Free Republic

At the 1952 GOP Convention, the outcome of the nomination battle been Sen Robert Taft of Ohio and General of the Army Dwight D Eisenhower would turn on whose delegates would be seated from three Southern states — Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. In this memorable speech, Taft ally Sen Everett Dirksen deployed all of his renowned eloquence for 30 minutes - apparently without notes or teleprompter! - to make the case for the Taft delegates ( and to take a famous swipe at NY Gov Tom Dewey, who was managing the Eisenhower floor campaign, but had “led us down to...

On June 10, 1964, Everett Dirksen (R-IL), the Republican Leader in the U.S. Senate, condemned the Democrats’ 57-day filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Leading the Democrats in their opposition to civil rights for African-Americans was Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who got into politics as a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. At 9:51 on the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Byrd completed an address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier. Democrats still call Robert Byrd “the conscience of the Senate.”

After writing about an MSNBC talking head's comment about the "niggerization of politics" yesterday, and watching the latest threat by the New Black Panther Party against the Republican National Convention, I thought it time to update my posts on racism and the timeline of action and inaction. The following combines some of my previous posts and adds new sources. This is a long post - you can skip to the Timeline for a quicker read if necessary. The video below, Racism in the Democratic Party is well worth watching. In a discussion of Civil Rights in America, how often do...

On this day in 1965, the 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law. Contrary to myth, Republicans supported this law much more than did the Democrats. In the Senate, 94% of Republicans voted in favor, while just 73% of Democrats voted for it. In the U.S. House of Representatives, 82% of Republicans voted in favor, compared to 78% for the Democrats. Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), co-author of the 1965 VRA, helped outmaneuver Democrat opposition: "There has to be a real remedy. There has to be something durable and worthwhile. This cannot go on forever, this denial of the right...