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Comment by mkempe | Hacker News Reader

Do you realize that it was Democrats, the "left" in US politics, who were opposed to MLK's message of equality and freedom for all? that the battle for Civil Rights was won thanks to Republicans, against Democrats? that it was Democrats who were the anti-abolitionist party?

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> the battle for Civil Rights was won thanks to Republicans

It was more a North-South divide than a party divide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_par...

(Signed into law by a Democrat, incidentally)

> that it was Democrats who were the anti-abolitionist party?

And France had a Napoleon (III) at the helm, but that hardly means a thing today.

> Do you realize that it was Democrats, the "left" in US politics, who were opposed to MLK's message of equality and freedom for all? that the battle for Civil Rights was won thanks to Republicans, against Democrats?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

In the House:

- Southern Democrats voted 94% against it -- but Southern Republicans voted 100% against it.

- Northern Democrats voted 94% for it -- but Northern Republicans voted only 85% for it.

In the Senate:

- Southern Democrats voted 95% against it -- but Southern Republicans voted 100% against it.

- Northern Democrats voted 98% for it -- but Northern Republicans voted only 84% for it.

So, the strongest split wasn't party, but region -- the South was against it and the North was for it. But by party within either region, North or South, the Democrats were more for (or less against) it, while the Republicans were less for (or more against) it.

The Democratic part before the civil right era was vastly different. After the passage of the Civil Rights bill in 1964, the political climate of the party changed drastically, especially in the south[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_South

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Democrats

Don't know why you're being downvoted. You're absolutely correct. The Democratic and Republican parties had polar opposite platforms from their present ones until the Southern Strategy beginning in the late 1960s.

Its actually a lot more complicated than that. Prior to the Southern Strategy by Republicans exploiting this fact (and, really, for several decades after), the Democratic Party -- especially post-New Deal -- was a weird coalition between left leaning groups and southern conservatives (a result of the fact that the national parties were largely coalitions of state parties, and stretching back to the Civil War the Republican Party was the establishment party of the North and the Democratic Party the establishment party of the South, which sort of resulted in the opposite party often being the anti-establishment party in other regions if it existed at all -- and its worth noting that lots of states were effectively one-party states even moreso than is the case anywhere today.)

OTOH, the Southern Strategy was a direct result of Republicans realizing that Democrats were vulnerable in the South because the Democratic Party as a whole was no longer voting in line with Southern conservatives.

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