Originally Posted by detbuch
"Many scholars" have said that Southern whites shifted to the Republican Party due to the issue of preserving States Rights. And there's this:
During his years as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon sought to ensure minorities — especially African Americans — weren’t discriminated against in federal contracts. He also worked with Congress to spearhead the Civil Rights Act of 1957, sweeping legislation and a precursor to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As President, Nixon sought to expand economic opportunities for African Americans by ending discrimination in the work place, through the endowment of black colleges with federal funds, and helping them find meaningful employment through job assistance programs, and promotion of entrepreneurship — an initiative called “Black Capitalism.”
In 1970, Nixon sought to end the decades old and egregious tradition of segregated schools for black and white children throughout the nation, predominantly in the Southern states.
Nixon was VP when the Eisenhower administration accomplished much in the area of Civil Rights. It was President Eisenhower who integrated the armed forces, promoted more blacks into the federal bureaucracy than his predecessors, and appointed federal judges, and lawyers in his justice department, who supported racial justice. In 1954, he integrated Little Rock’s Central High School to enforce the 1954 unanimous Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which held that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” and overturned a half century of Court precedent which stated otherwise.
As VP, Nixon chaired a committee to combat discrimination among contractors retained by the Federal Government. He used his chair to meet and forge relationships with Civil Rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and NAACP director Roy Wilkins; lobby companies to end discrimination; encourage African American ownership of businesses and employment to executive positions.
During his second term as vice president, Nixon shepherded through Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first Civil Rights legislation since reconstruction. The 1957 legislation empowered the Justice Department to prosecute Civil Rights cases through a newly established Civil Rights Division, and allowed federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions when the citizens’ right to vote was being obstructed.
Nixon’s role proved to be crucial in Congress. He was vocal about the administration’s Civil Rights goals, and serving in his Constitutional role as President of the U.S. Senate, he helped lead the effort to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
Though Southern Democrats opposed and blocked provisions that would give the Justice Department authority to protect broad Constitutional rights including school desegregation, and voting rights violations — Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. told Vice President Nixon that it was “much better than no bill at all… we can at least be sure that we are moving steadily ahead.”
King closed the August 1957 letter, writing, “Let me say before closing how deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality.”
In an August 1957 constituent letter, Vice President Nixon expressed disappointment that the Senate had watered down the original version of the Civil Rights bill. However, he did express hope, writing “I am convinced that we shall continue to make real progress toward our goal of guaranteeing rights for every American.”
Some historians say that by the time Nixon was inaugurated in 1969, the nation was its most divided since the Civil War.
One of the pressing issues of Nixon’s first administration was school desegregation. Despite the unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education Topeka (1954) and the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, 80 percent of schools remained segregated throughout the nation’s South.
In 1969, in another unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decided in Alexander v. Holmes County, “to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter unitary schools.”
The Nixon administration chose to adopt the policy position of a unitary school system.
The Nixon administration’s position was to enforce the Brown decision that integration “should take place with all deliberate speed”.
In fall 1969, 600,000 blacks attended desegregated schools in the South; one year later 3 million had been integrated. By percentage in 1968, nearly 70 percent of black children were segregated from their white peers; by the end of Nixon’s first term it was just 8 percent.
President Nixon signed the Voting Rights Act of 1970, nationalizing the 1965 legislation and expanding its reach to northern states.
The Nixon administration ended discrimination in companies and labor unions that received federal contracts, and set guidelines and goals for affirmative action hiring for African Americans. The policy, known as the Philadelphia Plan (from where it originated) — initially included government contracts in excess of $500,000 in the construction trade, and later expanded to include contracts of $50,000 or more in all areas of industry, and quotas for women.
President Nixon signed the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) greater power to enforce against workplace discrimination. Between 1969 and 1972, the EEOC staff had increased from 359 to 1,640 and budget from 13.2 million to $29 million.
Another policy pillar of the Nixon administration was expanding education and economic opportunities for African Americans. To lead this initiative, the President appointed Robert J. Brown, an African American business leader, as a White House special assistant.
Following a meeting with the presidents of black colleges, arranged by Brown, Nixon promised more than $100 million in federal funds for black colleges.
Government assistance to black owned business enterprises also more than doubled. Federal purchases increased from $13 million to $142 million from 1969 to 1971, and total revenues from black businesses jumped from $4.5 billion in 1968 to $7.26 billion in 1972. By 1974, two-thirds of the 100 largest black enterprises had been started during the Nixon administration.
Why would racist southern whites switch their party allegiance for this kind of Republicanism? Especially when their racist federal politicians, with the exeption of one, Strom Thurmond, did not switch parties and remained in the Democrat Party.
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