Stepping Stones and Boundary Lines: Southern Democrats and Federal Urban Policy

Southern Democrats wielded outsized power in Congress for several decades during the twentieth century and thus shaped innumerable federal programs and policies. This thesis examines the involvement of several southern Democrats in the development of federal urban programs between the mid-1940s and the mid-1960s. It suggests southern legislators played an integral role in urban legislation during the period and used the programs to aid their working-class and middle-class white constituents, modernize racial apartheid, and thwart Black activism.