Civil Rights

The Democratic Party is seen as the “civil rights party” by its supporters, but the facts present an entirely different picture.

It wasn’t liberals who were agitating for the abolition of slavery; it was Northern Quakers and other conservative religious leaders. It wasn’t liberals who formed a major political party to end slavery; it was, again, conservatives in the form of the Republican Party. It wasn’t liberals who were leading the charge to stop lynching, segregation, “black codes,” and Jim Crow laws; and it took nearly 100 years and a fierce Republican-led effort over strident congressional Democrats to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Conversely, it hasn’t been conservatives who have pushed through countless social and “entitlement” programs that continue to keep our black brothers and sisters in bondage, and it hasn’t been conservatives who have been rewarded (with overwhelming support at the polls) by promoting this “soft bigotry of low expectations.” How do we reconcile that support with the record of the Democratic Party on slavery and civil rights?

There were six Democratic presidents during the time between the end of the Civil War and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The first, Grover Cleveland, doesn’t have much to show for eight years in the White House as far as advancing the quality of life for the negro (as they were called then). Of course, there is nothing in his character to presume that he would: He bought his way out of the Civil War, is widely thought to have fathered an illegitimate daughter while in the White House, and married a woman 27 years his junior (scandalous in his time, not so much in ours).

It was a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who signed a law making inter-racial marriage illegal in the District of Columbia, and it was his administration that implemented a policy of segregation in the offices of the Postmaster General, the Treasury, and the Department of Navy. Soon after, photographs were required of all applicants for federal jobs. In defending these actions to black leaders, President Wilson said "The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest.”

Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was apparently also working in the interests of the black man when he upheld segregation, even going so far as to insist that New Deal make-work programs such as the Work Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps were segregated. (Let’s not forget that he also “segregated” Japanese-Americans during World War II by moving them to internment camps. This, too, must have been in the “best interests” of the subjugated.)

FDR also refused to support anti-lynching legislation for fear of upsetting Southern Democrats and losing their support in Congress. But what should we expect from a President who appointed a member of the Ku Klux Klan (Hugo Black) to the Supreme Court?

The impact of the KKK on American society cannot be understated. According to “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White,” by David Barton, the KKK was founded by Democrats and their original targets were Republicans, both black and white. (The first black man elected to Congress was Joseph Hayne Rainey, Republican, in 1870. In fact, from 1870 to 1935 all blacks elected to Congress were Republican; ironically, today there are none.)

“Although it is relatively unreported today, historical documents are unequivocal that the Klan was established by Democrats and that the Klan played a prominent role in the Democratic Party.” says Barton, citing a 13-volume set of congressional investigations from 1872 which “conclusively and irrefutably documents that fact.”

The KKK harassed the GOP for decades. The first Grand Wizard of the KKK was honored at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, and congressional Democrats were consistently able to block anti-lynching bills.

“Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective,” Barton says in his book, pointing out that an estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites were lynched between 1882 and 1964.

The power of government handouts, specifically the New Deal handouts, eventually held sway over something as trivial as civil rights: By 1940 the black vote had swung to the Democrats, where it resides, overwhelmingly, to this day.

To be fair, FDR did eventually sign (in 1941) an executive order establishing the Fair Employment Practice Commission, which prohibited discrimination by governmental agencies. On the other hand, he did absolutely nothing to enforce or advance it.

The Fair Employment Practice Commission was also supposed to desegregate the military, but FDR did nothing to further this cause, either; in reality, it was Harry Truman, the man who ascended the White House upon FDR’s death, who desegregated the Armed Services. He is also the man who ordered the only atomic weapons ever used in war to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To this day, he is still reviled in some leftist quarters for the devastation the bombs caused, even though he probably saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives on both sides by making such a difficult decision.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, another storied Democrat -- he of Profiles in Courage fame and beloved King of “Camelot” -- voted against President Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Act of 1957 as a U.S. Senator. As a presidential candidate he did make campaign promises to support civil rights but once elected he was far less committed. In fact, not a single piece of civil rights legislation was ever signed by JFK.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, who became President upon the death of JFK, was an earthy sort who, privately, referred to blacks as “niggers.” Robert Parker, his longtime black employee and limousine driver, said that LBJ directed bigoted pejoratives at him daily. According to presidential historian Robert Dallek, while liberals were praising LBJ for his appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, he explained his decision to a staff member by saying, “Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he’s a nigger.”

Like JFK, LBJ didn’t support the Civil Rights Act of 1957; in fact, as a U.S. Senator, he diluted President Eisenhower’s legislation to the point where it became little more than an empty gesture. He said, at the time, that he was “strongly and irrevocably opposed to the forced integration of the races.” It was this “opposition” to integration -- apparently. against integration of any kind -- that led him, as Senate Majority Leader, to lead the charge against admitting Hawaii to the Union. The Territory of Hawaii had a non-white majority, and LBJ voted against Hawaiian statehood 22 times.

And, lest we forget, he was the sitting POTUS during the summer of 1965, when the Watts race riots rocked California, and in Newark and Detroit in 1967, and when scores of riots broke out after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

Of course, it isn’t fair to place all of the blame on these Democratic Presidents; after all, it was a highly influential cartel of Democrats (mostly Southern) in the Senate and the House of Representatives who repeatedly blocked, buried or attenuated almost every piece of civil rights legislation for nearly 100 years.

On the other hand, the Republican Party was responsible for winning passage of the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery), the 14th Amendment (not a single Democrat voted for the Amendment, which granted citizenship, life, liberty, property and the due process of law to former slaves), and the 15th Amendment (giving blacks the right to vote), the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, the Reconstruction Acts, and the 1866, 1875, 1957, 1960 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts. (The Civil Rights Act of 1875, which is remarkably similar to that of the 1964 Act, was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883, which declared it unconstitutional because Congress did not have the power to regulate the conduct and transactions of individuals.)

According to the Congressional Research Service, from 1933 to 1964 a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80% of votes cast, while a majority of Republicans favored such bills 96% of the time.

To say that the Parties held -- and undoubtedly still hold -- diametrically opposed worldviews is an understatement. The question is: How is it that Republicans are all but universally acknowledged as The Bad Guys, while Democrats are held in such high regard for their selfless humanitarianism?

REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL READING

Congressional Research Service
www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1964_civil_rights_act
http://www.infoplease.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
“America, the Last Best Hope” Vol I & II, by William J. Bennett
“The Unknown History of Civil Rights” by Wynton Hall, 2/4/08
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
“Wrong On Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past,” by Bruce Bartlett
“Digging Up Democratic Skeletons” by La Shawn Barber, 2/7/08
“Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White,” by David Barton
“The First Black Congresman in the House” by Winkfield F. Twyman, Jr., 12/12/05
www.intellectualconservative.com/article4797.html
“Democrats Have Kept Racism Alive,” by Nina May, 4/2/08
Documentary “Emancipation Revelation Revolution”