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I first read about the more disturbing (i.e. waved over in school) details of reconstruction a few years ago in Grant’s biography (really good btw as was Cherno

I first read about the more disturbing (i.e. waved over in school) details of reconstruction a few years ago in Grant’s biography (really good btw as was Chernow’s Hamilton). One of the most shocking events was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1... and also the New Orleans massacre. The klan would violently put down attempts by black peoples to assert themselves politically and would kill the Republicans who helped them in the process.

wrycoder 4y ago
Thank you. I found it on libbyapp.com. I loved Whitman's epigraph at the beginning! It's a mystery to me why the blacks switched to voting Democratic. I can only think that the history they learned in school was falsified, and then they were convinced that the Democratic party was responsible for giving them their civil rights.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > It's a mystery to me why the blacks switched to voting Democratic. Have you considered asking them? > they were convinced that the Democratic party was responsible for giving them their civil rights. Democrat Harry Truman abolished segregation in the federal government and military. Democrat Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Democrat Johnson signed it. The Congressional vote broke down by region: >90% of northern state representatives voted for, >90% of southern state representatives against. This was a big factor in the realignment, where southern Democrats switched to the Republican party. Strom Thurmond for example did so in 1964, and the 1964 presidential election flipped many southern states from Democrat to Republican. (In 1968, many of them went to George Wallace, another former Democrat who left and went independent.) It's true that the Democratic party has a history of racism, and it's also true that Republican Lincoln freed the slaves, but things change over time, and political parties change over time. Today's Republicans are not the party of Lincoln, and today's Democrats are not the Dixiecrats.

wrycoder 4y ago

Thank you. I found it on libbyapp.com. I loved Whitman's epigraph at the beginning! It's a mystery to me why the blacks switched to voting Democratic. I can only think that the history they learned in school was falsified, and then they were convinced that the Democratic party was responsible for giving them their civil rights.

lapcat 4y ago
> It's a mystery to me why the blacks switched to voting Democratic. Have you considered asking them? > they were convinced that the Democratic party was responsible for giving them their civil rights. Democrat Harry Truman abolished segregation in the federal government and military. Democrat Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Democrat Johnson signed it. The Congressional vote broke down by region: >90% of northern state representatives voted for, >90% of southern state representatives against. This was a big factor in the realignment, where southern Democrats switched to the Republican party. Strom Thurmond for example did so in 1964, and the 1964 presidential election flipped many southern states from Democrat to Republican. (In 1968, many of them went to George Wallace, another former Democrat who left and went independent.) It's true that the Democratic party has a history of racism, and it's also true that Republican Lincoln freed the slaves, but things change over time, and political parties change over time. Today's Republicans are not the party of Lincoln, and today's Democrats are not the Dixiecrats.