ATLANTA (AP) — From Mississippi retiring its state flag to local governments removing Confederate statues from public spaces, a bipartisan push across the South is chipping away at reminders of the Civil War and Jim Crow segregation.

Now, during a national reckoning on racism, Democratic Party leaders want those symbolic changes to become part of a fundamental shift at the ballot box.

Many Southern electorates are getting younger, less white and more urban, and thus less likely to embrace President Donald Trump's white identity politics. Southern Democrats are pairing a demographically diverse...