Being Frank: Sometimes, history rhymes in North Carolina
After the election, I keep thinking back to Frank Porter Graham’s progressive run for U.S. Senate in 1950.
By Jeremy Markovich
N.C. Rabbit Hole
Like millions of North Carolinians, I have many questions about the results of Tuesday’s election.
One that came to my mind was this: How could battleground state North Carolina select a slew of Democrats to fill some of its most critical statewide offices and also vote for Donald Trump?
I don’t have an answer, but I have theories. One is that statewide races feel concrete and essential to North Carolinians’ everyday lives, while a presidential vote is more abstract and vibes-based. But I don’t really know.
North Carolina has always been bipolar in its politics. Some of its most seemingly progressive policies were brought into being by white supremacists. In his 2010 book “The Paradox of North Carolina Politics,” the now-retired chief political writer for the Raleigh News & Observer, Rob Christensen, writes:
“What sets North Carolina apart is its progressive streak. The state’s voters are willing to elect liberals who they think will look after the average man—as long as he does not transgress southern racial customs.”
It brings to mind Frank Porter Graham and his run for North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat in 1950.
Graham was born in Fayetteville in 1886. He graduated from the University of North Carolina and returned as a history professor, climbing up the ladder to become the head of the new consolidated UNC system. He was seen as friendly and well-connected, often pushing for free speech, racial equality, and increased college funding in his higher-ed positions.
In 1949, North Carolina Gov. Kerr Scott appointed Graham to replace J. Melville Broughton, who’d died in office. The following year, Graham decided to run to serve out the rest of Broughton’s term.
By then, North Carolina was seen nationally as the Southern state that was the most progressive on race relations, albeit one that was still built on segregation. Black people registered to vote in more significant numbers in urban areas but faced roadblocks in more rural parts of the state. Although new to a political campaign, Graham was a liberal Democrat with many connections across North Carolina. Organized labor liked him. Newspapers supported him.
His opponent in the 1950 Democratic primary was Willis Smith, a conservative tax attorney from Raleigh. Initially, Smith’s campaign tried to paint Graham as a Communist sympathizer in the months after McCarthyism had begun. It wasn’t working well, so they added another campaign theme: Racism.
Handbills started appearing across the state. One showed Black G.I.s dancing with white women abroad during World War II, and said that Graham wanted the same thing to happen in North Carolina. Smith’s supporters said Smith himself didn’t have anything to do with the racist campaigns. But he also didn’t step in to stop them.
In May 1950, Graham came out on top in an election that saw the biggest turnout ever for a Democratic primary in North Carolina. He had 49% of the vote, while Smith had 41%. Under the rules, Smith could call for a runoff but decided not to, wrote a concession letter, and gave it to a press aide. That aide didn’t deliver it. Instead, he got people together to figure out how to get Smith to reconsider.
One of those people was WRAL News Director Jesse Helms, who ran ads to encourage people to hold a rally in front of Smith’s house in Raleigh. They worked. Some 500 people showed up, chanted, and got Smith to call for a runoff the next day.
After that, the racist tactics got nastier, culminating in this poster, which started to make its way around the state a week before the runoff. The bold type at the top reads, “WHITE PEOPLE WAKE UP … FRANK GRAHAM FAVORS MINGLING OF RACES.”
During the last week, Smith traveled across the state. Everywhere he went, a band played his campaign song: “Dixie.” Graham started encountering more hostile crowds. A few times, people spit on him.
That June, a record 550,000 people turned out for the runoff election, and Smith won by around 20,000 votes. As Christensen notes, the racist attacks resonated with middle-class people in more upscale urban neighborhoods, some of whom worried aloud that Black students might go to white schools if Graham was elected. In the end, Graham was undone by forces that played into the racism of white voters.
In American politics, insecurity, emotion, and fear win out. They did in 1950. And they certainly played a role in 2024.
I’m still reading, thinking, and processing. However, I know that there’s almost always a precedent for unprecedented times.
Or, to use a more famous and succinct quote: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Jeremy Markovich writes about North Carolina curiosities at NC Rabbit Hole, subscribe at NCRabbitHole.com. This column is syndicated by Beacon Media, please contact [email protected] with feedback or questions.
For more WNN video news stories, visit YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wisenewsnetwork.
For more WNN articles and news stories, visit: https://wisenewsnetwork.com
Contact WNN at [email protected]
Copyright 2024 Wise News Network. All rights reserved.
