thanks to a brief reference by harry belafonte in dc at yesterday's town hall meeting on poverty, i'm reminded of something i've been meaning to say for a while.
every now and then i hear a gop try to turn african-americans against the dems by talking about the dixiecrats, who fought for racial segregation from within the dem party in the 1950s and '60s.
what they consistently conveniently leave out is that when the dems decided during the '60s to become the party of civil rights, most of the dixiecrats crossed the aisle and joined the gop, which welcomed them with open arms.
their leader, strom thurmond, had left the dems once before, in '48, to form a 3rd party to run against harry truman, who'd integrated the military. as a gop thurmond rose to the top, finishing out his career as president pro tempore.
it didn't come out till after his death that he fathered a child in his 20s by raping a black teenager who worked for his family.
14 hours ago
Thurmond was the biggest racist of all. He knew all about his daughter, but basically bribed her to stay quiet until after he passed away.
ReplyDeleteGood post. (All these old, racist, former southern Democrats are now old, racist, southern Republicans. You're absolutely right.)
Divisive politics. Don't you just love it. We're facing communal politics which capitalizes on religious differences. Assholes make my blood boil. The things some people do for votes.
ReplyDelete