What caused the 180 from Republicans on civil rights?

[Paragon]

If you saw Reconstruction on PBS (or just know your history), you know that after the Civil War, the positions Dems & Repubs take for granted today were largely reversed. Dems largely opposed civil rights and were pretty downright evil about it.

What I don't know (and the PBS doc didn't cover), is WHEN things changed -- when we finally wised up and became the party of equal rights, integration, etc. and when the Repubs reversed course and became the Evil Empire.

Thoughts? Speculations? Links?

[pmbryant]

1. It happened slowly from the 1940s through the 1960s, and then accelerated

I think it started with Harry Truman in the 1940s and his integrating the army. This was the kick that started pushing some of the racist Southern Dems out of the party (e.g., Strom Thurmond).

The process accelerated greatly after LBJ's civil rights bill in 1965, and Nixon's 'southern strategy' election campaign in 1968. Ever since that time, the GOP has made appeal to latent racism a strong part of their message.

EDIT: Also note that the Republicans pretty much abandoned civil rights as an issue after 1876, as far as I know. After that point, neither party seemed to care much about civil rights until the 1930s and 1940s.

--Peter

[many a good man]

9. Right on all points

In 1876 Republicans sold out for political power. The compromise of 1876 gave the presidential election to the Republican who lost the popular vote (and probably the electoral) in exchange for removing troops from the south and ending Reconstruction. They never looked back because there was not any advantage to doing so.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. A cheap labor force.

The Southern States had access to a cheap labor force through slavery. Some say that the Northern states (and Republicans) weren't so much humanitarians in freeing the slaves as they were out to destroy the economic advantage established in the Southern states through slavery.

Now you might say that the Republicans are the ones seeking a cheap labor force and outsourcing our jobs, ever looking for that Holy Grail in business.

[havocmom]

3. ding ding ding

we have a winner.

[mot78]

12. Exactly

The goal of the early Republican party wasn't to abolish slavery(abolitionists were viewed as too radical then) but to keep slaveholders from moving west. However, the Republicans were apologists for anti-slavery figures (John Brown). The Republicans didn't officially support abolition until the Emancipation Proclaimation.

[many a good man]

14. Free labor

I think most historians will disagree with that version. The Civil War was a battle of competing economic visions but the advantage did not lie with the pre-capitalistic south. Capitalism was a much more efficient system than forced labor. With slavery, the "owner" had to provide for his laborer's subsistence and could not lay workers when needed. Slaves were a costly investment that had high maintenance costs that paid labor did not entail.

Free labor is the opposite of slavery; a man has the freedom to offer his labor to anyone who would pay for it. The free labor movement was championed by capitalists and workers alike and was seen as the wave of the future. The feudalistic system in the southern states was holding back the country's economic potential.

[La_Serpiente]

4. Probably the 1964 Barry Goldwater Election

Repub. Gov. Rockerfeller of New York was a liberal for his time.

Goldwater was the racist and extremist at that time and he too was running for the nomination.

I look back on it now and think that if Rockerfeller became the nominee, then the racists could have been purged from the party and they would have started their own political organization. Nixon just exacerbated the problem when he became president in 1968.

Both of them were at the 1964 Rep convention in San Fran trying to get the nomination. Goldwater's crew just took it over and he ended up becoming the nominee.

Wasn't there a black person in the Republican party during the 1960s? I think he was from Massachusettes.

[Tesha]

5. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was a big part of this.

Not the beginning of it, but the final acceleration of it.

Tesha

[JackDragna]

6. It's called "The Southern Strategy."

Blacks made important strides in obtaining their due civil rights during the 50's and 60's. As with any change in government, there has to be a party in power to bring the change upon society. The Democratic Party in the south was left with the responsibility of desegregating schools and other public institutions. As a result, white society in the South saw the Democrats as the party of the blacks. The Republicans, sensing an opportunity to acquire a unified, bigoted voting bloc, ran candidates in the South whose basic campaign thrusts were "We hate the ni##ers just as much as you do." Politicians like Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott were born of this movement. As a result of the Southern strategy, the Democratic party nationwide eventually became the party representing the interests of blacks, women and other minorities as the Republicans continued to villify said minorities to get white voters.

It should also be noted that, although the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, they were always the party of business and by 1900 were pretty much the party of anyone with a little money. When it came time for the downtrodden in this country to demand they be treated like other citizens, it sure as hell wasn't going to be the party of the wealthy coming to their aid.

[i_am_not_john_galt]

8. The significanse of CMB (from a townhall editorial)

The significance of Carol Moseley Braun
Jay Bryant (archive)

January 18, 2004 | Print | Send

Carol Moseley Braun, who ended her presidential campaign this week, is frequently and accurately described as the only African-American woman ever to serve in the United States Senate.

But, assiduous newsreader though I am, I have never seen her identified by the following descriptor, which in addition to being equally accurate is vastly more remarkable:

Carol Moseley Braun is the only African-American Democrat ever to serve in the United States Senate.

Isn't that really astonishing? A political party that for the past seventy years has claimed the allegiance of as many as ninety per cent of the black voters of this country has elected precisely one of them to the Senate. And the only way Moseley Braun won was by challenging and defeating the Illinois Democratic Party's anointed and endorsed candidate – incumbent Senator Alan J. Dixon in 1992.

I paused in mid column just now and did some rough math, which suggests that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all Democrats are African-Americans. So if we applied the concept of affirmative action quotas to the Democratic Senate membership, there should be approximately twelve black Democratic Senators in the current Congress. But in fact, there are none. There weren't any in the last Congress either, or the one before that. Except for Moseley Braun's single six-year term, there have never been any black Democratic Senators.

There have been three black Republican Senators: Hiram Revels, Blanche Kelso Bruce and Edward Brooke.

Read the rest at: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jaybryant/jb20040118.shtml



(edited to comply with not posting the entire article)

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Townhall editorial? As in townhall.com?

Gee, what does the Manhattan Institute, the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation have to say about the subject? As long as we're going to cite conservatives as valid sources, why stop with townhall.com?

[i_am_not_john_galt]

13. Facts are facts

you may agree or disagree with the conclusion (which I did not include), but the poster asks a good question and these facts are relevant (and shameful).

[i_am_not_john_galt]

17. I'll go further

Bush has placed more blacks in higher posts than any other administration. Painting the republicans as racists just doesn't cut it. Sure, there are some reprehensible characters at either end of the spectrum, but for the most part the republicans I know think that there should be nothing more than a level playing field, and the democrats believe the field hasn't been leveled yet so we still need Afirmative Action, etc. But not racists, not on either side in the mainstream.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Bush's appointment are tokens. They are specially selected because

they don't have a mind of their own, or more tragically, they thought they could work within the system. But now people like Powell and the other do-hickey who just left the Senate figured out that the Christian Right racists in your party would never let them have their way. They either burn out, or they become the pigs a la Animal Farm.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Here's one for you:

Which party is more committed to actually passing legislation that would directly help minority communities? And I don't mean self-serving legislation. I mean which party actually has studied the plight of the poor and has enacted legislation based on studies instead of cocktail napkin analysis?

Which party has just gerrymandered minority voting districts so that minority groups can never have a political say in their state? So the dream of getting to the Senate is even more bleak than it ever was before?

You don't have to tell us that the voting public is bigoted in both parties. We already know that, as we know which party has the better remedy and commitment: The Democratic party.

[i_am_not_john_galt]

20. Which party

Passing legislation targeted at helping minorities: Democrats, unquestionably. Repubs have been trying to undo preferential legislation.

Gerrymandering: both parties gerrymander when they can. A tie.

Voting public bigoted: Disagree. There are extremists who are racial supremicists on either end, but in the middle we've become a remarkably pragmatic society about race.

It's not right to label republicans as racists, or the "evil empire" regarding civil rights. They disagree on preferential treatment to level the playing field, but they are clearly not institutionally or even culturally racist.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. All the republican neighbors that I know are racist.

There isn't a one of them who hasn't made derogatory remarks about minorities. Particularly blacks and "those hispanics in Miami." When they hear "welfare queen" they think black. They've referred to their lawn workers as n*****s. They badmouth Puerto Rican kids, too. Where are these Republicans coming from? From the North, mainly.

So my experiences trump your pro-Republican point of view.

[snippy]

28. Facts may be facts but the editorial contains lies.

I know very few republicans who are not racist. Many, many republican voters and republican politicians are racist. This is why republican politicians court racist organizations so slavishly. Haley Barbour and the CCC is a good recent example of this, but the best example of the racism of the republican party occurred in the 2000 South Carolina republican primary when Bush had his campaign spread the rumor that John McCain had what the Bush campaign called a "nigger daughter." How very republican.

[mot78]

16. Townhall.com is owned by the Heritage Foundation

[DrBB]

27. And the cited "facts" don't bear much inspection

See my other post, below.

[Paragon]

11. Alerted

:nuke:

[DrBB]

23. Facts are facts, but this "argument" is crap.

So if we applied the concept of affirmative action quotas to the Democratic Senate membership, there should be approximately twelve black Democratic Senators in the current Congress. But in fact, there are none. There weren't any in the last Congress either, or the one before that. Except for Moseley Braun's single six-year term, there have never been any black Democratic Senators.
There have been three black Republican Senators: Hiram Revels, Blanche Kelso Bruce and Edward Brooke.

Granted. Obviously there is a long tradition of black Americans voting Republican, for rather obvious reasons.

But is this supposed to demonstrate somehow that it is the Republicans who have been more egalitarian, less racist in promoting blacks from within? I submit these facts to the contrary:

Senator Revels: 1870
Senator Bruce: 1875
Senator Brooke: 1967

Not a sterling record on their part either. The whole thread is about what happened after reconstruction--that eliminates two senators: we grant that things were very different back when the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, which they clearly aren't any more. And in modern times: they have one, we have one. Ours was a woman, to boot.

And which party's "southern strategy" has benefited from race baiting since the 60s? Which party has suffered among southern white voters because of championing civil rights in the 60s and 70s?

Try getting your "facts" from a less tortuously biased source than Townhall next time.

[La_Serpiente]

26. And which party has more minorities elected in the House?

It is not just between black and white either. My two Democratic Senators are both ethnic minorities - one Asian American and one Native Hawaiian. I would argue that Democrats have a significantly better record on minority issues than Republicans do (at least in recent history).

And just because a minority gets to a certain place in society doesn't mean that it is representative of all minorities out there. It is not a fair comparison.

[snippy]

30. Question: What kind of ignorant fuck would count only Senators for this?

Answer: An ignorant racist republican fuck.

[i_am_not_john_galt]

32. Actually

if you read the article you will see it is a republican party dude, but he addresses your point. Specifically the house is elected from smaller districts which can be more ethnically homogonous. He focuses on Senator because they are elected statewide and better reflect the base of the party.

But thanks for the kind words.

[DrBB]

33. The "base of the party" in what century???

As I pointed out in my other post, those "facts" don't bear much inspection.

You've got two senators from the reconstruction period--the 1870s f'r cripesake--and one from 1967. Hardly a reflection of the GOP's "base" at any time relevant to this discussion.

But hey, Townhall's kinda slippery that way.

[DrBB]

35. 2 senators from the 1870s, one from 1967

...just to be clear....

[snippy]

34. Governors, state legislators, mayors. city council seats, sherriffs?????

Do you consider the US Senate to be a statistically representative sample of elected positions in the US?

The guy who wrote the article is either an ignorant racist republican fuck, or even more evil, someone who supports ignorant racist republican fucks even though he himself is not.

[Goldom]

7. I was pondering asking the very same thing...

A question I've been wondering for years since it occured to me that the parties were reversed back then... finally, an answer!

[pop goes the weasel]

15. Too little interest in free people

Too much interest in "free" labor, as just another market-dependent commodity.

Many Northerners apparently were under the delusion that, after emancipation, African Americans would continue to work for their former masters, but as wage earners. This did not suit either the former masters, who had no money to pay as wages, or African Americans, who had the same economic desires as white Southerners and thus wanted to run their own businesses or, especially, operate their own small farm. Blacks also had the audacious notion that freedom meant families decided for themeselves who would work and how much, so black wives and children began to stay out of the fields. Whites, North and South, interpreted the attitudes and actions of the former slaves as laziness and haughtiness, two attributes never to be brooked in a drone worker. The former slaves had high hopes of being compensated for their stolen labor by awards of land, but even during the Civil War itself, no "serious" politician entertained such an assault on the sanctity of property values. Re-distribute land to the working masses of the South, and it would be more difficult to resist the call to re-distribute other sorts of productive capital.

In 1873, the nation as a whole went into a serious economic depression. The "free" labor of the North responded to lay-offs and wage-cuts with strikes and increased unionization. Demands for worker-owned production rose, and the cooperative movement expanded, not just in union jargon, but especially amongst small farmers--including tenant farmers and sharecroppers--throughout the nation. At this point, the machinery of state was employed to smash worker solidarity. One way of doing this was through overt violence. The Republican federal government used military force to end the Great Railway Strike in 1877. This was done by the same president who authorized the removal of Reconstruction troops from the South, Rutherford B. Hayes. In this climate, all the "redeemer" Democrats had to do was emphasize that they were merely controlling their work force, and the Republicans of the North let them be.

So, there was no 180 degree change. The objective of a market-dependent labor force had been reached.

[Torrey Pines]

22. In the late 1800's

an agreement was reached between the parties that neither side would push the civil rights issue further. Jim Crow laws were allowed to thrive in the South and other racist practices were overlooked in the North.

In the 1940's, the Northern (less conservative) wing of the Democratic Party began taking tiny steps in the area of civil rights. The Supreme Court struck down laws against mixed marriages, Truman desegregated the military, and in the early fifties, the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education. In the late fifties and more especially in the sixties, the Congress passed some civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act. This civil rights legislation received Congressional support from Northern Democrats and liberal Republicans. Southern Democrats opposed these measures on "states' rights" grounds and conservative Republicans joined them in that effort.

[TheUnknownPoster]

24. Republican/Democrat flip-flop

I don't buy the cheap labor argument. Sure economic differences were influential in the Civil War, but during Reconstruction the Radical Republicans, the majority in Congress, were very activist in passing the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments giving blacks full citizenship.

But after the 1870's Northern white voters just lost interest in civil rights issues and the Republicans became the dominant party, due to their victory in the war, and became identified with Northern industrial interests, a.k.a. the business community and the upper class.

Meanwhile, the Democrats became the party of the South because they were the only opposition to the Yankee invader Republicans, but as they became shutout from national politics they adopted more reformist tendencies, both urban industrial and rural, under the likes of William Jennings Bryan and during the Progressive era.

By the time FDR came around the party was advocating social welfare measures due to the Depression and that brought blacks, long-time Republican voters, into the Big Tent. The differences have only gotten bigger since then.

[pop goes the weasel]

29. "Cheap labor" is the two word answer

But not the actual answer, which is more involved. Part of the problem is that the notion of free labor was seen as a panacea by many in the North before, during, and after the Civil War. Much Southern slavery apologia aimed at pointing out the failings of the free labor argument (without taking notice of the failings of a forced labor system either). Just as today, neoconservatives argue that international free trade, unfettered by national regulations, will usher in an age of global democracy and prosperity (after a period of "difficult" economic transition), free labor advocates believed that merely allowing people to compete in the labor market would address social wrongs.

The 14th and 15th amendments went hand-in-hand with that philosophy. The 14th amendment essentially defined what civic freedom means, and the 15th amendment was supposed to allow black men to protect their civic freedom through the ballot box. Both of those amendments were very controversial in the North, where most states had black codes limiting free blacks' civil rights prior to the Civil War. Yes, there were Republicans who were very strong supporters of equality. They were not, even during the Civil War, the majority of Republicans (The Republicans and the Civil War).

[buckeye1]

25. Just some comments

The New DEAL was very good to the south.
Blacks voted Republican until 1936.
FDR was lobbied to pass a federal anti-lynching law,he didn't do it.(it was possible)
A. Phillip Randolph threatened a march on Washington. He wanted de-segregation of the military.
FDR compromised. He would de-segregate the defense industries. He did.

in 1948 Truman spoke at the Demo convention. It was 3 am est.

He spoke so well. Its on the web somewhere.

The party had split 3 ways. The Dixecrats bolted because of Truman's civil rights ideas.

The left wing fools became "progressive".
Harry beat them all.
One last thing,politics when it works is conflict without violence.

We rail about them,but its a tuff job.
There were hard times before,we prevailed.

One more thing. There were no laws against campaign finance before 1975.

[Paragon]

31. Link to the PBS program

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/

You can watch the entire program online from that link, along with much additional information on the page.