THE OTHER BILBO'S SHIRE:

Loyalty Needn't Trouble Black Republican (JOSEPH H. BROWN, Jan 5, 2003, Tampa Tribune)

While today's GOP is accused of being opposed to the advancement of black Americans, the Democratic Party of the late 19th and early 20th century made no secret of its antiblack agenda. It held ``white only'' primaries and supported Jim Crow legislation in the South, where 90 percent of blacks lived until the 1920s.

Which is why Frederick Douglass, the most prominent black spokesman following the Civil War, was a staunch Republican. ``The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea,'' Douglass told black Americans. Thus blacks remained loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln for decades.

That began to change with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, even though the Democratic Party remained the home of segregationists. As late as 1960, 35 percent of black voters supported the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. It wasn't until the 1964 election and Barry Goldwater's blatant appeal to racist voters that the divorce of the GOP and black America was finalized.

It's also important to remember that a higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans voted against the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the June 27, 1964, Congressional Quarterly, 61 percent of House Democrats voted for the bill, compared with 80 percent of Republicans. In the Senate, 69 percent of Democrats voted for the bill (46 for, 21 against) vs. 80 percent of Republicans (27 for, six against).

Which may help explain why Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican, received a special award for his remarkable civil rights leadership from Roy Wilkins, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

It's also important to note that even though the Democratic Party was for decades the home of segregationists, the handful of blacks in Congress from the 1930s to the 1960s, including Adam Clayton Powell of New York and William Dawson of Illinois, were all Democrats. If they didn't have to rationalize their party affiliation, neither should Al McCray.

The Goldwater appeal was hardly racist. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 5, 2003 7:13 PM