In 1949 the great political scientist V.O. Key averred regarding Southern politics, "In its grand outlines the politics of the South revolves around the position of the Negro….Whatever phase of the southern political process one seeks to understand, sooner or later the trail leads back to the Negro." The object of this paper is to review events and issues that have affected Southern politics since the formation of the New Deal coalition in 1932, in order to determine how the politics of the South have changed and how they have remained the same.