In the 1930s thousands of African Americans abandoned their
long-standing allegiance to the party of Abraham Lincoln and began
voting for Democratic Party candidates. This new voting pattern
remapped the nation's political landscape and altered the
relationship between citizen and government.
One of the forgotten builders of this modern Democratic Party
was Memphis mayor and congressman Edward Hull Crump (1874-1954).
Crump created a biracial, multiethnic coalition within the
segregated South that transformed the Mississippi Delta's largest
city into a modern southern metropolis. Crump expanded city
regulatory power, increased government efficiency and established a
publicly owned electric utility. In addition, he secured a
comprehensive flood control system for portions of the lower
Mississippi River Valley. G. Wayne Dowdy cataloged the personal
papers of Crump for the Memphis Public Library and brings southern
political history to life in this biography.
In the 1930s Crump emerged as a national leader who influenced
the direction of American politics. In 1936 Time described Crump as
"one of the South's most remarkable politicians." A political
advisor to Franklin Roosevelt, Crump convinced a large number of
blacks to abandon their allegiance to the Republicans for the party
of FDR. Ironically, Crump's power and influence ebbed over the
course of the 1940s in large part due to the increasing
independence of black voters seeking to desegregate Memphis and the
South. Determined to maintain segregation, Crump abandoned the
Democrats in 1948 for the States' Rights Party and experienced a
crushing political defeat.
G. Wayne Dowdy is a senior librarian and archivist at the
Memphis Public Library and Information Center. His work has
appeared in the "Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies,"
"CrossRoads: A Southern Culture Annual," "Journal of Negro
History," "Tennessee Historical Quarterly," and other
publications.
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