 Prior to 1948, Bamberg County and South Carolina were Democratic Party strongholds similar to the rest of the Solid South, dominated by white conservative Democrats.Most of the majority population of African Americans, who had supported the Republican Party during Reconstruction and the nineteenth century, had been disenfranchised by Democrats under the 1895 state constitution and related laws.These raised barriers to black voter registration and voting in South Carolina, as did similar laws across the South.