How is the

presidential election of 1968 related

to Nixon's Southern strategy?

Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, a tumultuous year that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the splintering of the Democratic Party.

Nixon's presidential campaign sought to appeal to what it deemed the "silent majority," those middle-class white Americans who defended the status quo against radical social change.

Nixon's campaign successfully employed the "Southern strategy," an attempt to appeal to Southern racists resentful of civil rights activism and federal antipoverty programs.