History: Democrats & Republicans On Civil Rights & Equality
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There is an awful lot of misinformation and untruth out there about the legacy of the two major political parties and the civil rights movement. Conservatives often like to use slight of hand, insisting that because the early Republican party was stronger in support of civil rights, this means that conservatives have the moral high ground. This is totally untrue.
Republicans – Moderate and Liberal Republicans supported civil rights. The Republicans who supported civil rights in America were not conservatives of the same ilk as George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They were liberals and moderates, people like former Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chaffee and former senator governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Conservative Democrats opposed civil rights. The Democrats opposed to the civil rights movement weren’t Democrats with the center-left ideology of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. They were, in fact, conservatives – especially from the south – with far more in common with Limbaugh, Beck, etc. than any modern mainstream Democrat. When people say that someone like notorious segregationist Bull Connor was a Democrat, they are technically right on the party label, but when it comes to ideology Connor and the rest of those opposed to racial integration were conservatives.
Conservatives opposed civil rights. At the time of the civil rights movement, outside of the parties, conservatives were opposed to the civil rights movement. Barry Goldwater, a conservative whose brand of politics would soon take over the Republicans in the guise of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, opposed civil rights law. He claimed that he viewed it as a states rights issue, and actually favored equal rights, but the practical effect of his stance would be to allow segregation – in the south “states rights” meant “Jim Crow.” The conservative intellectual movement – William F. Buckley’s National Review, for instance, opposed what they viewed as law-breaking protests by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Democrats moved left on civil rights, in favor. Over time the Democrats moved to the left on civil rights, meaning they moved with other liberals in favor of them. Southern, conservative Democrats opposed civil rights and the laws were passed by liberal/moderate Republicans and liberal/moderate Democrats. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat.
Conservative Democrats left the party in opposition to civil rights and became Republicans. After the Civil Rights law was signed into law, conservative Democrats left the party. Strom Thurmond, who ran as a segregationist in 1948, became a Republican, as did Jesse Helms (who went on to filibuster against making Martin Luther King Jr. day a federal holiday).
Republicans used racial resentment for elections, while Democrats became more racially inclusive. As the Republican party became more ideologically conservative in the post-Goldwater era, they increasingly used racially divisive politics for electoral gain. The GOP employed what is now known as “the southern stategy” (acknowledged by GOP party chairmen Ken Mehlman and Michael Steele in the last decade) to demonize blacks and other minorities while also riling up the white, male conservative base that forms the party now. Examples include the Willie Horton ad used by Bush Sr. allies vs Michael Dukakis, the “hands” ad used by Jesse Helms, and the nonstop racebaiting versus President Obama from conservative outlets like Fox News and talk radio.
At the same time, the Democratic party became more and more racially inclusive. After civil rights passed, and the GOP became more conservative and increased racial demagoguery, black and other minority voters became Democrats. Every black member of the House of Representatives is a Democrat, and every black senator since 1979 has been a Democrat. The first black president, is of course, Barack Obama – a Democrat.
The parties have changed but the ideology hasn’t. The attempt to co-opt liberal support of civil rights has been a consistent campaign of the right, despite their predecessor’s opposition to the concept. The attempt to say that liberal Republicans of the past are the same as conservative Republicans of today, is just a terrible lie. Conservatives often try to say people like Martin Luther King Jr. would be conservatives. This is entirely untrue. In the last years of his life, Dr. King ran what he called “The Poor People’s Campaign,” and his beliefs would largely be to the left of where the modern Democratic party is, let alone the Republicans.
The Democrats moved away from the conservative position against racial inclusion, while the right moved the other way and has only recently somewhat acknowledged the moral folly of its past. Conservatives opposed civil rights, while liberals favored them. Both ideologies have inhabited majorities in both parties, but the ideological support or opposition to civil rights and equality has largely remained the same.
45 Responses to “History: Democrats & Republicans On Civil Rights & Equality”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
This, this, this THIS THIS!!!!!!!!!!11!!!1! Tired, tired, tired of wingnut Republicans hallucinating a history that never happened.
Only major exception to the racist conservative anti-Civil Rights Act Democrats was the late Robert Byrd, whose lingered on as a permanent embarrassment to the Democratic Party for his racism both before and during his record-setting Capitol Hill career.
Very powerful. Thank you for the much needed historical perspective.
This ties nicely in with your previous post about why conservatives are so afraid of facts
Just waiting for (insert resident wingnut troll) to show up to (insert glen beck revisionist talking point) and to claim that MLK really was a conservative and that the teabirthers are the real heirs to the Civil Rights movement.
Was it you, Oliver, who did the post a while back exploring the idea what if Fox News was around in 1965? That was brilliant.
I think that’s a reference to “Fox News ‘63: Racist Communists Invade Nation’s Capital”
Yes, that’s it. Thanks. It’s so funny because it’s so true. I could imagine Sean Hannity would have J Edgar and Bull Connors on his ‘great American panel’ to decry the communist terrorists such as MLK who are encouraging lawlessness and violence. Sean would ask “why does MLK hate this country? Why cant he be happy riding in the back of the bus? If he gets beat up, well, it’s his fault’
Allow me to preempt the inevitable “Robert Byrd was in the KKK” talking point by noting once again that he repeatedly and unreservedly apologized for that (using no weasel words) whenever anyone asked about it, and followed up those words with the deeds of voting very strongly for civil rights legislation thereafter.
Robert Byrd *was* in the KKK. Was.
Did you hear that the Republican Party is opening a GOP civil rights hall of fame? John Boehner’s arranged for a broom closet in the rotunda.
Southern Democrats weren’t just conservative; on the issue of civil rights, they were segregationists.
From the early 20th century to the Civil Rights & Voting Rights Acts, Democrats were a weird aggregation of Northern and Midwestern ethnic, labor, and non-Protestant Democrats, and segregationist Southern authoritarian Democrats.
This also led to the famous “Conservative Coalition” also for the same time period, meaning that when right wing Southern Democrats united around an issue with Northern and Midwestern (and then Western) business Republicans, they pretty much always won.
Even in 1964, something like 80% — that’s 80% — of Democratic Members of Congress outside the South voted for the Civil RIghts Act.
Actually I was wrong. In the 39 northern States, 100% of Democratic Senators (45 out of 45) and 94% of Democratic Representatives (145 out of 154) voted FOR the Civil Rights Act.
Right on, OW. Next, let’s discuss liberal vs. conservatives in history on Nazi sympathies, the Sherman anti-trust act, the FDA, and oh yeah, slavery.
Next one of these I write will probably be about WWII.
Oliver won’t get to teach history at Beck University
Agree with everything except the bit about Willie Horton. Willie Horton was a convicted murderer serving a lifetime-w/o-parole sentence who was indeed let out on furlough during the Dukakis Gubernatorial administration whereupon raped the same woman twice. Sure the practice was started by the previous, Republican governor but letting Horton, unsupervised, out of jail was, nevertheless, a completely, batshit crazy thing to do.
I keep hearing about race but, if a white guy did this, would it really be any better?
PS: You combine the Willie Horton ad w/Dukakis’s weirdly bloodless, technocratic answer to Hume’s hypothetical question about his wife being raped and killed and it isn’t hard to understand why a lot of Americans decided that they couldn’t trust this guy.
PPS: I voted for Dukakis anyway. Not only am I really a liberal but Dan Quayle scared the living fuck out of me. For a while I was grateful he never got to be president until W was ushered in by the Supreme Court at which point he effectively did.
Don’t forget about the showdown at the DNC in Chicago, when was it, 1968? between the urban, racially inclusive (& civil rights activist) urban community organizers and the conservative, segregationist Southern wing of the party.
It was a seminal moment, followed up by Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in which he used soft money to run a quiet campaign to bring outraged and disappointed white segregationist voters into the Republican party. He ran on a platform of “Law and Order”, a code phrase for using the police power of the white-dominated state to control and intimidate the “unruly” and “uppity” minority populations of this country.
Don’t forget the name, either: Dixiecrats. Dixiecrats voted against the Civil Rights Act, and Dixiecrats switched parties and took their constituency with them.
A pat on the back for Oliver!
Now, when you’re writing your WWII post, don’t forget that it was Liberals and Progressives who locked up citizens and immigrants of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry without trial and confiscated their property.
Oh, and don’t forget that it was also Liberals and Progressives who opposed the development and use of nuclear weaponry on Japan.
And that it is still Liberals and Progressives who spread the myth that the US only dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki because “America” wanted to punish the Japanese.
Otherwise, all your other facts will be moot. Lying by omission is still lying.
And thank you for the excellent examples of lying by omission in your post, Phil.
I think it would probably be more accurate to label our parties as the “Northern” party and the “Southern” party. The south has always been conservative, the north more liberal. The parties did a 180 shift after the New Deal and the civil rights era, to where the Dems and Repubs are practically polar opposites of what they were 100 years ago.
This is the best entry in the history of this site.
This is the best entry in the history of this site.
Damning with faint praise.
Damning with faint praise.
It’ll never be something written by you, Denise, all your capable of is damning when it comes to something that Oliver posts here 99.44% of the time.
Byrd wasn’t “in” the KKK, but served it as a leader for over a decade, filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights for 2 hours. Sorry 18 hours. And did not lose the word “n—-r” from his vocabulary even late into his life, even in front of TV cameras. The man was a racist, but one capable of political success by offering half-hearted apologies to non-West Virginians when convenient. May his name be blotted out.
“He was just trying to get elected.”
My comment is STILL awaiting moderation? And there are additional comments after mine that appear to have made the grad? Geez, how much time do you need?
Does someone, perhaps, have a hard time handling fact-based criticism?
Yours truly,
Lex Luthor
One of many many great things about democrats, liberals and/or progressives, is that civil rights would never have happened if it wasn’t for them.
The site is so horrible, Dennis spends 70% of his life here.
RE: WWII, I’ll also note it was conservatives who made the domestic arguments to leave Hitler alone.
Oliver, do you think this was your best work to date?
And hey, I spelled faint right this time.
Phil, certainly it is true that liberal Democrats, caught up in the fervor of WWII, interned Japanese Americans and others, and that was a huge mistake on their part. But do you honestly think conservatives objected to the internment camps? If so, please enlighten us.
And by the way, you may want to ask conservative hero Michelle Malkin why she believes the internment camps were a-okay.
And did not lose the word “n—-r” from his vocabulary even late into his life, even in front of TV cameras.
And apologized for using the term “white n-word” in front of TV cameras and of course, that was double-plus bad compared to the following:
So, Dennis, by your lights, Thurmond was a better person than Byrd because he never used the N-word in front of a camera, even though he never repented of his earlier segregationist, racist past.
Dennis, you start a blog or something to spread your wisdom on the internets past the deluded fools like Oliver, farafoo, Marco, etc?
I’ve already checked, and http://www.dennistherepublicanrentboy.com isn’t taken yet.
Dennis spends 70% of his life here
Dunno. I might have to respectfully disagree. Dennis likely spends most of his time stalking Sarah and Michele. And he only blogs on company or family time, which of course to Dennis is, “company” or “family” time.
Odd that the usual trolls haven’t jumped in here. C’mon Frank. C’mon Dave. Where are you?
So, Dennis, by your lights,–DA
Sorry to disappoint you and your OC/D tendencies toward me, DA, but that was someone else’s quote, not mine. Watch the World Cup final and try to forget about me for a little while, it will do you some good.
Fine post. Conservatives like to crow about the Congressional GOP supporting CRA 1964 at a higher rate than Congressional Democrats. However, when you look into the matter more closely, you find that non-Southern Democrats supported it at a higher rate than non-Southern Republicans, and even Southern Democrats supported it at a higher, though still tiny, rate than the few Southern Republlicans, not one of whom voted for CRA 1964. What accounts for the lower overall Democratic rate of support, is simply that in Congress Southern Democrats dwarfed Republicans in numbers. Excellent tables here: http://is.gd/d9DvT
In the end, all Republicans can claim is that non-Southern Republicans supported CRA 1964 more strongly than Southern Democrats, but not as strongly as non-Southern Democrats. And that isn’t much to crow about.
Watch the World Cup final and try to forget about me for a little while, it will do you some good.
says the guy who could not restrain himself from posting three comments in this thread during the game despite his belief in the lack of quality in the original post and the blog, in general.
You need a new line, Dennis. You’re too stupid for the “clever” stuff.
Sorry to disappoint you and your OC/D tendencies toward me, DA, but that was someone else’s quote, not mine.
Well, then Denise, I’m sorry that my mistake has led you down the primrose path of psychoanalyzing my feeble efforts here, but since we’re on the subject:
What would you say is wrong with someone who apparently can’t start a blog of their own, but is merely content to greet many, if not all the political posts of a certain blogger with disdain, vitriol and snark; all the while greeting that many, if not all the commentators who agreed with said c.b. in the political arena with differential diagnosis of their mental problems; all done on the basis of their postings to the c.b.’s blog?
Republicans used racial resentment for elections, while Democrats became more racially inclusive.
So so very wrong.
Any party that uses the James Byrd ad can’t accuse others of racial resentment.
Any party that uses the “Every time you vote Republican, another black church burns” ad can’t accuse others of racial resentment.
Any party that continually associates itself with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can’t accuse others of racial resentment.
Any party that continues to allow Harry Reid to remain Senate Majority leader can’t accuse others of racial resentment.
Republicans used racial resentment for elections, while Democrats became more racially inclusive.
So so very wrong.
Except if you’re Lee Atwater:
QED
BTW, SF, the ad you reference was made by the NAACP, which has a history of speaking out and dealing with racial issues, and therefore is a racist organization by conservative standards because why?
It wasn’t made by the Democratic Party.
Keep bringing on the dumbness, SF, we can’t always depend on Dennis, Dave, Jay, or the unlovable Frank DiSilly to reach the lows that you manage to descend to on occasion, like right now………..
just amazing that everyone wants to get on the bandwagon of being for civil liberties (dems & repub), but the plight of the black man is no better than it was 50 years ago when they swore it would change everything.
You forgot to mention that progressives (who are now democrats) used to think the Black race was an inferior race. That has not changed. Progressives still think we need to be taken care of just like we did when we were slaves. (I am sure someone will call me a name for this comment – likely it will be a “progressive”)
We should start talking about how Fox News doesn’t let their audience off the conservative plantation, whatta think of that, WC?
A recent Facebook piece by Sarah Palin http://fb.me/zRa61DYZ made me think of this again. In it, Sarah Palin cites Ronald Reagan as a model of decency on race–the same Ronald Reagan who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968–besides California’s own open housing law. The same Ronald Reagan who appointed William Bradford Reynolds, a foe of civil rights enforcement, as assistant attorney general for civil rights. The same Ronald Reagan who nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court–a man who openly condemned CRA 1964.
There are a number of Republicans who were perfectly decent on racial issues, but many of them were liberal Republicans who are now reviled or forgotten by the dominant ultraconservatives: Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater’s and Reagan’s old nemesis; William Scranton; senators like Clifford Case, Jacob Javits, Charles Goodell, and Thomas Kuchel–all ousted by right-wing Republicans. Bob Dole, elected to Congress in 1960, was also a reliable supporter of civil rights, but he likewise excites next to no-one on the Republican side.
Very powerful. Thank you for the much needed historical perspective
Thanks Dark Avenger but you fail to realize that we were more economically independent 50 years ago than today. I am glad I am in America. The plight of my brothers in Africa is so much greater than what we have here. Also read the recent supreme court ruling about the 2nd amendment. Nice to see Clarence Thomas understands why we can own guns. — Yes I am all over the place on this one…