In the arsenal of the Democrats is a condemnation of Republican President Richard Nixon for his so-called “Southern Strategy.” These same Democrats expressed no concern when the racially segregated South voted solidly for Democrats for over 100 years, yet unfairly deride Republicans because of the thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party that began in the 1970's. Nixon's "Southern Strategy” was an effort on his part to get fair-minded people in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were discriminating against blacks. Georgia did not switch until 2004, and Louisiana was controlled by Democrats until the election of Republican Governor Bobby Jindal in 2007.
As the co-architect of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, Pat Buchanan provided a first-hand account of the origin and intent of that strategy in a 2002 article that can be found on the Internet at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30233
In that article, Buchanan wrote that when Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column about the South (written by Buchanan), Nixon declared that the Republican Party would be built on a foundation of states rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the “party of Maddox, Mahoney and Wallace to squeeze the last ounce of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice”.
During the 1966 campaign, Nixon was personally thanked by Dr. King for his help in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Nixon also endorsed all Republicans, except the members of the John Birch Society.
Notably, the enforcement of affirmative action began with Richard Nixon‘s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher who became known as “the father of affirmative action enforcement”) that set the nation‘s first goals and timetables. Nixon was also responsible for the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1970’s, including the Equal Employment Act of 1972.
Fletcher, as president of the United Negro College Fund, coined the phrase “the mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Fletcher was also one of the original nine plaintiffs in the famous “Brown v. Topeka Board of Education” decision. Fletcher briefly pursued a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1995.
Nixon began his merit-based affirmative action program to overcome the harm caused by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson who, after he was elected in 1912, kicked blacks out of federal government jobs and prevented blacks from obtaining federal contracts. Also, while Wilson was president and Congress was controlled by the Democrats, more discriminatory bills were introduced in Congress than ever before in our nation’s history. Today, Democrats have turned affirmative action into an unfair quota system that even most blacks do not support.
