Yeah, they were Democrats. The solid south. I've attached a chart that shows the voting trends of the "Solid South" from Lincoln to Trump. See where it flipped like a lightswitch?
That's 1964.
What could have happened here that caused such a dramatic change? Well. A lot of those racist Democrats might have died. Like a huge die-off. That's a significant change in the pattern, so that death rate would have to be gigantic.
We would have heard about a mass die-off in the south prior to 1963. So, that's probably not it.
What else? Well, people could have moved. Like a bunch of Racist Southerners (that voted Democrat) might have just picked up stakes between 1960 and 1964 and moved North. And a Bunch of Less-Racist Northerners (who voted Republican) might have moved.
But we don't have any evidence of a mass-migration between the states like that. There would be pictures.
So..what else happened?
In 1964 prior to the fall election, the Civil Rights Act was signed. That was the last straw. For the previous decade, since the mid-50's the south had been resisting the desegregation mandates from the Federal government.
They flipped for Barry Goldwater and his "the government needs to be small so it stays out of your business" campaign.
So, yeah, those people were Democrats. And when the Democratic party completed its evolution into the liberal/progressive party, they abandoned it for a far more conservative Republican party that said they were right- the Federal Government didn't have the right to tell them to accept Black people into their jobs and neighborhoods.
