Dixiecrat Party is the nickname for the States’ Rights Democratic Party. In the national election of 1948, many Southern Democrats objected to their party’s civil rights program. They formed the Dixiecrat Party and nominated Strom Thurmond for president and Fielding L. Wright for vice president. The party won the electoral votes of four Southern states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The party dissolved soon after the election, but the term Dixiecrat came to be applied to Southern Democrats who opposed the national Democratic Party’s liberal stands on social issues. Many Dixiecrats, including Thurmond himself, switched to the Republican Party in the 1960’s.
