The other day in the National Review, Kevin Williamson attempted a refutation of the supposedly “popular but indefensible belief that the two major U.S. political parties somehow ‘switched places’ vis-à-vis protecting the rights of black Americans, a development believed to be roughly concurrent with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the rise of Richard Nixon.” Today he posted a blog post defending his article against the critics. Now, I’m a young guy new to trying to explore American history in-depth, so what do I know? But the whole thing seems like a really dense attempt at historical revisionism to me.
Williamson complains that the “GOP has allowed itself to be cut off rhetorically from a pantheon of Republican political heroes, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, who represent an expression of conservative ideals as true and relevant today as it was in the 19th century.” I mean, sure,we could have a nuanced conversation about the conservative or liberal leanings of beloved historical figures who lived during the Third and Fourth Party systems (whatever we might argue “conservative” and “liberal” mean during those time periods). But I think there are more relevant and important facts. Namely:
There’s a direct intellectual line – bright and one-directional – from today’s GOP to the now hagiographic big three – Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, and Ronald Reagan – who were all opposed to civil rights (although sometimes Reagan was for them). There’s an extraordinarily bright line of conservative tradition from the folks in states which supported Strom Thurmond, Barry Goldwater, and George Wallace to conservatives in those states today. That’s not to say conservatives today are racist, but only that if we trace the intellectual development of lay conservatives, the South plays a role in understanding the history.
I’m sure there’s a lot more to this (like looking at MLK and his students, looking at how explicitly anti-Goldwater MLK was, etc.) to discuss, but I just wanted to start by sharing those thoughts.
Me too. Especially since one of his current series, “The Vampire Diaries”, features frequent flashbacks through American history, back to the Civil war.
Goldwater was not anti-Civil Rights. He was opposed to one part of the Civil Rights act which he felt went to far because it regulated businesses not just government and was thus unconstitutional. Before entering politics Goldwater integrated his family’s business and joined the NAACP. He integrated the Arizona national guard two years before the nation’s military was integrated. He consistently supported all of the previous Civil Rights bills that the Democrats fillibustered. His running mate William Miller was one of the authors of the Civil Rights bills of the 1950s. Goldwater supported the Civil Rights Act of 1957 which would have done almost everything the 1964 act did seven years earlier. However, Johnson had the act rewritten to render it toothless. As he said at the time “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"
The only reason LBJ changed his mind about Civil Rights legislation was because he saw the Democrat party was losing its southern monopoly and he did not want to lose the black vote as well. Goldwater was a clear and consistent voice for Civil Rights throughout his career.
Goldwater believed in non-discrimination for private organizations and in his own business was decades ahead of most of America. He did not believe the constitution gave the federal government the power to ban it.
Clearly, these major figures can be accurately and completely characterized as “opposed to civil rights.” :rolleyes:
In your efforts to explore history in-depth, you may want to consider the folowing as a rule of thumb: anyone trying to convince you that there are “bright and one-directional” narratives in history, especially when said narratives paint one group as good guys and another group as bad guys … ignore that guy.
Why are you only quoting how WFB eventually came around to civil rights? So did George Wallace! But you realize of course that George Wallace was for a time against civil rights and that’s part of his legacy. It’s part of WFB’s legacy too.
By the way, never said the narrative was “bright and one-directional.” Please reread.
And yes, Goldwater wasn’t against as many civil rights as the other two; he was still against the civil rights engendered in the Civil Rights Act which puddleglum mentioned. You can maintain those civil rights are unconstitutional and should never have been instituted; that’s your right. But I think the language in the Civil Rights Act is correct: They’re still civil rights.
In Wallace’s case, it is even doubtful whether his avowed racism ever was a matter of sincere conviction or principle, as opposed to cynical political calculation and ambition. I’ve heard there was one episode early in his career when he lost an election, and one of his friends advised it was because he failed to take a hard line on segregation like his opponent had; Wallace then and there vowed, “Well, by God, I’ll never be out-segged again!” (There are variant versions of the quote, but you get the gist.)
Well, that certainly sounds like an unbiased source.
However Robert Caro, who some recognize as knowing a little something about Lyndon Johnson’s life, has a different view.
Johnson didn’t “water down” the 1957 Civil Rights Act - he was the one who pushed it through Congress. If he had wanted to water it down, all he had to do was nothing - they’re hadn’t been any civil rights legislation enacted since Reconstruction. It was in fact considered a major legislative accomplishment for Johnson that he was able to get the act enacted into law.
Nor was there any reason for Johnson to feel he had to “give something” to blacks because they now had “political pull”. Black people didn’t have political pull - that was the whole point. Johnson’s goal was to advance black voting rights so they would finally begin to have some political pull. Johnson said that if black people had voting rights that would give them the power to achieve all their other rights.
And Johnson was reacting to the loss of a political base. He caused that loss by enacting civil rights legislation. That was what drove conservative white voters away from his party. Johnson sacrificed the Democratic Party’s southern monopoly for something he thought was more important - civil rights.
Johnson had a lot of faults. But nobody should falsify history and deny him all the credit he deserves for his noblest acts. In a time when so many other politicians - like Goldwater - were only willing to talk about civil rights, Johnson was the only major political figure who actually did something.
As others have pointed out, everyone - even arch-segregationists like Wallace and Maddox - eventually came around on civil rights. So the issue isn’t who supported civil rights in the eighties and nineties after the hard part of the struggle was over - anyone can join the winning side. The issue is over who was in favor of civil rights - and did something about it - in the fifties and sixties when it mattered.
Yes, I recall that when Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he declared, “We [the Democrats] have just lost the South for a generation.” And he was right.
Why are you issuing flat statements such as “all opposed to civil rights?” As Williamson points out, Lyndon Johnson was opposed to most civil rights legislation, until he wasn’t. Why he doesn’t get the blanket treatment? Is opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for any reason at all, the only thing that matters, forever and ever?
It seems it would be accurate to say that figures in both parties, and indeed both parties generally, have mixed records on civil rights.
True or false:
“The storyline that the two parties “switched places” vis-à-vis protecting the rights of black Americans during the 1960s is a gross oversimplification that obscures many contradictory facts.”
I agree that figures in both parties have mixed records on civil rights, and so of course that storyline is a gross oversimplification.
That wasn’t Williamson’s argument.
His argument was that the GOP was and still is, as he titled his piece, “The Party of Civil Rights.” That modern conservatives are the intellectual heirs of Lincoln, Anthony, and Douglass, as well as those who fought for the civil rights. I’m arguing that “states’ rights” and the racist elements of the South are a crucial element in understanding the development of today’s conservatism, and thus today’s GOP. Again, not to say conservatives are racist, but that the racist southerners who voted for Goldwater, Wallace, and Thurmond are tied up with conservative – and thus, now GOP – history.
I’ll concede to you that I should have written “at least some” before “civil rights” in the OP for clarity.
