Regular Democratic Organization - Reconstruction & Aftermath

Reconstruction & Aftermath

The RDO was spawned in the latter days of Reconstruction, toward the end of Republican Party control of the city. In 1877, political power in New Orleans swung to the Democrats via the political muscle of the RDO. The RDO leadership enacted Jim Crow laws such as segregated facilities and a poll tax. In 1896 RDO lent its support to the reelection of Governor Murphy J. Foster to stop a rejuvenated Republican Party allied with the Populists behind the candidacy of John N. Pharr. After an election characterized by fraud so widespread that the actual results may never be known, Foster maneuvered to rewrite the state constitution so as to decimate black voting and to induce several decades in which nomination by the white-controlled Democratic Party of the time and place became tantamount to election.