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readthescore.bsky.social
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@readthescore.bsky.social
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History has a score. Now more than ever. 🗃
Editors: Aaron Moatz and Daniel Shuster.

https://readingthescore.substack.com/
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readthescore.bsky.social
Looking forward to your book on Doar, but it’s hard to paint the Johnson administration’s relationship to Mississippi civil rights as inspirational. Andrew Young:
Y: Yes. I think we still say that you're not going to have any progress in this nation until you have political reform in the South. That was another thing that I didn't like, that I really held against Lyndon Johnson, more than Viet Nam. That was with all of the enthusiasm around Selma, of some 900 counties that qualified for voting rights supervision under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, by the time he went out of office fewer than a hundred--in fact it was just about 104, I think, by the time he left–had any kind of federal presence in them…one of the ways he got it passed and one of the deals that was made to get that Bill passed with Richard Russell and [James 0.] Eastland that they didn't have to worry that he was going to see how it was enforced, because Sunflower County, Eastland's County, was one of those counties with the most blatant denial of voting rights. It was way, way late before we could force them to have any kind of federal referee or voting supervision in Sunflower County because that was Eastland's County in Mississippi. The same thing was true here in Georgia. We didn't have any federal referees in Georgia, and I always thought that was Richard Russell's influence. We could get them in Alabama because Alabama was under Wallace and out with the Administration. We could also get them like in Alabama even, if there are nine counties in a congressional district, you might get a dozen federal referees in a dozen counties in Alabama, but you would only have three in the black belt counties. So they'd let you get the registration up to about a third and then you'd find it difficult to get federal referees after that. There'd always be some excuse. We felt like they were playing games with us, that they really did not want the reform of the South. B: Now the "they" here, this must be-- Y: Lyndon Johnson and the Administration.
August 4, 2025 at 5:40 PM
readthescore.bsky.social
July 10, 2025 at 4:02 AM
readthescore.bsky.social
"As racism became untenable on the national stage, Democrats reinvented their image, casting off their segregationist past without facing accountability.

Jimmy Carter exemplifies this sleight of hand." 🗃 readingthescore.substack.com/p/read-the-s...
Jimmy Carter’s inauguration for governor of Georgia in 1971. Lester Maddox at his side.
January 13, 2025 at 7:19 PM
readthescore.bsky.social
Did the Democrats have a Southern Strategy for 1968?

Polisky
Lester Maddox with then VP Hubert Humphrey “arm-in-arm” in 1967.
June 21, 2024 at 5:35 PM
readthescore.bsky.social
Jimmy Carter had a remarkable rise from unknown Georgia candidate for governor in 1970 to leading the Democratic ticket by 1976.
May 27, 2024 at 4:56 PM
readthescore.bsky.social
Jimmy Carter was a member of the “New South” Democratic Party.
Jimmy Carter's 1970 campaign advertisement.
May 26, 2024 at 10:23 PM
readthescore.bsky.social
“Carter returned home afterward and revived his family's peanut-growing business. He then manifested his opposition to racial segregation, supported the growing civil rights movement, and became an activist within the Democratic Party.”
May 25, 2024 at 11:37 AM
readthescore.bsky.social
Jimmy Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in international conflict resolution and human rights.
May 25, 2024 at 1:53 AM