Simkins noted that Tillman "rose above the handicap of his radical views, his obstreperousness, and the insularity of his issues to become a considerable force in national politics". Historian I. M. Newby deemed Tillmanism the closest thing to a mass movement in the history of white South Carolinians, and one that dominated the state for a generation. "To students of black history and racial equality its most striking features are the extent to which it expressed the desire of white Carolinians to dominate blacks and the fact that much of its unity and force derived from its antiblack racial policies." Tillman's movement took power from the Bourbon Democrats in South Carolina, but a greater price was paid, electorally and in lives, by African Americans.