The parties flipped. Blacks were heavy Republican voters due to Lincoln until the 1950s when it started to shift. Edward Brooke, the first black US Senator sinc

The parties flipped. Blacks were heavy Republican voters due to Lincoln until the 1950s when it started to shift. Edward Brooke, the first black US Senator since Reconstruction was a Massachusetts Republican. Things didn't really shift until the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s were passed, coupled with Great Society programs of Johnson, that put blacks in the Democratic camp for good and sent Dixiecrats to the GOP.