Ann took the time to point our that in the early 20's there was an anti lynching statement in the Republican Platform.  Well, as she often is, she is "sort of right" there was a statement that lynching was not a way to meet out justice.  It was not a plank to promote a change of laws, but was a weak attempt to placate the progressive wing of the party led by Teddy Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette.  It was removed in the next platform, and the party never promoted any legislation towards its passage.  This was merely one of the reasons that the progressive wing bolted the party and formed the Progressive party of LaFollette and the Bull Moose party of Roosevelt.
        By the 1930's, most of the Republican progressives had become assimilated into the Democratic party, which was shifting its focus towards fighting the corrupt business practices and tax policies of the more conservative wing of the Republican party.  Through promotion of farm bills during the Hoover administration and the promotion of legislation to eliminate poor working conditions in the cities, the Democratic party soon was being seen as the party of the lower classes.  [It was the same, now Democratic progressives (former Republicans) who pushed through some legislation to counter the common business practices which were obvious in such things as the Triangle Shirt Waist factory fire in NYC.  All of which were repealed when some Republican governor of NY took over.  I think his name was Dewey, Ann.  As well, it was not the all inclusive Republican party which aligned itself with women's suffrage.]
        Now on to the Dixiecrats.  By the middle of the FDR administration, it was becoming clear to the deep south that the majority of the party was no longer in support of segregationist legislation.  However, the Democratic New Deal programs [developed by FDR and a number of former Republicans who decided the old GOP was too pro-business for its own good] were too beneficial in terms of winning elections in the white rural areas.  This uneasy alliance held on until fully repudiated by the administration of Harry S Truman.  The integration of the army, the executive order declaring lynching a violation of federal laws, and other basic changes integrating what could be integrated through executive order is what caused the Dixicrats to splinter off.  Within 6 years of this split, most of the major Dixiecrats had changed their affiliation to the Republican party, as they no longer were welcomed by the Democrats. 
        Year after year, from his first election into the senate, Hubert Humphrey wrote legislation which was a forerunner of the civil rights act of 1964.  Adlai Stevenson became the first of his family to bolt the Republican party over its pro business platform and its disavowing of the anti-lynching language of the early 20's.
        By the time the Civil Rights act of 1964 was being debated in the U.S. Senate, the only attempt to filibuster the act was by Senator Thurmond.  He even went to the length to having an aid bring a bucket to the senate floor so he could urinate while keeping one foot on the senate floor so he could keep the gabfest going.  To end the history lesson, Thurmond repudiated his anti-civil rights stance only when it was becoming clear that he was losing political ground and clout, when the senate went Democratic in part because of large black turnouts.  Well, he did see the light, but I suspect one of the main reasons he continued to hold his seat after 1972 was because there were just enough good ol' boys to keep him in.
        But the real reason the Republican party has gained in the south is the pandering to segregationists.  Lets look at some of these moments:
        "Problems" became the code word for segregation as the Republicans in the south sought to lay blame crime and all at the feet of the blacks.  While voting right could no longer be denied for reasons of race, nor could literacy tests be used as a means of keeping blacks out, a large number of states found other ways to deny voting rights.  Cases, such as the Birmingham church bombing were routinely sent to all white juries and assigned to judges with well known records of being segregationists.  Recall, they were convicted on FEDERAL charges, not state charges.
        When the Klan was under fire, new groups, such as the Concerned Citizens group sprung up.  They were not that well kept of a secret: open public segregationists.  If Lott was not proud his past of going from Dixiecrat to civil rights advocate, he has a weird way of showing it.  But then again, a few keynote speeches at the conventions or articles for its publications don't count for support.  The same group, by the way Ms Coulter, received thank you notes from George Bush One and Two for their fundraising support.  GHWB and GWB both donated to the ball given by Daughters of the south.  It is held annually in an old slave trading warehouse.  They dress in Antebellum garb and "celebrate" the old south.  Sorry Ann, actions speak volumes.  We don't even have time to discuss the support from the right wing christian churches, which supported misogynation laws well into the 1960's which have become the financial support for the Republican party.  Oh, they funded anti-civil rights activities as well.
        In Philadephia and parts of Florida, a large number of black voters received fliers and information on the elections giving the wrong date or polling information.  It was traced back to a republican fundraiser in California.  GWB gives a speech at Bob Jones University to garner support prior to his close fight with McCain.  Only to say after, geez, I did not now they were segregationist and anti-catholic!  In the Louisiana run-off election, the Republican Party rounded up a number of homeless blacks to carry pro-Republican signs (actually anti-Democratic signs) by paying them $75-100/day and clothes and a meal.
        The rise of the power of the Republicans in the South is primarily caused by the rise of the former Dixiecrats into position of leadership, the failure to repudiate the segregationist past, the pandering through code words to the segregationists (why did the Republican Party never challenge David Dukes?).
        Mark G.
        Santee, CA

        Aggressive legal tactics by the Bush administration have deliberately undermined a landmark 1997 civil rights settlement with African-American farmers, turning the claims process into another chapter in a long history of discriminatory treatment by the US Department of Agriculture.
        A report released today by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) finds that almost nine out of 10 black farmers have been denied compensation for discrimination over USDA crop loans, even though U.S. District Court for the District Columbia – in approving the settlement – had described compensation payment as "automatic." Instead the USDA, under the leadership of President Bush's Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, has withheld three-quarters of the $2.3 billion agreed to in the settlement.
        "The USDA aggressively fought black farmers," said EWG's Ariane Callendar, a lead author of the report.  The investigation found that USDA paid $12 million dollars to US Department of Justice lawyers for 56,000 hours spent contesting the claims of 129 black farmers.
        "That means the Department of Justice spent on average 460 hours attacking each farmer," says Callendar.  And these figures, she says, represent only a small portion of the time and energy expended to avoid paying the aggrieved farmers.  USDA managed to deny payment to 82,000 of the 94,000 African-American farmers who sought restitution.
        African-American farmers brought suit against USDA in 1997 in an historic civil rights case known as Pigford V. Glickman (now titled Pigford V. Veneman), claiming that USDA systematically discriminated against African-Americans by denying them crop loans readily made available to comparable white farmers.
        The Reagan administration eliminated the USDA's Office of Civil Rights in 1982, leaving African-American farmers no avenue for appealing loan denials they believed to be discriminatory.
        In 1996, the Clinton administration re-established USDA's office of Civil Rights, and in 1997 made an admission of discrimination in its own study of USDA operations.  Finalized under Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, the settlement was based on USDA's 1997 civil rights study, coupled with the absence of any recourse for black farmers to discriminatory practices from 1982 to 1996.
        Over the past 20 years, the number of farms operated by African-Americans has plummeted from 54,367 in 1982 to 29,090 in 2002 (the suit included 94,000 farmers because many farms have more than one farmer).  This dramatic decline, the report concludes, has been due in part to lack of equal access to USDA loans.
        The report details "the willful obstruction of justice by USDA" and demands immediate action by Congress.  "Only Congress can make whole the 82,000 farmers who were denied restitution arbitrarily, after USDA had agreed, in settling the case, that their discrimination claims were valid." <1>