On the evening of July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson lay down beneath the grand canopy of his four post bed in The White House's 2nd floor living room, exhausted; his mind surely swirling with that mixture of clear conscience and unshakable dread unique to politicians who have acted upon principles of equality at the expense of the prejudices of their voting base. Just a few hours earlier, President Johnson had addressed the nation as he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, urging those watching at home to “close the springs of racial poison” and “make our nation whole.”
Johnson knew that the legislation he signed would change the very fabric of American life—that it was necessary next step in the process of atoning for the legacy of slavery, sharecropping and the scars left from a perpetual diminution of black and brown humanity. At the same time, Johnson knew better than most that the desire for equality professed in the Civil Rights Act was not shared by all and that backlash was inevitable, especially in the cradle of the Jim Crow South. As the President lay in bed, a young Bill Moyers, then his press secretary, noticed him lost in thought and asked him what was the matter. Looking back at Moyers, Johnson replied with his usual West Texas drawl, “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.”
Thus began the 50 year purge of the Southern White Democrat from the halls of Congress—a purge that ended this November when John Barrow (pronounced “bare-ah”) lost his re-election bid for Georgia's 12th Congressional District to Republican businessman Rick Allen. Barrow, a man who had garnered a reputation as an escape artist after surviving 5 elections and 2 different redistricting schemes that jam-packed his district with Republican-leaning voters, couldn't manage to overcome the demographic odds this time around, although it wasn't for lack of trying. Watching his campaign ads and looking at his voting record in the House, it's quite clear that Barrow is white and that he is southern, but there's not much that suggests he's a Democrat.