We’re just days away from learning the outcome of the two Georgia US senate races; two seats that weren’t viewed as competitive or attainable to Democrats just a couple of years ago, anymore than the state was to a Democratic presidential nominee.
That wasn’t always the case, of course. For much of the 20th century, the Peach State was as securely in the Democratic column as California or Hawaii is today.
But, of course, the Democratic party was very different party then.
As a faithful Confederate state whose secession declaration used the words “slave” and “slavery” thirty-five times (I counted), and the home of Confederate Vice-President (and future governor) Alexander Stephens, who explicitly stated the Confederate government was founded on slavery, it would remained firmly in the camp of white supremacy for generations, sending a who’s who of racists to Washington, such as Seaborn Roddenbery (no relation to the creator of Star Trek), who attempted to pass a constitutional amendment banning interracial marriage nationwide in 1913, and Rebecca Latimer Felton, both the first woman and last slave owner to serve in the senate, whose advocacy for women’s suffrage was surpassed only by her advocacy for lynching black men.
The most influential person to represent Georgia, however, would be Senator Richard B. Russell, who served in the senate for 38 years and was the de facto leader of the southern senators for much of that time, particularly on matters of civil rights.
The Russell family was already a prominent one in Georgia politics. Richard’s father, Richard Sr., was Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. Richard’s younger brother Robert would later be appointed as a judge of the US court of appeals. Richard himself was elected governor at the age of 33, before the sudden death of a US senator, less than a year into Russell’s term, prompted him to declare a special election and successfully run for the seat himself
While not usually known for publicly engaging in vitriolic racial slurs like many of his contemporaries, like James Eastland of Mississippi (except when he did), Russell was firm and implacable in his opposition of any civil rights legislation, using his influence to block anti-lynching or voting rights bills for years. When the US Supreme Court struck down school desegregation in Brown v. Board, Russell was one of the chief architects of the congressional segregationists’ response, later known as the “Southern Manifesto”, denouncing the ruling.
In a bit of a historical irony, Russell would soon become the close friend and mentor to a younger, ambitious senator by the name of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Russell, a lifelong bachelor with no children, would become close with Johnson’s wife, and Johnson would encourage his daughters o view Russell as a friendly uncle as well. Russell was aware that a segregationist southerner had no real chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, but saw Johnson winning that nomination as the next best thing. He supported Johnson’s rise to Majority Whip, then Minority Leader, and finally Majority Leader. Knowing Johnson needed some civil rights credentials, Russell even tolerated the passage of the largely watered-down Civil Rights Act of 1957.
When Johnson finally did ascend to the presidency (albeit under circumstances that neither Johnson, nor Russell could’ve imagined), Russell apparently understood Johnson’s need to pass a far more substantial civil rights bill. Not even his close friendship with Johnson could get Russell to yield however. The longest filibuster in the history of the senate ensued, but ultimately, for the first time in the 20th century, the will to pass a sweeping civil rights bill proved greater than the will of southerners to block it. Later that year, Russell could not even bring himself to campaign for Johnson in his home state, at Senator Barry Goldwater (who had voted against the bill) became the first ever Republican to carry Georgia. Ultimately, various disagreements between Russell and Johnson, from judicial appointments to Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War, would cause their friendship to deteriorate, to the point that the two men did not speak from the time Johnson left office in January of 1969, to Russell’s death two years later.
His health failing, Russell spent his last few years still using his position to oppose civil rights. He favored Nixon in 1968 over Democrat Hubert Humphrey. After the senate rejected Nixon’s Supreme Court nominee, conservative southerner Clement Haynsworth, Nixon vindictively chose an even more hard-line southerner G. Harrold Carswell, only for that nominee to be rejected as well, which infuriated Russell, who had supported Nixon’s pick.
Russell did not live to see the election of fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter to the presidency, nor the defeat of Carter by the Reagan coalition, which included many white southern voters who approved of Reagan’s opposition to civil rights legislation. The realignment of the states and parties was just beginning at the time of his death, and we can only speculate whether he would’ve ultimately chosen party or ideology, had he lived another ten or twenty years. (It is telling, however, that, as recently as ten years ago, Republican Senator Isakson was singing Russell’s praise on the floor of the senate on the fortieth anniversary of his death)
As for Georgia, the state would elect another high-profile, long-serving Democrat to succeed Russell in Sam Nunn. Ultimately, however, the state would favor Republicans for the next few decades. The last Democratic senator from Georgia was Zell Miller, who spent much of his senate and post senate career endorsing Republican candidates and positions. Southerners Carter and Bill Clinton would each carry the state once, with Democrats otherwise being shut of the state in presidential elections (and later most senate and state elections) for nearly sixty years.
But states are not static, monolithic things. Much like Virginia, Georgia has been slowly but surely transitioning itself from a rural state to a bustling urban one. A younger, more diverse, more educated electorate, motivated by effective Democratic leaders like Stacey Abrams have been shifting the state in the same direction that the party it used to embrace ultimately went. This, of course, culminated in Joe Biden’s narrow win there last November, probably the most infuriating of the many states Trump lost.
On the heels of that victory, Democrats are seeing if they can push their luck by winning two senate seats in the same state. One nominee is African American, the other (running for Russell’s seat) is Jewish, either of which would’ve been unthinkable in Russell's day.
Although turnout is already high, Georgia is still a state dominated by conservative white southerners at the moment, and it’ll be a tough race for both of them.
But Biden’s win cements the fact that, at least when it comes to Georgia, there’s no longer such a thing as the “solid south”, for either party.
If only Russell, and the ones who came before him, could see it now.
For anyone interested in reading more about Russell, his relationship with Johnson, and the passage of civil rights legislation in the senate at that time, I highly recommend The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights by Robert Mann.
