Why did the South switch parties?

[TDAS04]

What Torie said.

[TDAS04]

Here's my recommendation.

https://www.amazon.com/Republicans-Race-Relationship-Americans-1945-1974/dp/0700619380

^ Infinitely superior and more in-depth read.  Shatters the myth that the GOP functionally changed in terms of racial philosophy from the days of Lincoln to the days of Reagan, which is EXACTLY why it lost the Black vote.  The GOP always believed that if you just removed institutional barriers for Black Americans and allowed them the opportunity to flourish in the free market, they'd succeed, and that stance went from being considered very pro-civil rights in the days of slavery to ridiculously naive and outdated by the mid-20th Century.  It often quotes Black leaders saying they preferred the "devil they knew" (the Democrats).  If Northern Democrats are offering housing assistance, busing and VERY aggressive civil rights legislation (not to mention an economic agenda Blacks agreed with), and Republicans are out bragging about stuff they did during Reconstruction, warning that a vote for your Northern Democrat is a vote to give Southern Democrats more committee power and supporting the most basic civil rights legislation possible ("yes, we agree, the poll tax is wrong!"), why would Blacks vote GOP other than some sentimental attachment to the Party of Lincoln?

P.S.  Another super interesting anecdote from that book was that Republicans would actually aggressively initiate civil rights legislation and unanimously support it, as long as it pretty much exclusively affected Dixie (where none of its constituents were).  Once being "pro-civil rights" meant supporting busing Black kids in the North into affluent White neighborhoods (GOP Representatives had a near lock on the suburban North), notice how the party's image changed...

Good post.