sentences:  Sikes entered the publishing business in Crestview, in the Florida Panhandle near Destin and Fort Walton Beach, working in that field from 1933 to 1946.He soon became active in politics, joining the Democratic Party, which was effectively the only party for whites in the state in the early part of his career.At the turn of the century, the Democratic-dominated legislature had passed a new constitution and laws that disenfranchised most African Americans, crippling the Republican Party, of which they had been the majority.