Blair Legacy Conference to Focus on Unlocking the 'Key' to Southern Politics

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Political scientists and historians will gather April 1-3 at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain to discuss the legacy of a seminal historian of Southern politics during“Unlocking V.O. Key Jr.,” the second Blair Legacy Series Conference, hosted by the University of Arkansas’ Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

In the 1940s, V.O. Key Jr. revealed the cracks in the allegedly solid hold the Democratic party had on the South in his classic work, Southern Politics in State and Nation. He analyzed state-by-state how African Americans were systematically deprived of their rights in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction and how race relations defined the development of democracy in the South. During the Civil Rights movement, the work became a guidebook for scholars and students of Southern politics.

Southern Politics was published 60 years ago, supported by a research grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The book remains one of the most cited and influential works not only of 20th-century political science, but also of Southern history.

Byron E. Shafer, the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Chair of political science at the University of Wisconsin and former Andrew W. Mellon Professor of political science at Oxford University, will be the keynote speaker. He and eight scholars will measure what remains timeless in Key’s analysis and discuss his continuing contributions in the 21^st century.

They will meet in two closed sessions to work collaboratively and to discuss their contributions, which will be collected in a book, Unlocking V.O. Key, Jr., to be published by the University of Arkansas Press.

A banquet honoring the panelists will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 2, followed by the keynote address and a panel discussion. General admission tickets to the banquet and the address can be purchased for $35 by calling 501-727-5435. Overnight accommodations at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute are available by calling 866-972-7778.

 “Whatever phase of the southern political process one seeks to understand, sooner or later the trail of inquiry leads to the Negro,” Key wrote, as he analyzed the inner workings of the South’s political institutions and the absence of a two-party system. Key argued that allegiance to the Democratic Party, despite class distinctions and educational and cultural differences between Southern states, was a tool used primarily to maintain the disenfranchisement of African Americans after the Civil War.

Key’s research also uncovered the wide range of political opinion within the Southern Democratic Party. These persistent cracks in the “Solid South” are particularly relevant today since both Republicans and Democrats competed aggressively in the region during the 2008 elections.

Key served on the faculty at the University of California–Los Angeles, Johns Hopkins, Yale and Harvard, and was president of the American Political Science Association. His wide-ranging scholarship continues to have a profound influence across several disciplines. The V.O. Key Award given out annually by the Southern Political Science Association to the best book examining topics in Southern politics, history and society continues to be one of the most prestigious book awards in the field.

 Participating panelists include Dan T. Carter, Education Foundation Professor of History Emeritus at the University of South Carolina; Pearl K. Ford, assistant professor of political science and African American studies at the University of Arkansas; Kari Frederickson, associate professor and director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South at the University of Alabama; Keith Gaddie, professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma; Susan MacManus, Distinguished Professor in the department of government and international affairs at the University of South Florida; Margaret Reid, professor and chair of the political science department at the University of Arkansas; Harold Stanley, Geurin-Pettus Distinguished Chair in American politics and political economy at Southern Methodist University; and Charles Reagan Wilson, Kelly Gene Cook Sr. Chair of history and professor of Southern studies at the University of Mississippi and former director of the Center for Southern Studies.

Background on the Blair Center

The Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society was established by an act of Congress in 2001, one of the few research centers in the country to be established by congressional appropriation. Diane Divers Blair, who taught in the political science department at the University of Arkansas for 30 years, served as chair of both the U.S. Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the Commission on Public Employee Rights.

In 1992, she joined the Clinton presidential campaign as a senior researcher, after which she was appointed a guest scholar at the Brookings Institute. In 1996 she served as a senior adviser on the Clinton re-election team.

The Blair Center is dedicated to studying the American South from a variety of angles, attempting to reveal the undercurrents of politics, history and culture that have shaped the region over time. The Blair Legacy Series invites senior scholars to assess the regional, national and international impact of Southern politicians, intellectuals and social leaders.

At the inaugural conference, experts considered the legacy of President William Jefferson Clinton. Their findings were compiled in The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives on the Forty-Second President. The 2010 conference of the Blair Legacy Series will focus on Arkansas native and respected southern historian C. Vann Woodward. The conference will commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, The Burden of Southern History.

Information on Speakers

Additional information about the keynote speaker and panelists is available by going to http://fulbright.uark.edu/