The Lily-Whites were a conservative and white supremacist faction of the southern Republican Party which existed from 1888 to 1964. The Lily-Whites developed as a coalition of white supremacists who believed that blacks should not hold positions of power in the GOP, believing that - due to the disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the American South during the Jim Crow era - the only way for the Southern GOP to survive was to appeal to the almost exclusively white electorate by choosing "respectable" white leaders. They were rivals with the biracial and liberal Black-and-Tans, who fought for the continued presence of the African-American electorate in the Southern GOP's leadership. Both factions sought to deal out patronage and manage Republican National Committee delegates, but the Lily-Whites' "respectability" argument won out, replacing the Black-and-Tans at different points in time. The Lily-Whites quickly seized power in North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Texas, eliminating blacks nearly entirely and permanently from leadership positions. In Tennessee, Arkansas, and Florida, whites came to dominate the local GOPs, but a small percentage of blacks were kept in place to maintain party harmony. In South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, Black-and-Tan leaders retained control of the party deep into the first half of the 20th century and sometimes beyond. Ultimately, the whitening of the GOP in the South led to a significant increase in the GOP's vote totals, and the GOP developed more quickly in the Lily-White strongholds than in the Black-and-Tan strongholds. The dominance of the Lily-Whites allowed for the Republicans Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower to make inroads into the South in 1928 and 1952, respectively, and, in 1964, the triumph of the white conservative Republican Barry Goldwater across the American South due to his opposition to the Civil Rights movement demolished the Black-and-Tan faction, as most African-Americans became staunch Democratic Party supporters. The legacy of the Lily-Whites was felt in the 2016 presidential election, during which whiteness became a major factor in Donald Trump's Republican presidential campaign, and only 8% of blacks supported him at the polls, while his voter base and administration was overwhelmingly white and elderly.

The Black-and-Tans were the liberal and biracial faction of the southern Republican Party from 1888 to 1964, rivalling the Lily-Whites. By the 1890s, African-Americans were the electoral bulwark of the southern Republican cause, while whites controlled most of the leadership positions. Between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the retirement of George Henry White in 1901, the Republicans controlled 102 of 1,004 House seats in the South (22 of the 102 GOP seats occurring because of contested election cases), and seven blacks (John R. Lynch, MS-6; Robert Smalls, SC-5; James E. O'Hara, NC-2; Henry P. Cheatham, NC-2; John Mercer Langston, VA-4; Thomas E. Miller, SC-7; George W. Murray, SC-7; and George Henry White, NC-2) were elected to the US House of Representatives. The biracial coalition began to break down due to the Southern Democrats' disenfranchisement of blacks with Jim Crow laws, and the Southern GOP split into the conservative and white supremacist Lily-Whites and the biracial and progressive Black-and-Tans. Both factions sought to deal out patronage and manage Republican National Committee delegates, but the Lily-Whites' "respectability" argument won out, replacing the Black-and-Tans at different points in time. The Lily-Whites quickly seized power in North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, and Texas, eliminating blacks nearly entirely and permanently from leadership positions. In Tennessee, Arkansas, and Florida, whites came to dominate the local GOPs, but a small percentage of blacks were kept in place to maintain party harmony. In South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, Black-and-Tan leaders retained control of the party deep into the first half of the 20th century and sometimes beyond. Ultimately, the whitening of the GOP in the South led to a significant increase in the GOP's vote totals, and the GOP developed more quickly in the Lily-White strongholds than in the Black-and-Tan strongholds. The factionalism flared up in 1928 and 1952, when GOP presidential candidates Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower made inroads into the South due to support from Lily-White Republicans. During the 1930s, African-Americans (especially those outside the South) began to shift towards the Democratic Party due to their support for the New Deal and the Northern Democrats' newfound support for the Civil Rights movement, and, during the 1960s, the Republican Party began to shift to the right in opposition to civil rights. In 1964, the GOP chose Barry Goldwater - a staunch conservative and an opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - as their presidential candidate - effectively defeating the Black-and-Tans. 32% of African-Americans voted for Richard Nixon during his 1968 presidential campaign, but the start of the War on Drugs, the gradual defection of most white supremacist Southern Democrats to the GOP over the next few decades, and Ronald Reagan's opposition to federal aid to black communities demolished black support for the GOP.