Were white Democrats a factor in Republican wins — “the red wave falling over Sampson” — in the recent general election? I can only speculate that NC Republicans had some help in delivering the State’s 15 electoral prize for President Trump in his losing effort at a second term. It is quite plausible that many white Democrats in Sampson County crossed over and voted for President Trump.

One would think, however, that forward-thinking white Americans should want to be part of the Democratic Party, whose members are united by the desire to work for the common good of the American people and their commitment to equality.

Make no mistake, the fact that registered white Democrats voted for President Trump and other Republicans in the recent general election highlights one of the great challenges for Democrats: how to broaden their appeal to white America.

Now, let me be clear, the Democratic Party that just elected the Biden-Harris presidential ticket has come a long way from the Democratic Party that elected Charles B. Aycock the governor of NC in 1900, just 120 years ago. As “the voice of the NC Democratic Party,” Governor Aycock was part of a white supremacy group that organized a campaign of terror and voter suppression in the election of 1898. That old Democratic Party was responsible for instituting systemic racism — Jim Crow — in NC and for “solving the negro(sic) problem by taking him out of politics.” (Aycock)

Historically, the modern-day Democratic Party began with FDR and his bold remedies for the Great Depression, who viewed government as “a force for good and a source of hope” during the 1930s. And FDR’s successor, Democrat Harry S. Truman surprised many Americans, including some white Democrats when he ordered the desegregation of the armed forces in 1948, which some viewed as the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. Taking a great political risk, President Truman became the first president to address the NAACP’s annual convention on June 29, 1947, declaring the government must “take the lead in guaranteeing the civil rights of all Americans.”

This epic shift in the Democratic Party will continue with the election of 1960 as John F. Kennedy won with 78 percent of the black vote. It was Democratic President Kennedy who became the first American president to view civil rights as a moral issue, but many of the white Southern Democrats — segregationists and racists — in Congress didn’t share his point of view. While the national Democratic Party was shifting more and more toward becoming the party of civil rights, support from conservative white Democrats in the South began to decline, slowly and consistently down to present-day.

Unfortunately, there are Americans who are having a hard time ridding themselves of many self-destructive beliefs that have been fueled by President Trump that still give energy to systemic racism in this country. Undoubtedly, an ever-evolving Democratic Party has played a critical part in making America a more just society.

Larry Sutton is a retired educator who served as a longtime teacher at Clinton High School.