Civil Rights

Republicans consistently voted in higher percentages for civil rights bills from the 1860s to the 1960s. The Republican Party was founded on March 20, 1854 in opposition to the Democrat Party's position of slavery. Republican President Abraham Lincoln led the Republican Party's Union forces to fight the pro-slavery Confederate Democrats during the Civil War. Democrats remain linked to their racist predecessors. Hillary Clinton's mentor Robert Byrd was a former Ku Klux Klan leader who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as did Bill Clinton's mentor James William Fulbright, and Al Gore's father, Senator Al Gore Sr. Contrary to liberal distortions, both Nazism and Fascism have always been left-wing; indeed the full name for the Nazis in German was nationalsozialismus which literally translates as 'National Socialist Party.' Benito Mussolini, founder of Italy's Fascist Party, was an editor for multiple socialist publications and even at the end of his life continued to advocate for socialism. Both the Nazis and Fascists nationalized healthcare, advocated social Darwinism, and persecuted Christians. The Nazis executed the leader of the Confessing Church Dietrich Bonhoeffer and had 800 protestant pastors and 400 catholic priests arrested.

Civil Rights Legislation
The following is a history of civil rights legislation showing how both parties have voted.

U.S. History
Much key information relating to civil rights has traditionally been left out of major history textbooks (e.g. regarding atrocities done to Native Americans, the Mexican Repatriation, Eisenhower's extensive role in the civil rights movement, King's assassination by the FBI, etc.). The following is needed context to America's history of civil rights which has gone largely unnoticed until now.

Native Americans
U.S. history books have generally glossed over the crimes the U.S. government has perpetrated against Native Americans. Although some of the early colonies practiced peaceful and fair dealings with the Native Americans (see William Penn's 1682 Province of Pennsylvania and Roger Williams' 1641 Province of Rhode Island), they were exceptions, not the rule.

Penn and Williams' Peaceful Colonies

 * See also Separation of Church and State

William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania in 1682 (which included modern-day Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware) walked among the Native Americans unarmed, learned their languages, and insisted on fairly purchasing land from them. Penn's Province of Pennsylvania proved the basis for the later U.S. Constitution.

"Penn achieved peaceful relations with the Indians--Susquehannocks, Shawnees, and Leni-Lenape. Indians respected his courage, because he ventured among them without guards or personal weapons. He was a superior sprinter who could out-run Indian braves, and this helped win him respect. He took the trouble to learn Indian dialects, so he could conduct negotiations without interpreters. From the very beginning, he acquired Indian land through peaceful, voluntary exchange. Reportedly, Penn concluded a "Great Treaty" with the Indians at Shackamaxon, near what is now the Kensington district of Philadelphia. Voltaire hailed this as 'the only treaty between those people [Indians and Christians] that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed.' His peaceful policies prevailed for about 70 years, which has to be some kind of record in American history." -Jim Powell, Foundation for Economic Education

Roger Williams in 1636 founded the Colony of Rhode Island, the earliest successful democracy on American soil, which included the principle of religious freedom (which he exposited in 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience' - 1644 ) because he believed forced worship "stincks in God’s nostrils."

"Eightly, God requireth not an uniformity of Religion to be inacted and inforced in any civill state; which inforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civill Warre, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisie and destruction of millions of souls."

-Roger Williams, 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience'

He also founded America's first Baptist Church in 1638, its first anti-slavery organization, and edited the first dictionary of Native American languages. Williams too walked among the Native Americans unarmed, learned their languages and dialects, and even surrendered himself as a hostage to negotiate peace on several occasions (in the cases of Pessicus in 1645 and Metacom in 1671). Despite his best efforts in 1675 to broker peace between the warring English and Native Americans after the English attacked Native American lands, during which he surrendered himself as a hostage to guarantee the safe return of Chief Metacom, war broke out with both sides committing horrific atrocities. A Wampanoag war party even showed up outside Providence, Rhode Island, and when Williams went out to talk with them, they left him unharmed but attacked and burned the city including Williams' own house. As Williams told them, "That house of mine now burning before mine eyes lodged kindly some thousands of you for these ten years." Left without recourse, Williams would finally turn military commander and defeat the neighboring tribes in battle to protect Rhode Island, driving them out of the area.

Broken Treaties
Other colonies and later states created treaties with the Natives that were broken, or took advantage of the language barrier to steal their land or otherwise defraud them. Examples include the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 and Treaty K, signed during the Gold Rush, which California officials avoided keeping by pressuring the U.S. Senate to refuse ratification during the Gold Rush for the sake of monetary gain. In some cases the early British colonists even gave the Natives smallpox-infected blankets or poisoned their drinking water to kill men, women, and children indiscriminately.

Misconceptions on Scalping
Some Native American tribes were peaceful, such as the Narragansett tribe which welcomed Roger Williams, whereas others were warfaring, enslaving other tribes and killing women and children viciously. Although American culture has normalized the myth of vicious Native American warriors scalping their enemies, the practice was actually normalized (though not invented) by European settlers during the French and Indian War. The British and French forces hired Native American tribes to fight for them against one another, with scalping the method of keeping count, or coup, of how many enemies they had killed. In some cases, European settlers even practiced scalping themselves.

Trail of Tears
One of the worst genocidal actions by the U.S. government was perpetrated by President Andrew Jackson as part of his Indian removal policy. Between 1838 and 1839, 15,000 Cherokees were forcibly evicted from their tribal lands east of the Mississippi River by the U.S. government and forced at gunpoint to march across the United States to a reservation in Oklahoma. 4,000 Cherokees died of disease, fatigue, and starvation during the march.

Genocide Against the Cheyenne
Richard Hardorff in "Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village" describes how the U.S. government repeatedly betrayed the Cheyenne tribe, breaking treaty after treaty with them, before General Custer had them murdered in cold blood in what the 1924 Indian Bureau labeled genocide. As observed by the History Channel, "On November 26, Custer located a large village of Cheyenne encamped near the Washita River, just outside of present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Custer did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne was in the village, or to make even a cursory reconnaissance of the situation. Had he done so, Custer would have discovered that they were peaceful people and the village was on reservation soil, where the commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. There was even a white flag flying from one of the main dwellings, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict... Within a few hours, the village was destroyed–the soldiers had killed 103 Cheyenne, including the peaceful Black Kettle and many women and children. Hailed as the first substantial American victory in the Indian wars, the Battle of the Washita helped to restore Custer’s reputation and succeeded in persuading many Cheyenne to move to the reservation."

"By 1861 Black Kettle realized that the survival of his people depended on peaceful relations with the whites and agreed to sign the Fort Wise Treaty, the first chief to do so. but his trust was shattered at Sand Creek in 1864 with the genocidal attack against innocent men, women, and children by Chivington's volunteer troops. Black Kettle's wife sustained nine bullet wounds but miraculously survived. In October 1865 government commissioners met with Black kettle, who spoke sorrowfully of the people who had died because they had trusted him, adding that his 'shame was as big as the earth.'

Despite the betrayal of his people, Black Kettle continued to pursue peaceful relations with the whites and signed the Treaty of the Little Arkansas, ceding all the lands between the Arkansas and Platte rivers. To compensate the Cheyennes for their sufferings at Sand Creek, each widow and orphan was granted 160 acres of land and each chief received a half-section on the Arkansas reservation. The land provisions were never fulfilled. During a council with Agent Wynkoop in 1866, Black Kettle requested restitution for the six hundred ponies lost at Sand Creek and the return of two Cheyenne children taken captive by Chivington's men. Neither request was honored. Despite threats from the powerful Dog Soldiers, the chief signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, by which the Cheyennes agreed to accept a reservation in Indian Territory...

In October 1868 Black Kettle's band hunted buffalo near the Antelope Hills in the western part of present Oklahoma. Acting upon rumors of troop movements against the Cheyennes, Black Kettle and a small delegation traveled to Fort Coff for a conference with General Hazen. Their request to relocate their people nearer to the agency for protection was denied. Hazen advised them to return to their winter camps and to make peace with the soldiers of General Sheridan. Destiny would not give them that opportunity. on November 27 the bands of Black kettle and Little Rock were annihilated by Custer's brutal dawn attack. Black Kettle and his wife were among the first to die.""

-Richard Hardorff

Custer's Folly
Given General Custer's immoral slaughter of women and children to advance his reputation, it is fitting that his name is best remembered with shame after he walked into an ambush. While U.S. historybooks have long painted this as a "massacre" by vicious Indians, in fact it was Custer who was attempting to once again slaughter women and children. His own cruelty led to his demise. Custer just two years before the Battle of Little Bighorn boasted about how he used the tactic of threatening the lives of women and children to gain victory:

Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.

Lieutenant Edward Settle Godfrey concluded that Custer's unusual detour was part of an attempt to attack what he saw as an undefended camp of women and children, in a repeat of his attack on Black Kettle.

"Custer... expected to find the squaws and children fleeing to the bluffs on the north, for in no other way do I account for his wide detour to the right. He must have counted upon Reno's success, and fully expected the 'scatteration' of the non-combatants with the pony herds. The probable attack upon the families and capture of the herds were in that event counted upon to strike consternation in the hearts of the warriors, and were elements for success upon which General Custer fully counted in the event of a daylight attack."

Unaware of the number of troops below, Custer foolishly rushed to attack, and his 600 men were quickly overwhelmed by more than 3,000 Native Americans; less than an hour later Custer and all of his troops were dead.

1924 Indian Citizenship Act
The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act was signed into law by Republican President Calvin Coolidge following its passage by a Republican-run Congress, finally providing Native Americans with U.S. citizenship. However, no record of the vote count in either the House or Senate has been preserved.

Christian Origins of U.S. Abolition
The early opponents of slavery in the Americas were not liberals but Christian conservatives. Roger Williams established the openly Christian province of Rhode Island in 1641, whose 1663 charter advocated adherence to "gospel principles... in the true Christian faith and worship of God" as well as the first anti-slavery group in the U.S. Although Rhode Island passed a 1652 law prohibiting slavery, by the end of the 17th century it was no longer enforced.

The radically Christian Quakers would prove the primary opponents of slavery throughout early America, figuring prominently in William Penn's Province of Pennsylvania, along with Roger Williams' Rhode Islanders. Christian churches played a prominent role in the Underground Railroad, just as they would do so a century later during the 1950s-60s civil rights movement. The Quakers were the earliest to assist escaped slaves in gaining freedom, with George Washington complaining they had attempted to liberate one of his slaves, but numerous other denominations were involved in the Underground Railroad as well.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Christian beliefs led her to write Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was a primary source of anti-slavery sentiment leading up to the Civil War.

African Slave Trade
African nations, like Native American and European nations (see e.g. the Volga Trade Route and Ottoman Slave Trade), would enslave their conquered enemies in war. Numerous Africans were sold by their enemies into slavery to Americans, but what is not commonly known is that African countries enslaved white Americans for sale in the African slave trade.

Barbary Wars
It was not just whites who enslaved blacks, but blacks who enslaved whites. The Barbary Wars (1801-1805; 1815-1816) occurred because three North African Muslim nations, Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers used their navies to hijack U.S. ships at the beginning of American history when it did not have a navy. Treaties with the three Islamic countries made at the time all show how much influence they held in the bargaining process. Nonetheless, the treaties were broken, resulting in the First and Second Barbary Wars to stop the enslavement of white Americans for the African slave trade.

Moroccan Treaty
A notable exception was Morocco which, unlike the other three nations, acknowledged the right of the fledgling U.S. government to exist. The U.S. treaty with Morocco is one of the United States' oldest unbroken treaties.

Mexican Abolition, Mexican-American War
It is little-known that the Mexican-American War occurred because Mexico outlawed slavery. As Frederick Douglass pointed out in his address at Belfast Ireland, Mexico originally opened its borders to modern-day Texas (then part of Mexico) because it had too much land and not enough settlers. Numerous Americans came in, many of them bringing their slaves. However, Mexico then outlawed slavery in 1829. The ex-American slaveholders attempted to circumvent this by declaring slaves indentured servants, but this too was outlawed by Mexico. Furious, the settlers, led by Sam Austin, petitioned the U.S. government, claiming that Texas wanted to cede from Mexico. U.S. President James Polk, along with the Democratic Party, acceded to the request, knowing that more slave states were needed to protect the institution of slavery at a time when free states were beginning to outnumber the slave states. Thus the U.S. started a war with Mexico to create more slave states out of the captured territory (Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Colorado).

Polk sent U.S. troops to the border between the U.S. and Texas to start a war, and then falsely claimed that Mexican troops attacked first. As a result, three U.S. Presidents all condemned the Mexican-American War because of Democrats' dishonesty in starting a war on false pretenses in the name of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and John Quincy Adams. Ulysses S. Grant even expressed the view that the Civil War was God's divine punishment upon America for its unjust actions in the Mexican-American War, stating, "Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times."

To quote Frederick Douglass:

"They accordingly took their families and slaves to Texas, from the blighted and blasted fields of Virginia—fields once fertile as any under Heaven—(hear)—and which would have still remained so had they not been cursed by the infernal spirit of slavery. We do not hear of much confusion in Texas, until 1828 or 1829, when Mexico after having erected herself into a separate government and declared herself free, with a consistency which puts to the blush the boasted “land of freedom,” proclaimed the deliverance of every captive on her soil. Unlike the boasted republic of America, she did this at an immense cost to her own slaveholders—not proclaiming liberty with her lips, while she fastened chains on the slave—not securing liberty for her own children but also for the degraded bondsman of Africa. This act of the Mexican government was resisted at once by the settlers who had carried their slaves into Texas, though they were bound by a solemn agreement to submit to the laws of Mexico. They remonstrated with the government. They said their slaves were too ignorant and degraded to be emancipated. The Mexican government, desirous to treat amicably with those whom it had welcomed to its bosom, listened to this remonstrance, and consented that the Texian slaves should be only gradually emancipated under a system of indentured apprenticeship. Even this restriction was evaded by the Texians, making the indentures binding for 99 years. In fact they showed themselves to be a set of swindlers. Well, Mexico attempted an enforcement of her law, making it impossible for any man to hold an apprentice more than ten years. This was resisted on the plea that the slaves would not be fit for freedom even then. One would think ten years long enough to teach them the value of liberty, but these wise Americans could not understand how that could be the case. The Texians still persisted in holding their slaves, contrary to the express declaration of their legislature—contrary to the law of the land—to drive them before the biting lash to their hard tasks, day after day, without wages. Again, the Mexican Government attempted to enforce its law, but then Texas revolts—defies the law—and calls upon the people of the United States to aid her in, what they termed their struggle for religious liberty! Yes, they said they could not worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, alluding to the contract entered into by them as professing Roman Catholics. I am not prepared to say whether that contract was a righteous one or not, but, I do say, that after possessing themselves of the land, on the faith of their being Roman Catholics, they should be the last to complain on that score. If they had been honest, they would have said, in regard to their religious opinions, “We have changed our minds; we feel we cannot longer belong to the Church of Rome; we cannot, according to our contract, worship God as our conscience dictates; many of us are Methodists—many are Presbyterians; if you will allow us to worship God as we think right, we will stay in the soil; if not, we feel compelled to abandon it, and seek some other place.” That is the way that common honesty would force them to act, but the people of the United States—and here is one of the darkest acts of their whole history—understanding the terms upon which the Texians had obtained the territory, and well-knowing the exact nature of the contract—offered them the means of successfully resisting Mexico—afforded them arms and ammunition, and even the men who. at San Jacinto, wrested the territory from the rightful owners. Here was an act of national robbery perpetrated, and for what? For the re-establishment of slavery on a soil which had been washed pure from its polluting influence by the generous act of a “semibarbarous” people! The man who goes into your ship on the high seas, puts out the captain, takes down the ensign and declares himself the owner—is no greater robber than the people of the United States. And what are their excuses, their apologies, their reasons—for they always give reasons for what they do? One of them is, that Mexico is unable to defend her territory, and that therefore they have a right to take it! What do you think of a great heavy-fisted fellow pouncing on every little man he meets, and giving as his reason that the little man is unable to take care of himself? We don’t see this pretext made use of in the case of Canada. Mexico, nevertheless, is a sister republic, which has taken that of the United States for a model. But Mexico is a weak government, and that is the reason America falls on her—the British territories are safe because England is strong. Oh, how superlatively base—how mean—how dastardly—do the American people appear in the light of justice—of reason—of liberty—when this particular point of her conduct is exposed! But here there was a double point to be gained—on the part of the Southern planters to establish and cultivate large plantations in the South—and on that of the Northern ones, to support what Daniel O’Connell says should not be called the internal, but the infernal, slave-trade, which is said to be worse than the foreign slave-trade, for it allows men to seize upon those who have sported with them on the hills, and played with them at school, and are associated with them in so many ways and under so many interesting circumstances. This is more horrible still than to prowl along the African shore and carry off thence men with whose faces at least we are unfamiliar, and to whose characters we are strangers. Still the chief object of the Annexation of Texas was the quickening of the foreign slave-trade, which is the very jugular vein of slavery, and of which, if kept within narrow limits, we would soon be rid. But the cry of slavery is ever “Give, give, give!” That cry is heard from New England to Virginia. It goes on, leaving a blighted soil behind—leaving the fields which it found fertile and luxuriant, covered with stunted pines. From Virginia it has gone to North Carolina, and from that to South Carolina, leaving ruin in its train, and now it seizes on the fertile regions of Texas, where it had been previously abolished by a people whom we are wont to call semi-civilized. They say they only want to increase their commerce, and add to their security. Oh what a reason to give for plunder! The pirate of the high seas might make the same excuse." -Frederick Douglass, 1846

Opposition by U.S. Presidents and Republican Party
“Before long, however, the same people -- who with permission of Mexico had colonized Texas, and afterwards set up slavery there, and then seceded as soon as they felt strong enough to do so -- offered themselves and the State to the United States, and in 1845 their offer was accepted. The occupation, separation and annexation were, from the inception of the movement to its final consummation, a conspiracy to acquire territory out of which slave states might be formed for the American Union… The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”

-President Ulysses S. Grant

"You have been, if you are not now, at the very point of a war with Mexico — a war, I am sorry to say, so far as public rumor may be credited, stimulated by provocations on our part, from the very commencement of this administration, down to the recent authority given to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory. It is said that one of the earliest acts of the administration was a proposal, made at a time when there was already much ill-humor in Mexico against the United States, that she should cede to the United States a very large portion of her territory — large enough to constitute nine States, equal in extent to Kentucky.

It must be confessed that a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will, and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed, that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists, from these United States were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of the Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout that republic. The war now raging in Texas is a Mexican civil war, and a war for the re-establishment of slavery where it was abolished. It is not a servile war, but a war between slavery and emancipation, and every possible effort has been made to drive us into the war, on the side of slavery.”

-President John Quincy Adams

“Some, if not all the gentlemen on, the other side of the House, who have addressed the committee within the last two days, have spoken rather complainingly, if I have rightly understood them, of the vote given a week or ten days ago, declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President [James K Polk]. I admit that such a vote should not be given, in mere party wantonness, and that the one given, is justly censurable, if it have no other, or better foundation. I am one of those who joined in that vote; and I did so under my best impression of the truth of the case…. And if, so answering, he [President Polk] can show that the soil was ours, where the first blood of the war was shed—that it was not within an inhabited country, or, if within such, that the inhabitants had submitted themselves to the civil authority of Texas, or of the United States, and that the same is true of the site of Fort Brown, then I am with him for his justification… But if he cannot, or will not do this—if on any pretence, or no pretence, he shall refuse or omit it, then I shall be fully convinced, of what I more than suspect already, that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong, that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against him. That originally having some strong motive—what, I will not stop now to give my opinion concerning—to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood—that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy he plunged into it, and has swept, on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now finds himself, he knows not where. How like the half insane mumbling of a fever-dream, is the whole war part of his late message! At one time telling us that Mexico has nothing whatever, that we can get, but territory; at another, showing us how we can support the war, by levying contributions on Mexico.”

-President Abraham Lincoln

Civil War
The Republican Union fought to free slaves while the South's Democrats fought on the side of the Confederacy to preserve slavery. For decades afterwards, Republican Presidents were exclusively military leaders who had fought in the Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) had been the Union's Commanding General of the U.S. Army. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) was a Brevet Major General. James A. Garfield (1881) was a Major General. Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) was a Quartermaster General. Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) was a Brevet Brigadier General. William McKinley (1897-1901) was a Brevet Major. As the first Republican President in over 40 years to have not served in the Civil War, it's small wonder that Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909) felt so much pressure to be a war hero, given his predecessors, that he engineered the Spanish-American War so he could lead the Rough Riders.

Mexican Repatriation
Millions of illegal immigrants may actually be descended from former U.S. citizens, because up to 2 million U.S. citizens of hispanic descent were wrongfully deported during the Great Depression to free up jobs.

During the Great Depression the U.S. government "repatriated," i.e. deported to Mexico, up to 2 million Mexican-Americans, approximately 50-60% of whom were U.S. citizens. This began under President Herbert Hoover and continued under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, although much of the deportation was done by states such as California. To quote Arthur G. Arnoll, "The slogan has gone over the city and is being adhered to—‘employ no Mexican while a white man is unemployed; get the Mexican back into Mexico regardless by what means.’ All this without taking into consideration the legality of the Mexican’s status of being here. It is a question of pigment, not a question of citizenship or right…"

According to FactCheck.org, 5.6 million were deported during the presidencies of Hoover, Truman, and Eisenhower-FDR's presidency is not addressed. Given how many generations have passed since the 1930s, it is possible that 10 million or more of the so-called "illegals" are actually descended from former U.S. citizens. As such, Mexican-Americans have thrice over had their land taken from them by the U.S. government, firstly because most are descended from Native Americans, secondly because of the Mexican-American War, and thirdly because of the Mexican Repatriation.

Annexation of Hawaii
In 1887 a group of cabinet officials and advisors to King Kalakaua along with an armed militia staged a coup against the ruling monarchy, the Kingdom of Hawaii, which had been recognized as an independent nation by France and Britain since 1843.

Between 1893 and 1898 the U.S. government backed a coup against the Kingdom of Hawaii and its Native residents. U.S. immigrants in the kingdom called upon John L. Stevens, a Republican politician and Hawaiian ambassador, to help take over Hawaii. Stevens had the Marines sent in to depose the Queen of Hawaii's government, resulting in her surrender to avoid loss of life for her subjects. Republican President Benjamin Harrison initially supported the annexation, but when President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, took office, he initially rejected the annexation and forced an investigation. The resulting Blount Report criticized the U.S. government's overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the businessmen who had plotted the whole ordeal.

"In January 1893, a group of American-born businessmen and sugar magnates staged a coup against the Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani. Backed by American marines, the insurgents forced the Queen to abdicate and dissolve the Kingdom of Hawaii, setting the former island nation on the path to eventual statehood. While the coup’s backers quickly declared the country a new Republic, their true goal was to be annexed by the U.S. They got their wish in 1898, when Hawaii was formally annexed by the U.S. and administered as a territory until 1959."

However, when the Spanish-American War broke out, Cleveland conceded to Congressional pressure and annexed Hawaii because the U.S. needed a military base in the Pacific. In 1993 Congress issued the Apology Resolution formally apologizing for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, one of the few times the U.S. has formally apologized for its actions.

Spanish-American War
The U.S. actions towards the Philippines were the result of the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War. The Spanish-American War occurred because Cuba, previously a holding of the Spanish government, rebelled against Spain in a 3-year war for independence. Following the mysterious explosion and sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine off the coast of Havana, the U.S. declared war against Spain. The 4-month war, instigated in part by future President Teddy Roosevelt, who led the 'Rough Riders' into combat, resulted in the Treaty of Paris as Spain ceded Guam and the Puerto Rico to the U.S., and sold the Philippines for $20 million.

Filipino Revolution
However, the Spanish sale of the Philippines did not guarantee Filipino cooperation. On February 4, 1899, two days before the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris, armed conflict broke out between U.S. forces and Filipino rebels led by Emilio Aguinaldo seeking independence. By the time the three-year war concluded, 4,200 American soldiers, 20,000 Filipino militants, and 200,000 Filipino civilians had died, the latter as the result of "violence, famine, and disease."

Atrocities were perpetrated by both sides during the war:

"The war was brutal on both sides. U.S. forces at times burned villages, implemented civilian reconcentration policies, and employed torture on suspected guerrillas, while Filipino fighters also tortured captured soldiers and terrorized civilians who cooperated with American forces."

After the Filipinos adopted guerilla warfare tactics against the vastly superior U.S. military, the U.S. resorted to a strategy called the 'policy of attraction' to defeat the rebels through cultural means.

"Even as the fighting went on, the colonial government that the United States established in the Philippines in 1900 under future President William Howard Taft launched a pacification campaign that became known as the 'policy of attraction.' Designed to win over key elites and other Filipinos who did not embrace Aguinaldo’s plans for the Philippines, this policy permitted a significant degree of self-government, introduced social reforms, and implemented plans for economic development. Over time, this program gained important Filipino adherents and undermined the revolutionaries’ popular appeal, which significantly aided the United States’ military effort to win the war. In 1907, the Philippines convened its first elected assembly, and in 1916, the Jones Act promised the nation eventual independence. The archipelago became an autonomous commonwealth in 1935, and the U.S. granted independence in 1946."

National Socialist Nazi Party
Despite the attempts of liberals in academia to portray Nazism and Fascism as right-wing, in reality they always were left-wing in origin. The German word for Nazi is Nationalsozialismus which literally translates as National Socialist Party. The Nazi platform included nationalized healthcare, retirement, and education even as they opposed capitalism. Scientists like Josef Mengele practiced the Nazi doctrine of Social Darwinism in committing heinous war crimes.

Opposition to Christianity
The Nazis, like other Socialist and Communist nations, opposed religious freedom and Christianity. The leader of the Confessing Church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was arrested and executed, 800 German Protestant pastors were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and 400 Catholic priests were similarly sent to concentration camps. This was due in large part to the influence of the leading Protestant theologian at the time, Karl Barth, openly accusing Nazism of being directly opposed to Christianity.

1940's Academia Acknowledged National Socialists Were Left-Wing
Contrary to the historical revisionism undertaken by liberal academics today, it was openly acknowledged by academia in the 1930s and '40s that Nazism was anti-capitalist and left-wing.

"Not only political democracy, but also economic organization along liberal capitalist lines has been virtually destroyed throughout Europe, at least for the present. Where the Nazi totalitarian economy has not been imposed, it is being imitated. Rumania was reorganized by the Iron Guard in September to conform to the National Socialist program, and Yugoslavia to all intents and purposes gave up its economic independence in October. In the economic field, National Socialism has been more opportunistic than theoretical: increasingly rigid government controls over agriculture, labor, industry and trade have been imposed to meet conditions rather than to conform to a preconceived plan. However, these steps have been taken in conformity with an absolute faith in the supreme importance and authority of the state as expressed through its Fuehrer." -C.E. Noyes, 1940, Editorial Research Reports

"By many [the Papen Cabinet] is regarded as the last hope of combatting National Socialism, which is realised at last, I think, as being more Socialist than National." -John W. Wheeler-Bennett, 1932, International Affairs

"On the other hand, National Socialist and Fascist as well as Bolshevist doctrines claim to have overcome the paradox of knowledge. In reality, however, they contain the same paradox in a new form... National Socialist orthodoxy brings about results which correspond, in structure and form, to those of Bolshevism." -Joseph Florin and John H. Herz, 1940, Social Research

"The common element in the situations of all these different strata was their despair and lack of social and economic security, the wide differential between self-esteem and actual status, between ambition and accomplishment, between subjective claims for social status and the objective possibility of attaining these goals through competitive orientation toward 'market chances,' or opportunities for social ascent through bureaucratic careers. Through the transformation of the Republic into a totalitarian subsidy state, political power seemed to be the decisive instrument for the distribution of market chances and bureaucratic careers." -Hans Gerth, 1940, American Journal of Sociology

"Fascism rose by exploiting the psychological and economic conditions born of the Great War. Wounded nationalism and economic distress were the tides on which Mussolini and Hitler rode to power. Italy had been disappointed in her ambitions for a Mediterranean Empire while France and Great Britain had vastly increased their empires at the Peace Conference and Germany had been condemned to a permanent inferiority in the European State-system. Italian nationalism wanted its 'place in the sun' and German nationalism aspired for an equality of status with the Western Powers. Markets were contracting due to the wave of economic nationalism that swept the world and led to the erection of impassable tariff walls over every frontier. Unemployment was rising. Socialist parties grew in strength and began to challenge the State. They were threatening social revolution. Democratic Governments were utterly unable to face the situation... We need not attempt any lengthy review of the Socialist critique as it is substantially on the same ground as Communism in its attack upon democracy. It holds the property relations in a society to be the ultimate determinant of all other relations in society." -N. Srinivasan, 1940, The Indian Journal of Political Science

Nazism and German Academia

 * See also Germany and Atheism

Modern socialism found its birthplace in Germany with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Herbert Marcuse, considered the father of the 'New Left' is also from Germany. Julius Welhausen, originator of the Documentary Hypothesis, is just one of the many German Bible critics that have sought to minimalize Christianity over the past two centuries. Even as the left would like to write off Nazi Germany as right-wing rather than left-wing, many of the left's heroes and originators ironically began in Germany. Much of modern liberal theory and philosophy originated in Germany.

Prominent German atheists included Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Haeckel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Lowith, and Ludwig Feuerbach. Prominent German Socialists and Communists included Karl Marx, G.W.F. Hegel, Herbert Marcuse (father of the 'New Left'), Karl Kautsky, and Eduard Bernstein. Prominent German Bible critics include Julius Welhausen, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Baron d'Holbach, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Bart D. Ehrman, Eric Fromm, Albert Schweitzer, Bruno Bauer, and Hermann Gunkel.

It is a little-known fact that Nazism was comprised heavily of teachers, particularly elementary-school teachers.

"The teachers-mostly elementary-school teachers-are the best represented of all professional groups composing the Nazi party-97 percent of all German teachers are members of the party or its affiliates. Among the leading former schoolteachers are Reichsminister Bernhard Rust; the Jew-baiter, Julius Streicher; the leader of the Sudeten Germans, Konrad Henlein; the head of the secret police and the Elite Guard, Heinrich Himmler; the late district leader, Hans Schemm; state minister and district leader, Adolf Wagner; and the governor of the two Silesian provinces and district leader of Silesia and South Westphelia, Joseph Wagner. Seven district leaders or vice-district leaders out of the total of 33 are former teachers, 78 out of 760 subdistrict leaders are former teachers, and about 3,000 teachers are local leaders. Altogether there are 160,000 political functionaries, leaders, and subleaders recruited from the ranks of the teachers, mainly the elementary-school teachers. They constituted 32.66 percent of the total of 489,583 political leaders as reported in a party census of May, 1935, or 22.9 percent of the total of 700,000 political leaders reported after the reorganization of the party in 1936-37." -Hans Gerth, 1940, American Journal of Sociology

Fascists and Mussolini
And Mussolini's Fascists? Benito Mussolini started out as a publisher of several Socialist newspapers like Avante! (Forward) and L’Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Worker’s Future). Mussolini was an atheist who praised Karl Marx. Even in his later years Mussolini continued advocating Socialism and claimed that he had attempted to nationalize property but had to delay doing so for wartime purposes.

Socialism and Atheism Genocides

 * See Religion and Wars.

Atheistic socialist and communist governments have killed more people over the last century than those of any other religion. The following analysis includes genocides for other religions from the last several centuries, but all of the atheism genocides have occurred within just the past 100 years.

Eisenhower's Role
Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, perhaps more than anyone else except Martin Luther King Jr., was strongly responsible for sparking the 1960s Civil Rights revolution. Eisenhower as early as 1945 desegregated the armed forces while a five-star general in World War II's Battle of the Bulge. Not content to stop there, Eisenhower then as President desegregated schools, sending in the National Guard to enforce the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Eisenhower then urged Congress to pass the first major civil rights legislation in decades, the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which was originally proposed by his Republican Attorney General Herbert Brownell. Lyndon B. Johnson, a renowned racist who boasted of opposing anti-lynching legislation, would ultimately take credit for Eisenhower's reforms, even though Johnson weakened the reforms that Eisenhower sought.

The 1960s civil rights legislation was in large part a response to Dwight Eisenhower's seven proposed recommendations calling for civil rights reform in 1959. Eisenhower's seven recommendations to Congress were as follows:


 * 1) Legislation making the threatened use of force to obstruct school desegregation a federal offense.
 * 2) Legislation conferring additional investigative powers to the FBI for investing church destruction (e.g. the Birmingham Church Bombing) and making interstate flight to avoid detention or prosecution for such crimes a criminal offense.
 * 3) Legislation authorizing the Attorney General to inspect federal election records and requiring that such records be preserved to prevent disenfranchisement of voters.
 * 4) Temporary assistance programs to aid state and local agencies in desegregating schools.
 * 5) Legislation providing for the education of military children when state-administered schools are closed due to desegregation requirements.
 * 6) Equal opportunity in employment via a "statutory Commission Equal Job Opportunity Under Government Contracts." This would become the EEOC.
 * 7) Legislation extending the civil rights commission.

The King Era
In contrast to today's Democrats and their position on affirmative action, Martin Luther King Jr. did not preach secular values but Christian ones; did not advocate prioritizing certain groups or classes above others per affirmative action but fought for equality; and did not concern himself with politically correct speech but Biblically-based principles such as Jesus' commandment in John 7:24: "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." King was assassinated after the FBI wiretapped him as part of an attempt by Democrat administrations to discredit him. The FBI, headed by dishonest crook J. Edgar Hoover, submitted a report falsely categorizing King as a Communist just weeks before his death, and omitting conversations showing he was opposed to Communism.

Assassinations Timeline
The following is a timeline relating to assassinations (shown in bold) near the time of the civil rights movement:


 * Medgar Evers Assassinated: 1963, June 12. A civil rights activist and head of Mississippi's NAACP, he was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith would not be convicted until 1994 at age 80 after two previous trials failed as the result of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission helping him screen out potential jurors.
 * Robert Kennedy Authorizes King Wiretapping: 1963, October 10. Robert Kennedy, at the time the Attorney General under John F. Kennedy's administration, formally authorized the FBI wiretapping of King that, until that point, had been conducted by the Mobile, Alabama FBI branch since December 1955. The animosity between FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and King reached its peak a few months later in April 1964 when King accused the FBI of being "completely ineffectual in resolving the continued mayhem and brutality inflicted upon the Negro in the Deep South." A few months later on November 18, 1964, Hoover accused King of being the "most notorious liar in the country."
 * Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Du Assassinated: 1963, November 2. The leader of South Vietnam, a repressive dictator, and his brother, who had been backed by Kennedy's administration to counter the North Vietnamese Communist government of Ho Chi Minh, were both assassinated. Although U.S. officials declaimed responsibility, it was later revealed that U.S. officials organized the assassination. The resulting instability would serve as the pretext for Lyndon B. Johnson to begin the Vietnam War.
 * JFK Begins Campaign for 1964 Election: 1963, November 12. On November 12th, JFK held his first important political planning session for the upcoming 1964 campaign. On November 21st, he and the First Lady left for a two-day, five-city tour of Texas.
 * John F. Kennedy Assassinated: 1963, November 22. Kennedy was assassinated just 10 days after beginning his political campaign for the 1964 election. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by an unknown gunman. Kennedy would die at Parkland Memorial Hospital at 1 p.m. According to the testimony of Bertha L. Lozanoa (R.N.) in declassified documents from the Warren Commission, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson showed up at the hospital with numerous police who took control of the area. According to Ms. Lozano, "We tried to get the President's papers and Gov. Connally's papers back to Major Surgery but were not allowed. A volunteer was told 'papers were not important.' The Emergency Room papers were brought back on the President by a volunteer to the Triage Desk, and when I left the desk at the end of the day, the papers were still at the Triage Desk." According to Jacqueline Kennedy in a 1964 interview, John F. Kennedy had recently been discussing with his brother, Robert Kennedy, ways to keep his rival, Lyndon B. Johnson, from becoming the Vice President in the future, just before the assassination. It appears that LBJ, aware he would be passed up in the upcoming 1964 election and not selected for Vice President, chose to have Kennedy assassinated to advance his own political career, and pursue the wars with Vietnam and Cuba Johnson desired that Kennedy was reluctant to initiate.
 * Lee Harvey Oswald Assassinated: 1963, November 24. The alleged gunman responsible for Kennedy's death, Lee Harvey Oswald, was assassinated at point blank range by Jack Ruby while being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. He too would die of his wounds at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Ruby claimed that he assassinated Oswald to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the grief of testifying at his trial. Jacqueline Kennedy, as mentioned, was aware that both JFK and his brother Robert Kennedy were opposed to LBJ's selection as Vice President, so Oswald had to die to prevent Jackie Kennedy from testifying and exposing LBJ.
 * FBI Sends Suicide Letter to King: 1964, November 21. The FBI, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, sent King a letter urging him to commit suicide. Mlk-uncovered-letter.png
 * Malcolm X Assassinated: 1965, February 21. Malcolm X's assassination is the only assassination during the Johnson administration which does not appear to have been perpetrated by Lyndon B. Johnson. Malcolm X had helped popularize the Nation of Islam, whose leader Elijah Muhammad grew the movement by recruiting federal prison inmates while incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan. The Nation of Islam advocated black supremacy, segregation of whites and blacks, and rejected the Civil Rights Movement's emphasis on unity and integration. However, Malcolm X in March, 1964 (the same month that he met Martin Luther King Jr. on the floor of Congress ) left the Nation of Islam and expressed regret for having joined them. Less than a year later he was assassinated by three Nation of Islam members in February, 1965. The only gunman caught, Talmadge Hayer, insisted that the others involved were not Norman Butler and Thomas Johnson, yet Butler and Johnson were railroaded and spent decades in prison.
 * Jack Ruby Assassinated: 1967, January 3. Ruby, the assassin of Kennedy's alleged assassin, was killed just before the start of a second trial by the Texas Court of Appeals challenging his recent death penalty verdict.
 * George Lincoln Rockwell Assassinated: 1967, August 25. Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, was ironically anti-war, capitalist, and in support of black supremacist groups like the Nation of Islam (although ironically only because he opposed desegregation also). In July 1958 he protested President Eisenhower's decision to send troops to the Middle East. Apparently unaware of the self-contradicting irony of his position, he founded the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS) for socialists who oppose state ownership of property. He also donated in support of the Nation of Islam and endorsed its leader, Elijah Muhammad. Rockwell was assassinated by John Patler, who had recently been expelled from the American Nazi Party. Patler, ironically, was expelled from the party for holding "Bolshevik leanings," all because of Rockwell's ignorance and unawareness that the "National Socialist Party" is left-wing to begin with. To see Rockwell's sincere yet seriously confused ideology on display, see his pamphlet, "How to Get Out or Stay Out of the Insane Asylum."
 * Che Guevara Assassinated: 1967, October 9.
 * FBI Report Portrays King as Communist: 1968, March 12. Although FBI wiretapping records reveal that King told his adviser Bayard Rustin in May 1965 that "There are things I wanted to say renouncing communism in theory, but they would not go along with it. We wanted to say that it was an alien philosophy contrary to us, but they wouldn’t go along with it," the FBI concealed this and other evidence from its 1968 report in a dishonest attempt to portray King as a Communist.
 * Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated: 1968, April 4. Less than a month after the FBI report, King was assassinated by James Earl Ray, who shot him with a rifle while he was standing on the second floor balcony of his motel. James Earl Ray was framed for the murder after his appointed defense lawyer coerced him into a false confession which he recanted three days later. Although a Tennessee court ruled in 1999 that Lt. Earl Clark was the real killer and Loyd Jowers was part of a coverup by the Mafia and U.S. government to kill King, the FBI refused to investigate.
 * Robert F. Kennedy Assassinated: 1968, June 5. Robert "Bobby" Kennedy was assassinated after telling Jacqueline Kennedy of his plans to have someone other than Lyndon B. Johnson chosen for the 1968 Presidential Ticket. Following his victory in the California Democratic Primary election, he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan with a revolver at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. RFK's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has expressed the belief that a second gunman was responsible for killing his father. In the words of the Washington Post's Tom Jackman: "Though Sirhan admitted at his trial in 1969 that he shot Kennedy, he claimed from the start that he had no memory of doing so. And midway through Sirhan’s trial, prosecutors provided his lawyers with an autopsy report that launched five decades of controversy: Kennedy was shot at point-blank range from behind, including a fatal shot behind his ear. But Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, was standing in front of him." -Tom Jackman, Washington Post
 * Fred Hampton Assassinated: 1969, December 4. Like King, Hampton, an influential activist in the NAACP and Deputy Chairman of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated following his wiretapping by the FBI. The FBI opened a file on him in 1967 and began tapping his mother's phone in February 1968. The FBI's Chicago office had William O'Neal infiltrate the Black Panther Party to become Hampton's bodyguard and Director of Chapter security, using him to create violent conflicts between the Black Panthers and other groups. Hampton was about to be appointed the Chief of Staff and primary spokesperson for the Black Panthers when he was murdered by the FBI and Chicago Police, who had him drugged with barbiturates so he couldn't resist when they raided his apartment and killed him and his security detail in cold blood. In 1982 the federal government, city of Chicago, and Cook County agreed to a $1.8 million settlement reimbursing nine plaintiffs which included Hampton's mother.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Murderer
Not only King, but numerous other prominent figures related to the civil rights movement were assassinated over a 7-year period that corresponds perfectly with Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration (1963-69). After then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy approved the wiretapping of King on October 10th, 1963, his brother John F. Kennedy was assassinated less than two months later. That Kennedy's assassination was part of a wide-reaching coverup is evident from the fact that Kennedy's alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself quickly assassinated by Jack Ruby, with Ruby himself assassinated on January 3rd, 1967. All three were assassinated and died at the same hospital, Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Robert Kennedy would be assassinated five years later on June 5th, 1968. The clear evidence seems to point to Lyndon B. Johnson heading a range of assassinations of civil rights leaders in conjunction with the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI's report mischaracterizing King as a Communist just weeks before his assassination, following more than a decade of wiretapping which included the FBI sending him a 1964 letter urging him to commit suicide, clearly implicates the Bureau itself. And the timeline of assassination perfectly corresponds with LBJ's administration, with LBJ standing most to gain from John F. Kennedy's assassination. It may be that Robert Kennedy was a part of the initial plot, and was assassinated later along with Ruby to better conceal what had happened, in spite of their willing involvement. That the administration of Parkland Memorial Hospital was involved seems evident not only from the circumstances but also the self-congratulating tone of administrator C.J. Price at the time.

Governor Connally, who was with John F. Kennedy in the limousine when he was shot, was the campaign manager for Lyndon B. Johnson on a number of his campaigns, including Johnson's 1941 and 1948 campaigns. In the 1948 'Box 13 Scandal,' Connally oversaw the controversial Precinct 13 results which showed numerous signs of voter fraud, with the signatures for Johnson in the same handwriting, signed in the same ink, and in alphabetical order. Nonetheless, Johnson would go on to win the election.

Johnson's Racism
Lyndon B. Johnson has ironically received most of the credit for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, even though he weakened the reforms sought by Eisenhower. Johnson opposed every civil rights proposal he faced during his first 20 years in Congress, from 1937 to 1957. Johnson opposed legislation to stop the poll tax, segregation, and lynching during that time. He opposed anti-lynching legislation "because the federal government has no more business enacting a law against one form of murder than against another."

Johnson was an old-school racist southern Democrat whose quotes include the following:

"The [Truman] civil rights program is a farce and a sham—an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill ... I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

"I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." (Said to two governors aboard Air Force One)

"These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again."

Why the Coverup?
The Democratic Party has for decades given Lyndon B. Johnson credit for civil rights reforms. Furthermore, much of America's social welfare system was originated during Johnson's administration, including Medicare (1965) and Medicaid (1965). Johnson's 'Great Society' (1964-65) produced numerous changes through legislation such as the Older Americans Act, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963.

Lyndon B. Johnson's credit for civil rights legislation was crucial to the Democratic Party's continued success. Eisenhower in 1956 had received 39% of the black vote and Nixon received 32% in 1960. However, coinciding with passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, blacks voted 94% for LBJ and the Democrats in 1964. As noted by FactCheck.org, "The following year Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. No Republican presidential candidate has gotten more than 15 percent of the black vote since."

However, it was Republicans who continued voting in higher percentages for civil rights legislation. Even as LBJ weakened Eisenhower's attempted reforms, he took credit for civil rights progress. The 1968 Civil Rights Act included anti-riot provisions designed to stamp out protests by the Black Panthers and those furious with the growing number of assassinations of civil rights leaders. The Chicago Seven, for example, were charged with rioting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in violation of the Act. Judge Hoffman had Bobby Seale, the cofounder of the Black Panther Party, bound and gagged for protesting at the trial, then sentenced him to 4 years in prison.

In essence, the Democrats including LBJ had numerous civil rights leaders murdered, weakened Eisenhower's intended reforms, and passed anti-riot language to stamp out the resulting riots, all while successfully gaining the black vote for nearly a century.

Southern Strategy
To deny their 200-year history of opposing civil rights, the Democrats claim that the parties conveniently switched sides after all the major civil rights legislation had been passed, as though both parties just shook hands and decided to change sides after all the key civil rights legislation had transpired. However, on the face of it this is an absurd claim for clearly the Democrats remain the same party of big government socialism they were during the 1930s when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, yet Republicans continued voting in higher percentages for civil rights legislation into the 1960s, including the 1957, 1960, and 1964 Civil Rights Acts, 1963 Equal Pay Act, and 1965 Voting Rights Act. In other words, it makes no sense to claim a party switch occurred prior to the 1930s, since the Democrats remain wedded to the same socialist programs FDR and LBJ created such as Social Security (1935) and Medicare/Medicaid (1965), yet it makes no sense to claim a party switch occurred prior to the 1970s, because Republicans were still voting in higher percentages for civil rights legislation into the 1960s.

The Nixon Years
The common claim for when an alleged party switch occurred is the 1970s under Richard Nixon, whose political strategist, Strom Thurmond, had switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP. Nixon was successful in appealing to the previously Democrat South, and would go on to successfully win the presidency. The south, previously Democrat, turned Republican, and the north, previously Republican, turned Democrat, around the 1970s. However, as noted by broadcaster Bob Parks and historian Larry Schweikart, this was due to the impacts of the civil rights movement and desegregation. It was the next generation of young southerners who became Republicans; the old racist Democrats, and their descendants, overwhelmingly remained in the Democratic Party.

“The idea that 'the Dixiecrats joined the Republicans' is not quite true, as you note. But because of Strom Thurmond it is accepted as a fact. What happened is that the NEXT generation (post 1965) of white southern politicians — Newt, Trent Lott, Ashcroft, Cochran, Alexander, etc. — joined the GOP. So it was really a passing of the torch as the old segregationists retired and were replaced by new young GOP guys. One particularly galling aspect to generalizations about 'segregationists became GOP' is that the new GOP South was integrated for crying out loud, they accepted the Civil Rights revolution. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter led a group of what would become 'New' Democrats like Clinton and Al Gore.”

-Larry Schweikart

Demographic Changes
Furthermore, Nixon was only able to win the south because it had already begun changing demographically in response to the civil rights movement. Racist Democrats began moving away from the newly desegregated areas in the South in the 1950s and 1960s through a phenomenon known as White Flight. To avoid desegregation in southern cities, racist Southern Democrats moved to the suburbs, and then used discriminatory housing policies to prevent minorities from moving into the areas, policies that continue today.

Few Switched After the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Of the 112 racist Democrats who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, only three of them switched parties afterwards. Had a major party switch by racist politicians occurred during the Nixon years, then more of those racist Democrats should have switched to the Republican Party. The only three that switched, John Jarman, Strom Thurmond, and Albert W. Watson were not enough to substantially change the party demographics when it comes to civil rights.

Democrats Today Linked to the Past
A number of the racist Democrat Senators who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act continued serving into the 1990s, including Charles E. Bennett (1993), Dante Fascell (1993), William Natcher (1994), Jamie Whitten (1995), Sam Gibbons (1997), and Robert Byrd (2010). Furthermore, Democrat politicians today remain inextricably linked to their racist predecessors.


 * Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton's mentor, Robert Byrd, was a former Ku Klux Klan leader and U.S. Senator who, at the time of his death in 2010 was the ranking U.S. Senator third in line for the U.S. presidency. Byrd voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act while a U.S. Senator and even delivered one of the longest filibuster attempts in U.S. history attempting to stop the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, lasting 14 hours, yet Hillary Clinton eulogized him. The fact that the Democrats were led in the U.S. Senate as late as 2010 by a former KKK leader who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act shows they have not changed.
 * Al Gore: The father of Al Gore Jr., Al Gore Sr., was yet another of the racist Democrat U.S. Senators to have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Today's climate change activists are led by the son of a rabidly racist Democrat who opposed civil rights.
 * Bill Clinton: Bill Clinton's mentor, James William Fulbright, was another U.S. Senator who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Bill Clinton delivered his eulogy.
 * Joe Biden: Joe Biden advocated for segregationist, anti-busing legislation in the 1970s, and worked side by side with the old racist Democrats to do so, including U.S. Senator James Eastland, a plantation owner who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Herman Talmadge, another Senator/Governor who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. "Biden didn’t help himself by cracking that Eastland always called him 'son' and not 'boy.' ('You just don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys,’' as Booker noted)."

-Todd S. Purdum, The Atlantic
 * Bill Nelson: U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (FL, 2001-19) was the summer intern for racist Democrat Senator George Smathers (who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act), and also was a roommate of Smathers' son, Bruce Smathers, who also went on to become a Democrat politician (FL Secretary of State 1975-78, FL State Rep. 1972-74).
 * Joseph Lister Hubbard: The 2014 Democrat nominee for Alabama Attorney General and U.S. Representative from 2010-2014, Joseph Lister Hubbard, is the son of racist southern Democrat Joseph Lister Hill, a U.S. Senator who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 * Elizabeth Johnston Patterson: Elizabeth Johnston Patterson is the current Chairwoman of the Spartanburg County Democratic Party, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987-93. Her father, U.S. Senator Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina, was yet another of the racist Democrat U.S. Senators who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 * Sam Ervin IV: Three generations of Democrat politicians, with the original descendant one of the U.S. Senators who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Sam Ervin IV currently serves in the North Carolina Supreme Court. His father, Sam Ervin III, was another Democrat appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by Democratic President Jimmy Carter and served until his death in 1999. And the grandfather, Sam Ervin Jr. was a U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 * Watkins Abbitt Jr.: Watkins Abbitt Jr. served until 2012 in the Virginia House of Delegates as a Democrat, and endorsed Democrat Terry McAuliffe in 2013 for Governor. His father, Watkins Abbitt Sr. voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 * Mary Landrieu: Former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D, 1997-2015) was endorsed in 1996 by racist Democrat U.S. Senator Russell Long, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
 * Gary L. Smith Jr.: Gary L. Smith Jr., a Democrat and Louisiana State Senator, is married to Katherine Mosley, the granddaughter of racist Democrat U.S. Senator Russell Long who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But What About Strom Thurmond?
The one name consistently brought up by Democrats seeking to prove a mass party-switch occurred, with an exodus of racist Democrats going to the Republican Party, is Strom Thurmond. Thurmond, a Democrat U.S. Senator who opposed desegregation and civil rights legislation initially, did indeed move to the Republican Party. Nor was this a temporary change, either. Unlike with the Democrats mentioned above, Thurmond cut ties entirely with the Democratic Party, resulting in both of his sons going on to become Republican politicians as well.

James Strom Thurmond Jr. was the South Carolina Circuit Solicitor for the 2nd district of South Carolina in 2009 and U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina from 2001-05. Paul Thurmond was a member of the South Carolina State Senate from 2013 to 2017.

Thurmond's Daughter
Although Thurmond was a Democrat U.S. Senator who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he changed politically after his mixed-race daughter, Essie-Mae Washington-Williams, brought up concerns about his pro-segregation politics. Thurmond paid for his daughter, who was half-African American, to attend college and financially supported her afterwards as well.

Thurmond Changes From A Segregationist to a Civil Rights Activist
Following their discussions, Thurmond appointed an African-American, Thomas Moss, to his staff. "At the time of his hiring, Moss was the first African-American staffer in the South Carolina congressional delegation and one of the first in Washington." Thurmond then nominated an African-American Judge, Matthew J. Perry (who his daughter subsequently dated), to the U.S. Court of Military Appeals in 1976, becoming the first Southern Senator to nominate an African-American to a federal judgeship. Thurmond then went on to vote to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday, and also voted for the 1982 Voting Rights Act. He additionally employed Armstrong Williams, an African-American syndicated columnist, as an intern in 1980. Thurmond defended Clarence Thomas during his nomination for the Supreme Court and would go on to vote in support of Thomas, just as he had earlier helped Sandra Day O'Connor win nomination to the Court.

Thurmond's case is unusual because he appears to have changed parties due to a major event in his life, the birth of his half-black daughter; whom he then began secretly supporting with funding for her education and career; allowing her to go on to become a nationally-renowned author and teacher. Following conversations with her, he became the first southern U.S. Senator to nominate an African-American to a federal judgeship and also appointed several African-Americans to his staff while voting for civil rights legislation. Out of respect for his wishes, his daughter remained silent about his support until his death, which resulted in him being falsely mischaracterized for decades. It is possible that Thurmond allowed the nation to falsely accuse him for decades, knowing that his new civil rights stances might still be unpopular in his southern district; but for whatever reason he quietly fought to advance civil rights without verbally debunking the accusations against him.

To say that Thurmond's conversion to the Republican Party indicates a party switch of racist politicians is ludicrous in light of the fact that Thurmond's change in parties was accompanied by a simultaneous change in his political attitudes towards civil rights as well, as he subsequently went on to lead the way in pushing southern politicians to support civil rights reform and back African-Americans for public office.

Party Platforms
That the parties remain the same they always were is further evident from an analysis of their mid-1800s party platforms. Democrats have always been the anti-war party of labor unions opposed to civil rights, and have held close ties to the American Federation of Labor since the early 1990s. Republicans have always been the party of the military, banks, and business. Democrats have always advocated free trade whereas Republicans have historically been the party of tariffs and protectionism, positions which the parties maintain today. Republicans have always been for reduced spending and a gold standard.

Mid-1800s
Democrats at the time of the Civil War held many of the same positions they do today, as did Republicans.

Democrats
Democrats argued against a national bank as existing to benefit business. Democrats accused Republicans of "religious test[s]" designed to benefit Protestants against Catholics and immigrants. The crux of the argument for slavery was the same as that made today for abortion, that Congress has no right "to interfere with or control" the affairs of the states concerning slavery. Similarly Democrats today resist any federal legislation regulating abortion, and insist that it should be left to the states and the courts. They argued for "free seas and progressive free trade throughout the world" whereas Republicans have historically been the party in favor of tariffs and trade restrictions.

"1. That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions."

"7. That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power, and above the laws and the will of the people; and that the results of Democratic legislation in this and all other financial measures upon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the country, have demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties, their soundness, safety, and utility, in all business pursuits."

"And Whereas, Since the foregoing declaration was uniformly adopted by our predecessors in National Conventions, an adverse political and religious test has been secretly organized by a party claiming to be exclusively American, it is proper that the American Democracy should clearly define its relation thereto, and declare its determined opposition to all secret political societies, by whatever name they may be called, Resolved, That the foundation of this union of States having been laid in, and its prosperity, expansion, and pre-eminent example in free government, built upon entire freedom in matters of religious concernment, and no respect of person in regard to rank or place of birth; no party can justly be deemed national, constitutional, or in accordance with American principles, which bases its exclusive organization upon religious opinions and accidental birth-place. And hence a political crusade in the nineteenth century, and in the United States of America, against Catholic and foreign-born is neither justified by the past history or the future prospects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit of toleration and enlarged freedom which peculiarly distinguishes the American system of popular government."

"1. Resolved, That there are questions connected with the foreign policy of this country, which are inferior to no domestic question whatever. The time has come for the people of the United States to declare themselves in favor of free seas and progressive free trade throughout the world, and, by solemn manifestations, to place their moral influence at the side of their successful example."

Republicans
Republicans by contrast emphasized the inalienable, Creator-given rights to life and liberty, in opposing slavery "aided by perversions of judicial power," during the time of the Civil War. Republicans criticized Democrats for bureaucratic corruption and "systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans" while urging a "return to rigid economy and accountability." In contrast to the Democrat platform that urged free trade, Republicans called for "duties upon imports... to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country."

"2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States, and the Union of the States must and shall be preserved."

"6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis, show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded."

"9. That we brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic"

"12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imports as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges, which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence."

Democrats
Democrats back in the 1900s were condemning Republican militaristic imperialism and for engaging the U.S. in "unjust wars" and "militarism." Democrats similarly condemned Republican "greedy commercialism" and urged free trade. Unlike the Republicans which called for a Department of Commerce, the Democrat platform called for a Department of Labor while criticizing Republican monetary policies as being "for the benefit of the banks." The more things change...

"We condemn and denounce the Philippine policy of the present administration. It has involved the Republic in an unnecessary war, sacrificed the lives of many of our noblest sons, and placed the United States, previously known and applauded throughout the world as the champion of freedom, in the false and un-American position of crushing with military force the efforts of our former allies to achieve liberty and self-government."

"The greedy commercialism which dictated the Philippine policy of the Republican administration attempts to justify it with the plea that it will pay; but even this sordid and unworthy plea fails when brought to the test of facts. The war of 'criminal aggression' against the Filipinos, entailing an annual expense of many millions, has already cost more than any possible profit that could accrue from the entire Philippine trade for years to come. Furthermore, when trade is extended at the expense of liberty, the price is always too high."

"We oppose militarism. It means conquest abroad and intimidation and oppression at home. It means the strong arm which has ever been fatal to free institutions. It is what millions of our citizens have fled from in Europe."

"We pledge the Democratic party to an unceasing warfare in nation, State and city against private monopoly in every form. Existing laws against trusts must be enforced and more stringent ones must be enacted providing for publicity as to the affairs of corporations engaged in inter-State commerce requiring all corporations to show, before doing business outside the State of their origin, that they have no water in their stock, and that they have not attempted, and are not attempting, to monopolize any branch of business or the production of any articles of merchandise; and the whole constitutional power of Congress over inter-State commerce, the mails and all modes of inter-State communication, shall be exercised by the enactment of comprehensive laws upon the subject of trusts."

"The Republican currency scheme is, therefore, a scheme for fastening upon the taxpayers a perpetual and growing debt for the benefit of the banks. We are opposed to this private corporation paper circulated as money, but without legal tender qualities, and demand the retirement of national bank notes as fast as government paper or silver certificates can be substituted for them."

"In the interest of American labor and the uplifting of the workingman, as the cornerstone of the prosperity of our country, we recommend that Congress create a Department of Labor, in charge of a secretary, with a seat in the Cabinet, believing that the elevation of the American laborer will bring with it increased production and increased prosperity to our country at home and to our commerce abroad."

"Corporations should be protected in all their rights and their legitimate interests should be respected, but any attempt by corporations to interfere with the public affairs of the people or to control the sovereignty which creates them, should be forbidden under such penalties as will make such attempts impossible."

Republicans
The Republican platform in 1900, by contrast, applauded progress that had revitalized business, industry, and national credit. Unlike the Democrat platform which demanded a Department of Labor, Republicans called for a Department of Commerce. Republicans accused the Democrats of having no economic plans except printing more money, whereas Republicans had used tariffs and a gold standard to restore American prosperity. An emphasis on civil rights was reiterated, stating "It was the plain purpose of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, to prevent discrimination on account of race or color." Republicans also noticeably applauded the efforts of women, unlike the Democrat platform, and would prove the major reason the 19th Amendment passed a few years later. Republican trade policies were key to the economic recovery by producing a massive trade surplus.

The Republican platform was full of pro-war, militaristic language in direct contrast to that of the Democrat platform, and criticized the "Chicago platform." Nonetheless the GOP did criticize big business monopolies as threatening small business. The GOP platform called for restricting foreign immigration, raising the age limit for child labor, and improving military pay. The platform also called for opening up public lands for additional settlement, so as to "provide free homes on the public domain." GOP policies produced so much revenue that the platform called for a reduction in war taxes.

"The expectation in which the American people, turning from the Democratic party, intrusted power four years ago to a Republican Chief Magistrate and a Republican Congress, has been met and satisfied. When the people then assembled at the polls, after a term of Democratic legislation and administration, business was dead, industry paralyzed and the National credit disastrously impaired. The country's capital was hidden away and its labor distressed and unemployed. The Democrats had no other plan with which to improve the ruinous conditions which they had themselves produced than to coin silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. The Republican party, denouncing this plan as sure to produce conditions even worse than those from which relief was sought, promised to restore prosperity by means of two legislative measures—a protective tariff and a law making gold the standard of value."

"No single fact can more strikingly tell the story of what Republican Government means to the country than this—That while during the whole period of one hundred and seven years from 1790 to 1897 there was an excess of exports over imports of only $383,028,497, there has been in the short three years of the present Republican administration an excess of exports over imports in the enormous sum of $1,483,537,094."

"And while the American people, sustained by this Republican legislation, have been achieving these splendid triumphs in their business and commerce, they have conducted and in victory concluded a war for liberty and human rights. No thought of National aggrandizement tarnished the high purpose with which American standards were unfurled. It was a war unsought and patiently resisted, but when it came the American Government was ready. Its fleets were cleared for action. Its armies were in the field, and the quick and signal triumph of its forces on land and sea bore equal tribute to the courage of American soldiers and sailors, and to the skill and foresight of Republican statesmanship. To ten millions of the human race there was given "a new birth of freedom," and to the American people a new and noble responsibility."

"We renew our allegiance to the principle of the gold standard and declare our confidence in the wisdom of the legislation of the Fifty-sixth Congress, by which the parity of all our money and the stability of our currency upon a gold basis has been secured. We recognize that interest rates are a potent factor in production and business activity, and for the purpose of further equalizing and of further lowering the rates of interest, we favor such monetary legislation as will enable the varying needs of the season and of all sections to be promptly met in order that trade may be evenly sustained, labor steadily employed and commerce enlarged."

"The Democratic party must be convinced that the American people will never tolerate the Chicago platform."

"We recognize the necessity and propriety of the honest co-operation of capital to meet new business conditions and especially to extend our rapidly increasing foreign trade, but we condemn all conspiracies and combinations intended to restrict business, to create monopolies, to limit production. or to control prices; and favor such legislation as will effectively restrain and prevent all such abuses, protect and promote competition and secure the rights of producers, laborers, and all who are engaged in industry and commerce."

"In the further interest of American workmen we favor a more effective restriction of the immigration of cheap labor from foreign lands, the extension of opportunities of education for working children, the raising of the age limit for child labor, the protection of free labor as against contract convict labor, and an effective system of labor insurance."

"The Nation owes a debt of profound gratitude to the soldiers and sailors who have fought its battles, and it is the Government's duty to provide for the survivors and for the widows and orphans of those who have fallen in the country's wars. The pension laws, founded in this just sentiment, should be liberally administered, and preference should be given wherever practicable with respect to employment in the public service, to soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans."

"It was the plain purpose of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary, and should be condemned."

"In further pursuance of the constant policy of the Republican party to provide free homes on the public domain, we recommend adequate national legislation to reclaim the arid lands of the United States, reserving control of the distribution of water for irrigation to the respective States and territories."

"The Dingley Act, amended to provide sufficient revenue for the conduct of the war, has so well performed its work that it has been possible to reduce the war debt in the sum of $40,000,000. So ample are the Government's revenues and so great is the public confidence in the integrity of its obligations that its newly-funded two per cent bonds sell at a premium. The country is now justified in expecting, and it will be the policy of the Republican party to bring about, a reduction of the war taxes."

"We congratulate the women of America upon their splendid record of public service in the volunteer aid association and as nurses in camp and hospital during the recent campaigns of our armies in the East and West Indies, and we appreciate their faithful co-operation in all works of education and industry."