Most of the segregationist leaders stayed in the Democratic party. Only two of the old segregationist leaders became Republicans - Helms and Thurmond.
Robert Byrd, the former KKK recruiter, is still a Democrat.
Al Gore's daddy stayed a Democrat.
Clinton's mentor, J William Fulbright, stayed a Democrats.
Sam Ervin stayed a Democrat.
Here's a list of segregationist Senators - see only Thurmond has both a D and R after his name.
Senators
(D)VA Harry F. Byrd, 1933-1965
(D)VA A. Willis Robertson, 1946-1966
(D)MS John C. Stennis, 1947-1989
(D)MS James O. Eastland, 1941-1941, 1943-1978
(D)LA Allen J. Ellender, 1937-1972
(D)LA Russell B. Long, 1948-1987
(D)OK Thomas Pryor Gore, 1906-1921, 1931-1937
(D)AL J. Lister Hill, 1938-1969
(D)AL John J. Sparkman, 1946-1979
(D)FL Spessard Holland, 1946-1971
(D)FL George Smathers, 1951-1969
(D)SC Olin D. Johnston, 1945-1965
(D,R)SC Strom Thurmond, 1954-1956, 1956-2003
(D)AR John McClellan, 1943-1977
(D)GA Richard B. Russell, Jr., 1933-1971
(D)GA Herman E. Talmadge, 1957-1981
(D)TN Herbert S. Walters, 1963-1964
Other prominent Democratic segregationists:
[edit] State governors
Benjamin Travis Laney, Arkansas Governor
Fielding Wright, Mississippi Governor
Frank M. Dixon, Former Alabama Governor
William H. Murray, Former Oklahoma Governor
Mills E. Godwin Jr. Governor of Virginia
Orval Faubus, Governor of Arkansas (1955-1967) during the Little Rock Nine Crisis and presidential candidate.
Jimmy Carter grew up later but made his beginning in Democratic politics fighting busing and defending the "ethnic purity" of neighborhoods.
-------------------------
"I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union."
--Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.
President Truman's civil rights program "is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."
--Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69
"There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will."
--Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75
"The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent."
--Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81
"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."
--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957
"I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race."
--Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.
"I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes."
--Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic Purity of their neighborhoods."
--Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002
"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans."
--James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia
"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."
--Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984
"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."
--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008
"You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."
"My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state."
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."
"There's less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with."
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008
opinionjournal.com |
