The Lily White Movement.

[Kind of Blue]

In the 1890's, the Republican Party of Virginia faced considerable challenges.

The Walton Act helped to keep political control in the hands of the Democratic party, by discouraging many Republican and African American voters from visiting the polls. Democrats also tried to alienate Republicans from white voters by stigmatizing them as the "party of the Negro." On November 9, 1898, The Daily Progress commented on the effects of Virginia's one-party system on the 1898 election results, in "A Quiet Day Everywhere and a Small Vote." The election was marked by voter apathy.

In an attempt to regain voter support, the Republican party urged local voters to form campaigning clubs in their ward or precinct. Despite continual African-American support, the Republican party increased efforts to recover white votes through a "lily white" movement. The Republican party proclaimed that it was a white man's party and had no room to accommodate African Americans. In "WILL IT WORK," published August 13, 1900, The Daily Progress questioned the feasibility and fairness of excluding African Americans from the Republican Party.

The African-American Republican leaders felt the full effects of the "lily white" movement when they, along with their delegation, were barred from the Republican Congressional Convention held at Luray in July, 1922. Charlottesville sent two delegations to this convention. One, led by R.N. Flannagan (President of the Henry Anderson Independent Club), was all white. The other, led by City Chairman L.W. Cox, included four African Americans. The convention decided to dismiss the Cox delegation and seat the "lily-white" faction of Charlottesville's Republicans.

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/afam/politics/party.html

[The Polack MSgt]

1. So it wasn't Reagan and Goldwater that pushed the GOP into overt racism after all.

Turns out the GOP has been on a generations long slide into White Nationalism, coinciding with the decades long climb Democrats are attempting to finally overcome their history of White supremacy.

I'm sure the architects of the Lily White Movement would be amazed and thrilled at how Lily White the GOP is now

[Kind of Blue]

3. Yeah, I have no doubt that they'd be thrilled, too.

But really though reading thru the early history of white voter discomfort and subsequent ousting of blacks in the Republican Party, white flight to the Democratic Party that also helped the GOP's disenfranchisement of blacks, Mexican-Americans and poor whites, while at the same time anti-lynching was part of the GOP platform, that FDR admin refused to support anti-lynching legislation, all starts feeling like a shell game. It makes my head spin

[TheRealNorth]

2. There was a 20-30 year period (1900-1930)

Where there was a split between the Progressives and Corporatists. Most progressives tended to vote Republican (exception would be 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt ran as an independent) until they had enough of the Corporatists after the Great Depression began and abandoned the Republicans to start the take over of the Democratic Party.

[Kind of Blue]

4. Thanks for this, TheRealNorth.

Though I understood many reforms taking place during the era, I had no idea that it has its own apt title. The NAACP, the National Urban League, the Niagara Movement, African-American newspapers and notable people such as WEB Du Bois, Ida B. Wells emerged during this time because ironically progressives certainly did not include us and other PoCs.