Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
Robinson, who lived from 1919 to 1972, was a Republican when millions of other Blacks were Republicans.
Back in those days, the GOP still hung on to its mantra that it was “the party of Abraham Lincoln,” the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious Southern states that had seceded from the Union “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
In 1964, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona challenged Rockefeller and other more liberal Republicans for control of what the right wing called “the white man’s party.” He won the party’s presidential nomination.
Though Goldwater lost the presidential election in a landslide to Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson, he won the hearts and minds of pro-segregation Democrats, the mostly Southern politicians and their followers who had abandoned the Democratic Party when it endorsed legislation during the late ‘50s and '60s to advance civil rights and voting rights for Blacks.
Those who switched parties included U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist and later filibustered for more than 24 hours to prevent passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Goldwater, Nixon and others in the GOP used what they called the “Southern strategy” to leverage the grievances and fears of Southern whites over the Democrats’ groundbreaking proposal that Blacks should have equal rights.
By 1968, Robinson was done with the GOP. He refused to support Nixon when he ran for president again in 1968. He also became more active in the civil rights movement and appeared with King on frequent occasions.
Robinson also became a prolific writer, including a column for the Amsterdam News, a weekly Black newspaper, where he further developed his fierce opposition to the Republican Party.
“I suspect that unless the party showed a desire to win our votes,” he wrote in a letter 1968 to Clarence Lee Towns Jr., the leading Black member of the Republican National Committee, “it may rest assured that I and my friends cannot and will not support a conservative.”
Instead, Robinson supported Nixon’s Democratic rival, Hubert Humphrey. “I have my right to remember that I am Black and American before I am Republican,” Robinson wrote in the Amsterdam News. “As such, I will never vote for Mr. Nixon.”
https://theconversation.com/jackie-...il-the-gop-became-the-white-mans-party-181014
Back in those days, the GOP still hung on to its mantra that it was “the party of Abraham Lincoln,” the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious Southern states that had seceded from the Union “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
In 1964, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona challenged Rockefeller and other more liberal Republicans for control of what the right wing called “the white man’s party.” He won the party’s presidential nomination.
Though Goldwater lost the presidential election in a landslide to Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson, he won the hearts and minds of pro-segregation Democrats, the mostly Southern politicians and their followers who had abandoned the Democratic Party when it endorsed legislation during the late ‘50s and '60s to advance civil rights and voting rights for Blacks.
Those who switched parties included U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist and later filibustered for more than 24 hours to prevent passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Goldwater, Nixon and others in the GOP used what they called the “Southern strategy” to leverage the grievances and fears of Southern whites over the Democrats’ groundbreaking proposal that Blacks should have equal rights.
By 1968, Robinson was done with the GOP. He refused to support Nixon when he ran for president again in 1968. He also became more active in the civil rights movement and appeared with King on frequent occasions.
Robinson also became a prolific writer, including a column for the Amsterdam News, a weekly Black newspaper, where he further developed his fierce opposition to the Republican Party.
“I suspect that unless the party showed a desire to win our votes,” he wrote in a letter 1968 to Clarence Lee Towns Jr., the leading Black member of the Republican National Committee, “it may rest assured that I and my friends cannot and will not support a conservative.”
Instead, Robinson supported Nixon’s Democratic rival, Hubert Humphrey. “I have my right to remember that I am Black and American before I am Republican,” Robinson wrote in the Amsterdam News. “As such, I will never vote for Mr. Nixon.”
https://theconversation.com/jackie-...il-the-gop-became-the-white-mans-party-181014