We posted a video showing a document from the presidential election of 1928 demonstrating that the Democrats at that time were hard core racists.

Watch the short video here: “Who’s The Real Racist?”

Democratic apologists instantly posted comments dismissing that claim, arguing that everybody knows that in the 1960s and 1970s, the racists within the Democrat Party left and became Republicans.¹ Is the claim true? Did the racist Democrats become the Republicans in the 1960s and 1970s who took over the south?

According to liberal Wikipedia, throughout the decades of Democratic racism, the South was known as The Solid Democratic South, composed of 16 states plus Washington, D.C., including Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.² So did the racist Democrats switch in the 1960s and 1970s to become the Republicans who took over those states? Definitely not.

How Do We Know?

During the time of Reconstruction, as noted above with the Alabama poster, Republicans controlled the legislatures and were the Party of black Americans. But when Reconstruction ended in 1876, so, too, did Republican control of the South. The Democrats regained the control of those states that they held before the Civil War. So from the time of Reconstruction until the current time, did Republicans control the south in the 1960s and 1970s as critics claim?

Let’s start with Arkansas. It was not until 2012 that Arkansas state government again became Republican controlled.³ Imagine that! From 1874 until 2012 the Arkansas Legislature was Democrat!⁴ The Democrats controlled the state legislature for nearly half-a-century after the so-called shift supposed occurred in the 60s and 70s?

In Louisiana, it was not until 2011 that the state legislature again became Republican.⁵ For decades after the 60s and 70s, it, too, remained Democrat.

Alabama did not become Republican again until 2010.⁶ In Oklahoma, it was 2008.⁷ For Texas, it was 2002;⁸ 1996 for Florida;⁹ 1995 for Virginia;¹⁰ also the 2004 for Georgia; ¹¹ and for North Carolina it was not until 2010 that Republicans controlled the legislature,¹² and for West Virginia it was 2014.¹³

And Maryland, Delaware, and Washington DC continue to remain Democrat legislatures to this day – no alleged Democrat switch in the 1960s and 1970s ever put the Republicans in charge.¹⁴

Who Made The Switch?

If racists made a grand switch in parties from Democrat to Republicans we would certainly have many political leaders we could point to who made the change.

But bottom line is that there is not a big list of individuals in the 60’s and 70’s who switched parties – certainly not enough to shift control from racist Democrats to Republicans.

What is The Cause of the So Called Switch?

Many people who claim racist Democrats switched parties to become racist Republicans believe the change happened during the Civil Rights act under President Lyndon B Johnson.¹⁵ But this is simply not the case. We see no change in the parties during this time.

Martin Luther King Jr., for example, was fighting in the civil rights movement AFTER the laws under LBJ, and he encouraged blacks to support the Republican Party because it was the party of equality. And significantly it was Republicans in Congress, not Democrats, who authored and managed to pass the civil rights laws that LBJ signed.¹⁶

The Bottom-Line

The point of the video was not to indicate that there are no racists in the Republican Party. We can easily acknowledge that racism is part of a sinful human nature and not limited to political parties. However, the Republican Party was not and is not the “Party” of racism.

Actual facts disprove the often repeated and ridiculous defense of Democrat apologists. The Republicans certainly have their own baggage, but these claims are not part of it.

Endnotes

¹ Julian Drury, “Debunking the myth that Republicans love to repeat,” Quiet Mike, December 8, 2013; Lucinda, “How Dixiecrats Became Republicans,” CJOnline, February 5, 2013; Ian Haney-Lopez, “How the GOP became the ‘White Man’s Party’,” Salon, December 22, 2013; among others.

² “Solid South,” Wikipedia (accessed on May 18, 2016).

³ Jim Hoft, “Arkansas Senate & House Goes Republican for the First Time Since Reconstruction,” The Gateway Pundit, November 6, 2012.

⁴ “Arkansas Senate Flips; First Time Since Reconstruction,” The Courier, November 7, 2012.

⁵ “Louisiana State Senate,” Wikipedia (accessed on May 18, 2016).

⁶ “Republicans claim majority in Alabama House and Senate for 1st time in 136 years,” al.com, November 2, 2010.

⁷ Michael McNutt, “Oklahoma’s legislative leaders pledge to work with Democrats,” NewsOK, November 7, 2010.

⁸ “Politics of Texas,” Wikipedia (accessed on May 18, 2016).

⁹ “Florida goes Republican,” The Free Library (accessed on May 18, 2016).

¹⁰ Frank B. Atkinson, “Republican Party of Virginia,” Encyclopedia Virginia (accessed on May 18, 2016).

¹¹ Pema Levy, “Georgia Democrats are Seeing a Glimmer of a Blue Future,” Newsweek, November 4, 2014.

¹² “Republican Party Takes Control Over NC General Assembly,” WECT, November 2, 2010.

¹³ Allan Taylor, “GOP Makes Historic Gains in State Legislature,” MetroNews, November 4, 2014.

¹⁴.“List of United States State Legislatures,” Wikipedia (accessed on May 18, 2016).

¹⁵ Patrick Louis Cooney, Ph. D., “A Racist Party with a Racist Strategy: The Republicans,” The Vernon Johns Society (accessed May 18, 2016); Allen Clifton, “No Longer the Party of Lincoln: Here’s Proof That the Modern Day GOP Built Itself on Racism,” Forward Progressives, June 27, 2015.

¹⁶ Congressional Quarterly (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1965), Vol. 20, pp. 606, 696, 88th Congress, 2nd Session, vote on the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, February 10, 1964.