mean, just look at the [electoral map of 1860](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege1860.svg). This is all supposed to be some big coincidence? Don’t think so. Or, it could be that as issues change, coalitions change. With neither national party favoring Jim Crow anymore, other issues came to the fore. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/69 "2013-09-12T16:00:50Z")
So you do think that it’s just a coincidence that Southern whites and African-Americans were–to a stark and overwhelming degree–in opposite parties during Reconstruction; and they are in opposite parties–to a stark and overwhelming degree–now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/70 "2013-09-12T16:39:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So you do think that it’s just a coincidence that Southern whites and African-Americans were–to a stark and overwhelming degree–in opposite parties during Reconstruction; and they are in opposite parties–to a stark and overwhelming degree–now. Well, there are **some** white Democrats in the South. (Some of whom are probably ex-Republicans who fled the party as it veered racist and rightward.) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/71 "2013-09-12T16:50:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So you do think that it’s just a coincidence that Southern whites and African-Americans were–to a stark and overwhelming degree–in opposite parties during Reconstruction; and they are in opposite parties–to a stark and overwhelming degree–now. Then how to explain them being in the same party from 1933 to 1968? And really, I could say until 1980, since the South still elected primarily Democrats to Congress and the Solid South made a brief return in 1976 for Jimmy Carter. 47 years of African-Americans and racist white southerners being in the same party says that they shared some common interests. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/72 "2013-09-12T17:08:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then how to explain them being in the same party from 1933 to 1968? Cite- especially considering millions of black people could not vote during that time? It’s kind of hard to say that black people voted mostly the same as southern white people during a time when _southern white people actively and often violently prevented black people from voting_. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/73 "2013-09-12T18:33:05Z")
The South was Democratic and we’ve agreed that African-Americans went Democratic starting in 1933. Ah, here we go: > **[Blacks and the Democratic Party - FactCheck.org](https://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/)** > > Q: When did blacks start voting Democratic? A: There was a big move to Democratic voting in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, and another in Lyndon B. Johnson’s. FULL QUESTION I’ve had a question for a long time and haven’t yet found what I... ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/74 "2013-09-12T18:35:03Z")
Blacks in the South weren’t in any party. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/75 "2013-09-12T18:43:54Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > When one is forcefully removed from their native home and enslaved in a foreign land, the last thing that individual would do is to go on and support anything contrived by their captors. If anything, it’s the Back-to-Africa movement instituted by the likes of Marcus Garvey that African Americans should have been fervently supporting. You do realize the term “African-American” is not literally true? They’re Americans whose ancestors came from Africa. None of the black people living in America today were “forcefully removed from their native home and enslaved in a foreign land.” Heck, there were probably only a few hundred African-born ex-slaves still alive in 1865. Black people in America generally have no interest in moving “back” to a place they’ve never been to. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/76 "2013-09-12T18:47:27Z")
> [@thepillar](#): > > If anything, it’s the Back-to-Africa movement instituted by the likes of Marcus Garvey that African Americans should have been fervently supporting. That was tried with the founding of Liberia. It did not work out too well. Garvey’s later, utterly hopeless movement was more a cry of despair than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/77 "2013-09-12T18:51:24Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > A quick poll of the four African-Americans I work with shows they have no interest at all in moving to Africa. Of course, anyone who does want to can. I don’t think most African countries have very strict immigration laws. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/78 "2013-09-12T18:52:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The South was Democratic and we’ve agreed that African-Americans went Democratic starting in 1933. > > Ah, here we go: > > [Blacks and the Democratic Party - FactCheck.org](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/) This link helpfully includes the fact that most southern black people (which, demographically, was most black Americans at the time IIRC) could not vote. It’s not credible to say that most black people supported the Democratic party at a time when most black people could not vote. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/79 "2013-09-12T19:29:02Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > 47 years of African-Americans and racist white southerners being in the same party says that they shared some common interests. As Andy said, anything between the end of Reconstruction (ugh, always get a pit in my stomach thinking of that dark curtain drawing across the Mason-Dixon line, imagining the angst on the faces of soon-to-be erstwhile black political activists as they watched federal troops packing up and heading north) and the Voting Rights Act doesn’t really count the same. But the transition was not instant, I grant you. To my mind it is more analogous to two groups of people switching rooms and having to pass by each other in a very narrow hallway. It’s awkward; and intermediary snapshots will find them temporarily intermingled in the same rooms, but not happily pursuing the same interests. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/80 "2013-09-12T22:16:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The South was Democratic and we’ve agreed that African-Americans went Democratic starting in 1933. > > Ah, here we go: > > [Blacks and the Democratic Party - FactCheck.org](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/04/blacks-and-the-democratic-party/) Do you even know what point you are arguing anymore? Was the Democratic party the racist party of slavery, or were black southern voters kindred political spirits with them? If they were traveling in such lockstep, did southern black voters join the Dixiecrat Party that you were basing a previous misleading incorrect argument on previously? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393.md?page=5)