Let us not lie and revise history. The Republical party did not initiate civil rights. They joined in to help pas civil rights but inititiate it . Give us a break !!
I'm sorry for such an unfounded avalance of tidbits but I came across this on another forum and it seems appropo.
• Democrats fought to expand slavery while Republicans fought to end it.
• Democrats passed those discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
• Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws.
• Democrats fought to keep blacks in slavery and away from the polls, and they started the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize them.
• Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is well known for having been a "Keagle" in the Ku Klux Klan.
• Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage.
• Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil right laws enacted by Republicans.
• Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican, because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks.
• Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913.
• Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first appointment to the Supreme Court was a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama.
• Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt's choice for vice president in 1944 was Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922.
• Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching.
• Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed integration of the armed forces.
• Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr.(father of Al Gore Jr.) and Robert Byrd were the chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
• Democrat public safety commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor, in Birmingham, Ala., unleashed vicious dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators.
• Democrats were who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other protestors were fighting.
• Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox "brandished an ax hammer to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant.
• Democrat Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963, declaring there would be segregation forever.
• Democrat Arkansas Governor Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of Little Rock public schools.
• Democrat Senator John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act.
• Democrat President John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.
• Democrat President John F. Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI.
• Democrat President Bill Clinton's mentor was U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.
• Democrat President Bill Clinton interned for J. William Fulbright in 1966-67.
• Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
• Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
• Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
• Republicans enacted civil rights laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s, over the objection of Democrats.
• Republicans founded the HCBU’s and started the NAACP to counter the racist practices of the Democrats.
• Republicans pushed through much of the ground-breaking civil rights legislation in Congress.
• Republicans fought slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship and the right to vote.
• Republicans pushed through much of the groundbreaking civil rights legislation from the 1860s through the 1960s.
• Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops into the South to desegregate the schools.
• Republican President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
• Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, was the one who pushed through the civil rights laws of the 1960’s.
• Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
• Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing.
• The 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King was organized by A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican.
• Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican.