Yeah, I’m one of those freaks who actually reads first-person historical data instead of regurgitating politically sculpted textbook pap. Here’s backing facts for that “rewriting of history”. All independently verifiable from period documents, go do your homework if you don’t want to take my word for it.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first major anti-discrimination employment statute, was a Republican bill that was vetoed by Democratic President Andrew Johnson. After the veto was overridden, the southern Democrats began a policy of aiding and abetting Klu Klux Klan violence in order to prevent “colored” voting.
The Enforcement Act, also called the KKK Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, was a Republican bill that authorized extreme measures against the (Democrat controlled) Klan, signed into law by Republican President Grant.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a Republican bill (proposed by Sumner) that would have given Americans of African descent equal access to transportation & accommodations and allowed them to serve on juries. It was struck down by the Supreme Court, with Republican Justice John Marshall Harlan providing the sole dissent.
1896, Plessy vs Ferguson legalizes racial discrimination in education. Again, only Republican Justice Harlan dissents.
The Great War for Civilisation (that’s what my Grandad’s WWI Victory medal says on it) puts everything else on hold for a while.
In the early 20th century legalized racism covers the whole South, all the way to California, where it is primarily directed against Asiatics and American Indians but still has plenty of Democrat-led hatred to dish out to any non-“white” citizenry.
By the 1920s Southern Democrats had turned to “science” to implement their racism, and southern states (led by Virginia) began passing “racial purity laws” that mandated at-birth classification of all citizens as “white” or “colored”. This was quickly followed by a flurry of forced sterilization acts that allowed gelding of the lower classes - with explicit preference for neutering the “inferior” races. It should be noted here that the Yankees also fell in love with eugenics, but it was in the Democratic south that this was primarily a racist movement (rather than more broadly classist).
However, it’s in the late 20s that the worm slowly begins to turn. With the Civil War and Reconstruction over, and in some minds finished, racism becomes an issue that Republicans believe they have “won” by force of arms, and economic issues and the arrival of the dust bowl in the 30s begin to matter more than equal rights for the descendants of slaves. After all, they were freed, weren’t they? What did those lazy southerners want, 30 acres and a mule?
World War Two again puts everything on hold, but provides serious damage to American industrialist heros like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Harvey Firestone, and various DuPonts who have been publicly endorsing Hitler’s racial policies. Huge numbers of African Americans serve in support roles during the war, for example in Navy messes, where they are uniformly called “boy” regardless of age. Many serve valiantly (and of course many don’t, because they are humans after all) and many end up in combat.
In 1948, Republican President Eisenhower unilaterally desegregates the Armed Forces of the USA, probably the most significant act against racism since before the Civil War.
But by 1953, when the integration of the armed forces is complete, there is no “party of racism” or “party of freedom” any more. Both parties are split, and less racist states (primarily Northern) are willing to overlook institutionalized oppression in other (primarily Southern) states while they argue about tariffs, currency, the repeal of the income tax, and other economic issues. Nobody wants to return to the Depression (or the Dust Bowl) and the “temporary” income tax is still going strong, so that’s what Congress talks about while the oppressed population of the South - many now with Army training - bubbles and seethes.
In 1954, Brown vs the Board of Education overturns Plessy vs Ferguson. Republican president Eisenhower uses military force - sending the 101st Airborne to Arkansas - to put down white opposition.
In 1957, the Civil Rights act of that year forces Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson to recognize that the power struggle between the Northern and Southern branches of the party has polarized on the issue of African-American civil rights. Northern Democrats, funded and sustained by organized crime since Prohibition, were pitted against Southern Democrats, funded and sustained by white supremacists and segregationists. It was Yankee industrialism .vs. Cracker agriculturalism once again, but this time there was no Civil War - instead it blew the Democratic party apart, with die-hard racists like Strom Thurmond leaving the party entirely and joining the Republicans - paving the way for open racism to become at least accepted, if not approved, in that party.
With the defection of notable racists to the Republicans, Northern Democrats gleefully proclaimed themselves the party of freedom and opportunity - while doing nothing for other than economic or political reasons. As unions and other labor organizations began to cross racial lines (this was instigated by American communists, BTW) various Democratic and Republican populists began to court the labor voting block, with Democrats mostly winning over time.
Although both major parties today are equally non-racist and anti-human corporate tools, the majority of US racists who consider themselves part of a major party identify as Republicans. This is mostly because of the “dial the phonebook” campaign Jerry Falwell financed for the so-called Moral Majority. A good friend of mine, who was at the time a fanatic Reagan supporter and born-again Christian, programmed the dialer. He says they scooped up every disaffected nutbag they could find and told them that Reagan would make America great again if they just registered and voted Republican - with the implicit understanding that “making America great” meant supporting whatever racist (or other) madness the person on the phone was spewing. Those people are probably now Tea-baggers, I guess.
