The keystone of the Southern Strategy was Nixon's working with Strom Thurmond to get his endorsement and behind the scenes support for the 1968 Republican nomination. Nixon's concessions included nominating Supreme Court justices who reflected Thurmond's vies and pulling back on federal enforcement of integration (this was nearly 15 years after Brown.)
Look up Nixon's first two nominations for the Supreme Court: they were from South Carolina and Georgia.
South Carolina and Georgia are not in the upper south.
Nixon's first nominee was Warren Burger, but I see you are referring to two successive failed nominees to fill Fortas' seat. Yes, that is an instance of Nixon wanting to appeal to the South.
The question of what constitutes the Southern Strategy is something of a semantic one, as there was a Dent strategy focused winning the support of the South for Nixon on the nomination and South Carolina with the support of Thurmond, and a Phillips strategy focused on the general election wherein the Outer South is appealed to as one part of a grand national strategy. The latter was what columnist Joe Alsop popularized as the "Southern Strategy" in 68. It is misleading to conflate the two, but perhaps it has to be said more accurately that there were a plurality of Southern strategies, with divisions over whether to follow them. Nixon's advisors certainly did not speak with anything like a singular voice.
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