[Defiant]

Maybe we should check the exact numbers, but I recall reading a while ago the list of yeas and nays on the Civil Rights Act, by party, and my recollection was that it passed with a majority of Republicans voting for it. Whether a majority of Dems voted for it, I don't recall, but with the solid south voting against it would have been a significant number of Dems voting against.

I also remember reading the letter from the Senate Majority Leader to the Republican Minority leader, thanking him for delivering the votes needed for passage. Or maybe it was from Johnson, I don't recall.

Anyway, even granting your point that blacks who knew the history still joined the Dems, I don't believe it means that the history is irrelevant or should not be taught. You are comparing a largely uneducated, lower class group of 50 years ago that followed the lead of its left-wing elite and who wanted the government benefits that the Democrats promised, to today's black middle class. The assimilated portion of the Black community might be open to argument on the pros and cons of the welfare state for Blacks, so long as they trust the GOP not to be a haven for racists. They now have 50 years of experience about what Democrat social policies and abortion and drugs have done to Blacks. Maybe they will want an alternative, in numbers greater than 10 percent, so long as they know how welcome they have always been.

[puroresu]

The exact numbers on the 1964 Civil Rights Act were Republicans 138-34 and Democrats 152-96 in favor in the House. In the Senate Republicans were 27-6 and Democrats 46-21 in favor. You can find these numbers at Wikipedia. They show a few more non-Southern Dems voting no than I did. I said it was only two and they say it was nine. But that's because they count Kentucky and Missouri as non-Southern states since they didn't secede in the Civil War. But the Dems from those states caucused with the Dixiecrats and voted with them as a block for the most part, so I'll stand by my number of two (Baring of Nevada and Lesinski of Michigan).

You are correct that the Republicans were needed to pass these bills, but that's because they were needed to break the Senate filibuster, which in those days took a two-thirds vote. GOP leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois agreed to instruct his members to side with the leftist Northern Democrats in breaking the filibuster after being assured that the bill would never lead to quotas or reverse discrimination of any kind against whites. We all know how that turned out. Dirksen was also apparently convinced that if the GOP put the bill over, blacks would return to voting Republican as they did prior to the New Deal. We know how that worked out, too.

The next year, BTW, Dirksen instructed his members to vote for the Kennedy immigration bill after being “assured” by Kennedy that the proposal wouldn't change the demographic make-up of the country.

Also, I agree with you that this history isn't irrelevant and that it should be taught. I just don't think there's any political gain for us in telling an arena full of euphoric Obama supporting blacks that MLK was a Republican. They either don't care, or they regard it as ancient history, or they're smart enough to know that MLK was a leftist and his membership in the GOP was “in name only” at best. Does anyone seriously think that King would have voted for Nixon over Humphrey had he lived to vote in the November 1968 elections?

I understand the desire to correct the misperception that the GOP is “racist”. It's fine to highlight the actual record to an extent. But to keep repeating this history over and over when it obviously isn't working is time wasted that would be better spent promoting real black conservatives, rather than deceased leftist blacks who happened to maintain a GOP registration. Blacks aren't going to vote for us in 2008 because some white Democrat in 1916, or even 1965, was a KKK member.

I appreciate your willingness to debate this so politely and intelligently, BTW!