Update: Fellow Christian conservative Andrew Jackson asks, “Is La Shawn accurate or just selective concerning the Democratic Party?”
Commenter RedBeard says, “This thread isn’t really about defending Republicans as much as it is about condemning the lies told about Republicans.”
I linked to “The Myth of the Racist Republicans” in a previous post but thought it best to move it front and center.
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It’s the nature of humans to downplay the unsavory parts of our past and overplay the good. We can’t help it. We want to look good. We don’t want to be embarrassed. We don’t want others to know how naive, clueless, dumb, shameful or *fill in the blank* we may have been back in the day.
The same applies to groups of humans. Less than stellar aspects of an organization’s past are downplayed or revised for the history books. For example, for much of the Democratic party’s history, it fought against civil rights for blacks, from slavery through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. It fought against the post-Civil War legislation, stalling various bills drafted to give blacks the precious freedom they sought and deserved. It turned hoses and dogs on black people protesting against second class citizenship.
Do you recall watching those grainy black and white films of cops beating down protestors? Chances are, they were Democrats. The man who came to symbolize the water hose tyranny was police chief Bull Connor, Public Safety Commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama, and a staunch Democrat.
The funny thing is you don’t often hear about the Dems’ segregationist past. Reading about this stuff in school, I’d assumed civil rights blockers were “racist Republicans” — you know, those “rich” white men who hate black people? Such assumptions are ingrained, which is why I advised Republicans not to hold their collective breath “courting the black vote.”
Indeed, Republicans have a long history of supporting civil rights, but that’s the part you don’t often hear about. You definitely will hear about President Richard M. Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” which many believe was a blatant attempt to exploit white southerners’ fear and resentment of racial integration. Sadly, this is what people remember about Nixon. Blacks who benefit from race preferences have no idea (unless they’re reading this) that the man behind the policy was a “racist Republican.”
So I wasn’t surprised when I read Larry Leonard’s latest in Oregon Magazine. While watching The History Channel’s “Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History,” he noticed the conspicuous absence of something:
During the first half listen for the political affiliations of Klan members in the North. In Indiana, as well as other locales, you will frequently hear the word “Republican.” Then during the second half of this two hour ‘documentary,’ which features Klan activity in the South during the civil rights days of the Fifties, see if you can tell by the narrative which political party these Klansmen serve. Not even when they are marching in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama (“the city’s law enforcement was known for its working relationship with the Klan”) carrying signs castigating “Martin Luther Coon,” bombing black homes and businesses – and even churches – not during all of these references did I hear the program mention the politics of the Klan members and public and private supporters in the region during those days.
Know from this essay that they were Democrats. The entire South was Democrat in those days. It had been solid Democrat since the Republican, Lincoln, and the Republicans in both houses of Congress had ended slavery and gone to war, literally, against the Secessionists – Democrats to a man.
This is but one reason conservatives are always harping on about “liberal bias.” A documentary about the South’s opposition to desegregation — a politically charged era — which fails to mention that Democrats were opposed to desegregation is hopelessly biased.
Liberals have argued that yesterday’s Dems were conservatives who joined the Republican party in waves during the ’60s. It’s true that some revolted and formed the segregationist Dixiecrat party. In the 1940s. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, left the party to join the segregationist Dixiecrat party in 1948. He joined the Republican party in 1964, a party “notorious” for supporting civil rights legislation. Some racist, eh? (Read the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.)
Both major political parties have their faults, but too often Republicans are demonized as the racists and the Democrats’ sins are whitewashed. Even if we assume that southern Democrats became Republicans for “racist” reasons, the fact remains that Republicans as a group supported civil rights legislation, including the abolition of slavery, and continue to support civil rights for all to this day.
At this point I know better than to expect naysayers to follow links to articles and previous posts (and read them) before they comment on this thread. I can predict with 95 percent certainty what they’ll say before they say it. That’s one of the drawbacks of running a controversial public blog. It tends to attract contrarians who comment only for the sake of being contrary. 
It’s Monday. Surprise me.
- Democratic And Republican Platforms Through The Years
- Dreading Dred Scott
- Two Old Men, Two Different Standards
