We talked about this over a year ago, but since it continues to come up from time to time, let’s set the record straight again.



The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies – southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.



As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed segregationists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform.



It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition – leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP.



In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond.



The contemporary argument from the right isn’t entirely baseless – Southern Democrats were, for generations after the Civil War, on the wrong side.



The problem, however, is with the relevance of the observation. Which matters more in contemporary politics: that segregationists were Southern Democrats or that segregationists made a new home in the Republican Party in the latter half of the 20th century?



Democrats have no reason to sweep this history under the rug: they eventually got it right, and dispatched the racists to the GOP, which welcomed them in the party fold and slowly turned the Deep South into the party’s strongest region. Indeed, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee conceded just a few years ago that his party deliberately used racial division for electoral gain for the last four decades.



If history ended in the 1960s, Fund and his allies may have a slightly more legitimate point. But given what we’ve seen over the last half-century, the more salient point is that Democrats have been part of the solution, not part of the problem, on race.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-real-party-civil-rights

Fact: No Republican in the House or Senate or President ever owned a slave.(compared to almost every Democrat Did)

Fact: Republicans tried to pass the Civil Rights act in 1860 over 100 years before it was passed forcefully by the Republicans against the Dems who didn't want it in 1964.
In 1860 Andrew Johnson vetoed it twice and then finally passed after being watered down with language that kept lynching legal.

Fact: After the Republicans finally got Blacks integrated into the Federal Government, Woodrow Wilson re-segregated the Federal Govt and made Blacks have separate working areas, bathrooms etc.

Fact: The KKK was made up of ALL Democrats,a little know fact is the KKK's first targets were Blacks and Republicans(over 1200 republicans were killed by the KKK)

Fact: The Democrats were against the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and wanted it to be legal to lynch slaves.
If not for the Republicans, none of those amendments would have passed.

Fact: The Republicans even tried to give slaves reparations in the "40 acres and a mule" or the Freeman Act where the land would be divided up for the slaves. Of course the Democrats quickly stopped that and gave the land back to the plantation owners!

Lastly, It was the Republicans who forced the Democrats into the signing of the Civil Rights act in 1964.
The Dems would still be holding down Black Americans(I still think they do today..just in a more devious way)

And ONLY a handful of Democrats switched over to republican because they saw the writing on the wall. They certainly did not purge their party of the racists!

Since the beginning of this country's history, Republicans have been fighting for equal rights for all Americans, Blacks and Indians(another group the Dems killed and took their land and made them live on reservations)

It seems that "Institutionalized racism" was started, nurtured and encouraged by Democrats for over 150years.
Now all of a sudden they blame Republicans for it which took years and years to embed into government and institutions.


How pathetic are those that blame "institutional Racism" on Republicans.

Republicans have been and always will be for Freedom for EVERYONE!

Fact 1: no one from the sixties on, has owned slaves

Fact 2: 1860s occurred before 1964

Fact 3: Woodrow Wilson was in office long before 1964

Fact 4: The KKK was created by confederates, who were largely democrat BEFORE 1964

Fact5: The fifteenth amdendment was passed in the 1800's, long before 1964

Fact 6: The freedman act is also from the 1800s , long before 1964

Fact 7 : THough republicans supported the civil rights bill by larger percentage than democrats 80% to 63% in the house and 82% to 69% in the senate, both parties had more for than against,,,and it was regional differences that accounted for the gap,,,

with union votes outpacing confederate in the house and the senate
90% to 8% in the house and 92% to 5% in the senate



backing up the point, that the correlation to civil rights support wsa divided by region, and when the confederate region moved to support republicans after Goldwater,,,the democratic party began to separate from southern ideology

Because republicans made it Illegal or the Dems would still own slaves in 1960 and on....

Your very lucky it was before 1964 or you would be in chains

Fact 3: Woodrow Wilson was in office long before 1964

The KKK was started by the Democrats, the first Grand Marshal was a powerful Dem and the KKK was still very active well after 1964!

You wouldn't have the Civil rights without the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments


Such Spin...Ok so once the Republicans passed the Civil rights Act in 1964, somehow a light bulb went off and all the Democrats became good and All the republicans became racists after fighting for civil rights for the last 150 years.

Comon Wine, you act like there was present day gridlock, back then In1964. Republicans did this by themselves??? It was a united decision. Comon your Macharthyisim is showing. Why is Trump down in the poles? case he has been lazy. Now his VP is theating walking.... Do you think he will stop acting like he's off his riddlin?

no Wine


the civil rights issues were aligned unsurprisingly with the union vs the confederacy

when confederates, previously known as dixiecrats, took their vote republican, it cause a great shift in political alignment

the dixiecrats that swung democrats against 'liberal' stances were no longer around,, so the DEMOCRATS began swinging more and more towards liberal stance instead

He is down in pole because of the slanted left media slamming him while they let Hillary walk...as for V.P walking...another ridiculous rumor by the left wing media....give me a break

Actually Ms Harmony the progressives of the early 20th century were behind the eugenics movement.

They hated blacks.. they hated slavs.. they hated catholics.

They hated anyone that was poor..

You do know that Woodrow Wilson was the one that re-segregated the military right?

Was he a southern democrat?

Northern states like Indiana were home to the largest klan memberships during the 1920's.

Take a look at this link... The truth is painful

http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=11704

Just one more tibit about the level of racism of Dems...
After bills were introduced by republicans to ban lynchings, A white democrat racist name Margaret Sanger came up with the brillant plan to get rid of Blacks by sterilizing them and killing their babies. This was first known as the Negro Project.
She opened clinics exclusively in Black neighborhoods to "lynch" blacks before they grow up.
It later became the American Birth Control League and then Planned Parenthood.
One of her famous quotes(or infamous) is:
"Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated."

Just another example of how even to this day Hillary praises her and her work she did....pretty disgusting

Lol well, all I know is either he's been cloned, or he has done an about face! He did look genuine before he read that paper... shaking his head like, wow, your forcing me to do this???

I'm not sure who the 'progressive' party is

I am speaking in political terms about the party vote in government

even if I felt like validating the quotes, which I don't

we are talking one person, and MLK praised her too

so, really not relevant to a discussion about the political party on whole as they relate to civil rights

Let me see if I got this straight: Maddow claims that, after the GOP promoted civil-rights legislation, racist Democrats decided to join the GOP.

What is wrong with this picture?

about the same-thing as with Rachel Madcow's Tampon-Ear-rings!

Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969) was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the House of Representatives (1933–1949) and the Senate (1951–1969).

As Senate Minority Leader for a decade, he played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s, including helping to write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and that of 1968, both landmarks of civil rights legislation.
The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution. Founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854, the Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932.


Democrat.


Democrat.

so, which party has changed it's stripes?

no, after a democratic president signed for civil rights, dixiecrats left the democratic party and were welcomed by republicans

both

democrats lost the vote and loyalty of dixiecrats

republicans welcomed them

and the Republicans became racist. I don't think so.

Enough already. Almost everyone who is arguing against msharmony on this, are completely ignoring the fundamental fact, that over the period of years from Lyndon Johnson's administration up to now, there was a marked, and extremely purposeful shift, by the Republican Party, to move AWAY from support for the ideals that their party was originally created to fight for, and TOWARDS making themselves the party of hatred of one group of Americans against another.

The litany and lists of everything that happened BEFORE Johnson, posted by people who thought they were OPPOSING msharmony, actually 100% supported exactly what she wrote.

Bottom line, that was then. This is now. RIGHT NOW, the Republican Party is OPPOSED to every American citizen having an equal right and ability to vote. They are OPPOSED to everyone of us being equal under the law. And they actively SUPPORT persecution and oppression of one kind of Americans against another kind.

By all means, read and learn where we all came from. But stop pretending silly things, such as that because Lincoln did what he did, that the Republicans of TODAY can pretend that they are just as nice.

You might as well pretend that because Teddy Roosevelt created the National Parks system, that today's GOP can support the destruction of the environment for profit everywhere INCLUDING the parks, because Teddy was so cool.