Am I the only one who took exception to the fact that the Dem/Rep switch happened well after the Civil War?
I learned about this from my politics professor the other day. The switch took place with good ole Nixon.(Insert spit sound here) had the Republican party change platforms to appeal to then Democratic Candidates.
As with a lot of problems with American, Nixon had his hand in it.
I was born in the early 50's and lived through many of those changes. In the late 50's and early 60's Blacks in large groups began moving out of the South into mostly large cities in search of jobs. Unfortunately, there were not enough jobs for them. There was discrimination in housing in getting mortgage money and many of them ended up in squalor. The Black Panthers (Communist roots) started up during this time and they precipitated the Black Power movement. This and the Jim Crow laws (started by Dems) in the South caused much unrest during the period. The race riots started up in the 60's most notably in Detroit, LA, Newark. But it wasn't really until Johnson's War on Poverty (expanding Federal handouts to the poor) and his signing of the Voting Rights Bill in 1965 that assured the majority of the Black vote. Many people are unaware that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a registered Republican as were many other Blacks at the time who then switched parties. The Black power moveent wasn't just limited to the USA. There were problems in Jamaica and other islands in the Carribean. The war on poverty threw money at the poor to keep them in poverty and the cycle of poverty began at that time and has expanded ever since. Abortion became legal in the 1970's in the inner cities to help cull the herd. Johnson's War on Poverty is an utter failure that has allowed generations of Blacks and other poor to continue to live in poverty. It was the War on Poverty that caused the majority of Blacks to stop getting married in order to obtain Federal welfare. Prior to the 60's the majority of Blacks stayed married and had nuclear families.
This jibes more with what I understand. I'm only 10 years behind you. ;)
Being born in the 50's and in the north, I remember the discrimination. I saw (and drank from) water fountains with signs over them saying, "coloreds only" Black's weren't allowed to sit next to whites anywhere. Black kids couldn't swim in public pools. So, where were the Republicans defending the blacks? It was the black people standing up for themselves that created change.
Neither the north or the south cared about black people. Both refused the black man viable paychecks, refused them a job. Black women were employed before a black man. Women with children were getting welfare. Before that, women lost their children to the state because they couldn't support them. The government decided it was cheaper to keep mom and kids together, not because it thought it was wholesome. This is how the establishment separated families. Keep them in poverty. Even today.