When the African-American vote was split between the parties-

raharris1973

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roughly in the first quarter of the 20th century, between construction and the consolidation of the New Deal Coalition (the 1936 election), the African-American vote migrated from being monolithically Republican to monolithically Democratic.

Although the 1936 election was a huge turning point in this direction, Republicans still had non-trivial amounts of African-American support through the mid-1970s.

In this era where double-digit percentages of African-Americans voted for both Democrats and Republicans, were there any demographic or regional characteristics of the African-Americans who voted for one party or the other? [This is taking into consideration of course only those who *could* exercise the franchise in this period]
 
For my own timeline concept I imagine a GOP more clearly pro-Civil Rights and a more "Solid South" they are willing to aggravate, with the Southern "conservatives" dragging on the "liberal" Democrats and the GOP less motivated to pander to those Conservatives to keep splitting the Democratic vote I am thinking the African-American vote stays well divided in America. I think it will be Southern "blacks" who vote GOP and Northern "Blacks" who vote Democrat, with the divide being a mix of Civil Rights policy combined with greater Union labor participation in the North compared with rural values for the Southern African-American voter who may find Taft style conservatism a better option than the Dixiecrat alternative. I prefer to think of how the parties better represent than simply polarize.
 
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