Correcting a Misperception about Civil Rights History

In a recent column, Ann Coulter took aim at the widespread misconception that the Democratic Party fought the good fight for civil rights and racial equality while the Republican Party resisted such change.  For example, 99 members of Congress signed a manifesto criticizing Brown v. Board of Education shortly after the Supreme Court handed down that decision.  Of these 99, two were Republicans; the rest were Democrats.  Similarly, the opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act was heavily Democratic: Republicans voted for approval by a 167-19 vote in the House and 43-0 in the Senate, whereas Democrats approved the bill by much narrower margins, 118-107 in the House and 29-18 in the Senate.  In addition, more than a few northern Democrats- from states such as Montana and Oregon- voted against the bill.

Coulter points to a quote by MSNBC host Chris Matthews that illustrates the common misperception: “[Nixon was] playing the Southern strategy with Strom Thurmond and those boys.”  But as Coulter points out, every segregationist in the Senate was a Democrat.  Only one of them later became a Republican: the same Strom Thurmond that Matthews conveniently singled out as a benefactor of the southern strategy.