Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965

Apparently these are political scientists who argue that national party elites were responsible for the civil rights realignment that, they say, occurred in the 1960s. The political scientist Eric Schickler challenges this view, arguing instead that a coalition of African Americans, labor activists, and urban liberals had already aligned economic liberalism and civil rights within the Democratic party by the late 1930s, consolidating power in nonsouthern states via midlevel party leaders and rank-and-file congressional representatives. National party leaders fell in line behind positions staked out by party operatives and constituents outside the South long before the 1960s. For U.S. political historians who have written about race, labor, and civil rights in the twentieth century, this narrative is old. Indeed, much of Schickler's qualitative evidence comes from historical research on the long civil rights movement, local fair-employment movements, the New Deal coalition, and the rise of the Right. Narrowly disciplinary, the book's argument will be familiar to most historians.