Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South.

The article focuses on the intersection of southern prohibition, Protestantism, and white supremacy in the American South from the 1880s to the 1930s. It explains how white southern supporters of prohibition, known as "white drys," linked their cause to white supremacy and Jim Crow laws to gain political power, despite evidence that Black voters rarely influenced prohibition election outcomes. The study highlights how this alliance transformed southern Christian theology and political culture, with white southern evangelicals adapting their beliefs to support prohibition as a tool for racial control. It also discusses Black southerners’ opposition to prohibition, viewing liquor laws as a means of political activism and economic mobility, and notes the eventual repeal of prohibition as white southerners no longer needed it to enforce racial hierarchy.