Weaver embarked on a speaking tour across the northern plains and Pacific coast states. In late August, he turned South, hoping to break the Democrats' grip on those states. As in 1880, the issue of race hurt Weaver among white Southern voters, as he sought to attract black voters by urging cooperation between white and black farmers and calling for an end to lynchings. Weaver drew good crowds in the South, but he and his wife were also subjected to abuse from hecklers. Southern Democrats depicted Weaver as a threat to the conservative Democrats in power there; with the increasing disenfranchisement of black voters, this was to prove fatal to the Populists' hopes in the South.