• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Were Republicans really the party of civil rights in the 1960s?

calamity

Privileged
Supporting Member
DP Veteran
Monthly Donator
Joined
Feb 12, 2013
Messages
160,900
Reaction score
57,840
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Centrist
Southern Democrats were racists scum. Fact. But, what about the GOP? Were they really the champions of racial equality as the revisionist historians like to argue today?

Heh. Hardly.

You don’t need to know too much history to understand that the South from the civil war to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tended to be opposed to minority rights. This factor was separate from party identification or ideology. We can easily control for this variable by breaking up the voting by those states that were part of the confederacy and those that were not.You can see that geography was far more predictive of voting coalitions on the Civil Rights than party affiliation.

...Nearly 100% of Union state Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act compared to 85% of Republicans. None of the southern Republicans voted for the bill, while a small percentage of southern Democrats did.

Were Republicans really the party of civil rights in the 1960s? | The Raw Story

So, no matter how you slice it, the GOP is the racist party. Little has changed over the years, except that the already racist GOP has acquired even more racists by absorbing all the racist former Democrats.
 
Southern Democrats were racists scum. Fact. But, what about the GOP? Were they really the champions of racial equality as the revisionist historians like to argue today?

Heh. Hardly.



So, no matter how you slice it, the GOP is the racist party. Little has changed over the years, except that the already racist GOP has acquired even more racists by absorbing all the racist former Democrats.

Ehhh...I wouldn't call Republicans the "racist party" back then. I would call any southern politician at the time a panderer to racist. The fact is the vote was pretty much across party lines a regional vote.

Now they definitely were quick to capitalize on Southern Democrats being upset with the Democratic Party. Goldwater followed by the Southern Strategy pretty much was a sign reading "racist can stay here".
 
Southern Democrats were racists scum. Fact. But, what about the GOP? Were they really the champions of racial equality as the revisionist historians like to argue today?

Heh. Hardly.



So, no matter how you slice it, the GOP is the racist party. Little has changed over the years, except that the already racist GOP has acquired even more racists by absorbing all the racist former Democrats.

For someone who identifies himself as a centrist, you sound awfully lot like a hyperpartisan liberal hack.
 
Ehhh...I wouldn't call Republicans the "racist party" back then. I would call any southern politician at the time a panderer to racist. The fact is the vote was pretty much across party lines a regional vote.

Now they definitely were quick to capitalize on Southern Democrats being upset with the Democratic Party. Goldwater followed by the Southern Strategy pretty much was a sign reading "racist can stay here".
Yeah, only 15% of the Yankee GOP voted against the act. That's hardly racist. But, yeah, they quickly hung out the shingle.
 
For someone who identifies himself as a centrist, you sound awfully lot like a hyperpartisan liberal hack.

That's because the modern GOP is nowhere near the Center.
 
"At this point, what difference does it make?" (Hillary Clinton commenting on the deaths of four white American patriots abandoned to die by the president of the United States.)
Wow. A Benghazi reference to counter racism from the back in the 60's. You deserve the prize for most irrelevant counterargument.

I believe the black focus at this present point in time should be in their virtual assured destruction as a contributing culture in America because of Liberal programs which have destroyed their families, homes, jobs, schools and consigned their children to futures of drugs, violence, crime and prison.
Nonsense. There are plenty of Blacks who succeed and contribute.
 
That's because the modern GOP is nowhere near the Center.

With that attitude that exudes from the Left, I am so glad I'm not GOP. 8)

On second thought, take your race baiting insinuations and put them where the sun doesn't shine. :)
 
A memo on race: only whites can be victims, you know. The white alone is persecuted, just like his Savior.
 
The Republican's high water mark for being the party for racial civil rights ended with the start of the Gilded Age. Thereafter it was the legacy of the earlier moments that kept them afloat before the slow transition to the Democratic Party over the course of the next several decades.
 
has nothing to do with republican ,has to do with truth.

It has to do with the truth. The problem in this case is you do not have the truth on your side. Lastly, historical re-writing is a time-honored part of the historical discipline for thousands of years. Let's not belittle a necessary process in order to get a partisan (albeit false) point across.
 
sorry yes he was.....dont try to rewrite history.

if you look you will see many republicans marching with MLK, including Charlton Heston.

How does that make him a republican?
 
funny how MLK, was a republican

and a communist. I really wouldn't lump them in together but you brought up MLK which doesn't really matter in this conversation.
 
All one needs to look at is the fact that republicans are desperate to claim MLK was a republican to figure that he really wasn't.
That and I trust Politifact over Bill O.. in fact, I trust a lot of sources over Bill
 
All one needs to look at is the fact that republicans are desperate to claim MLK was a republican to figure that he really wasn't.
That and I trust Politifact over Bill O.. in fact, I trust a lot of sources over Bill

I would trust Politifact less than reading his own correspondence. King was publicly a figure that wanted to remain viable for any party man to work with him and his coalition. Privately, he at the very least mostly voted for the Democrat, supporting Kennedy and perhaps developing his own democratic socialist tendencies toward the end of his life. Now, he liked some Republicans, and as an advocate that can get people to work with him, you shouldn't discount that in the slightest. That being said, he was not a Republican.
 
You privlege a newsletter over a primary source from the man himself? Please tell me you have more personal correspondence that actually suffices to trump King's own private statements. This is bad form and lazy historical research technique, Ernst.

take the date of your letter.......1956....

Eisenhower fought for rights of blacks in 1957, and L. Johnston stood in the way at that time, he changed his position later.

MLK WAS A REPUBLICAN, IT IS REPUBLICANS WHO MARCHED WITH KING DURING THOSE TIMES, NOT DEMOCRATS.

take a trip out to youtude and look at old videos of republicans standing with MLK
 
Back
Top Bottom