Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction

Further, the authors contend that despite the virtual destruction of the South's four inherited institutions of political sectionalism during the years of the Second Reconstruction--disenfranchisement, malapportionment, a one-party system, and de jure racial segregation--the new southern politics maintained a deep racial division that has militated against class coalitions, especially across racial lines, and has permitted government by relatively insulated elites.