Well, let's see.
Yep, I knew about Dixiecrats.
There are many reasons why the South struggled while the North did not. Though NY and NE lost much of their textile industry those regeions had a lot of other ecemonic activities that soon compensated. When the South lost theirs they had little other economic activities to fall back on. That was a big driver of the Great Migration, where 6+million black folks moved to the north and mid west; to place like Chicago, St Louis....that has not gone well for them as most black people in those migratory destinations are still stuck in crime riddled poverty.
I am not against progress or technology. But one should not conflate progress with Progressive.
As for the coal industry, I agree with you and wondered how that even entered our discussion.
One thing I feel it's important to note; Black people were given the right to vote in 1965. Prior to that occurring the South was dominated by Democrats and leaned strongly Democrat in Presidential elections. It was only after they started voting that Presidential voting in the South leaned toward Republicans. A black Historian I know says they were fed up with Democrats, including Dixiecrats. He reminded me of the underhanded politics of the time that Black voters had to confront.
Since the beginning of Reconstruction, Southern white voters supported the Democratic Party by overwhelming margins in both local and national elections. During that time Democrats used paramilitary insurgents and other activists to disrupt and intimidate Republican freedman voters (Blacks), including fraud at the polls and attacks on their leaders. Those political "crimes" culminated in the Democrats regaining control of the state legislatures and passing new constitutions and laws from 1890 to 1908 to disenfranchise most blacks and many poor whites. They never forgot that and paid the Democrats back as soon as the opportunity arose.
In the 1930's, Roosevelts "new Deal" expressly ommitted mention of issues such as African American Civil Rights. This was due in large part to Southern Democrat control over many key positions of power within the U.S. Congress. Regardless of the power struggle within the Democratic Party concerning segregation policy, civil rights and such, the South remained a strongly Democratic when voting in local, state, and federal Congressional elections. But increasingly not in presidential elections. That remains true today, which brings me back to Chicago...where Democrats have been in charge for decades, always promising to fix poverty, crime, education, opportunity...but never getting that done.
