Race and Electoral Mobilization: White Southerners, 1952-1968

The voting turnout rate among whites in the South has long beenlower than elsewhere, but in recent years the gap has diminished.Neither the earlier difference nor the recent southern increaseis due to the socioeconomic composition of the regions; rather,the increase has been greatest among southerners who believethat the major parties take distinct stands on racial issues.The change in southern turnout is therefore explained by theincreased salience of racial issues, and they can thereforebe expected to remain important in southern politics John L. Hammond is Assistant Professor of Sociology, ColumbiaUniversity, and Research Associate of the Center for PolicyResearch. This article is a revised version of a paper presentedat the American Sociological Association, August 1974. The dataused were collected by the Institute for Social Research andprovided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.The author whises to acknowledge the helpful comments of GordonAdams, Adrienne Asch, Gerald Finch, Anne Foner, Eugene Litwak,Patrick Molloy, George Martin, and Patrick Peppe.