Republicans and Race: The GOP's Frayed Relationship with African Americans, 1945-1974 9780700619382

Table of contents :
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Fair Employment Practices Commission, Voting Rights, and Racial Violence
Chapter 2. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Reform of the Federal Government
Chapter 3. “At Sea on This”: Eisenhower and Black Protest
Chapter 4. Republicans and Civil Rights Legislation, 1952–1960
Chapter 5. The GOP, Direct Action, and Racial Policy, 1960–1963
Chapter 6. The 1964 Civil Rights Act
Chapter 7. Race and Republican Politics, 1961–1964
Chapter 8. Civil Rights Policy, 1965–1968
Chapter 9. The Nixon Synthesis
Chapter 10. Schools, Voting Rights, and the Supreme Court, 1969–1970
Chapter 11. Integration Revisited
Chapter 12. Economic Policy: Nixon’s First Term
Chapter 13. A New Republican Majority?
Chapter 14. Denouement: The GOP and Race, 1973–1974
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Citation preview

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page i

Republicans and Race

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page ii

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page iii

Republicans and Race The GOP’s Frayed Relationship with African Americans, 1945–1974

Timothy N. Thurber

university press of kansas

01-Thurber_front matter 7/12/13 11:59 AM Page iv

© 2013 by the University Press of Kansas All rights reserved Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thurber, Timothy Nels. Republicans and race : the GOP's frayed relationship with African Americans, 1945–1974 / Timothy N. Thurber. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7006-1938-2 (hardback) 1. Republican Party (U.S. : 1854– )—History—20th century. 2. Party affiliation— United States—History—20th century. 3. African American—Political activity— History—20th century. 4. African Americans—Politics and government—20th century. 5. African Americans—Civil rights—History—20th century. 6. Civil rights—United States—History—20th century. 7. United States—Politics and government—1945–1989. 8. United States—Race relations. I. Title. jk2356.t48 2013 324.2734089'96073—dc23

2013020164

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials z39.48–1992.

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page v

To Allison, Ian, and Anika

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page vi

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page vii

contents

Acknowledgments, ix Introduction, 1 1 Fair Employment Practices Commission, Voting Rights, and Racial Violence, 5 2 Dwight D. Eisenhower and Reform of the Federal Government, 34 3 “At Sea on This”: Eisenhower and Black Protest, 58 4 Republicans and Civil Rights Legislation, 1952–1960, 96 5 The GOP, Direct Action, and Racial Policy, 1960–1963, 119 6 The 1964 Civil Rights Act, 153 7 Race and Republican Politics, 1961–1964, 171 8 Civil Rights Policy, 1965–1968, 219 9 The Nixon Synthesis, 250 10 Schools, Voting Rights, and the Supreme Court, 1969–1970, 282 11 Integration Revisited, 309 12 Economic Policy: Nixon’s First Term, 326 13 A New Republican Majority? 340 14 Denouement: The GOP and Race, 1973–1974, 361 Epilogue, 375 Notes, 391 Index, 489 A photo section appears following page 204.

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page viii

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page ix

ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s Writing this book involved a long journey that required a great deal of assistance. I wish to thank the many archivists and others who helped me navigate an ocean of documents. Financial support for the considerable travel required was provided by the State University of New York at Oswego, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Everett Dirksen Congressional Leadership Center, the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Harry S. Truman Foundation, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, and the Nelson Rockefeller Institute. Virginia Commonwealth University also granted a semester-long sabbatical that enabled me to focus on writing. I am also very grateful to the numerous people who gave me feedback as I worked and reworked the manuscript. Kevin Byrne offered wise counsel and encouragement on this and many other matters. Joseph Crespino, Matthew Dallek, Michael Flamm, Dean Kotlowski, Kevin Kruse, Robert Mason, and Timothy Stanley read selected chapter drafts, conference papers, or other material. Their perceptive insights and suggestions greatly improved the manuscript. Special thanks to David Nichols and Irwin Gellman, who generously shared their thoughts and kept prodding me to finish the job. Thanks, as well, to the many panelists and audience members who heard parts of this work at various conferences over the years. Their comments and questions sharpened my thinking. Any errors, of course, remain solely my own. It has been a delight to work with the staff at the University Press of Kansas. Fred Woodward has been a faithful champion of this project and a source of good advice. Larisa Martin, Rebecca Schuler, and Sara Henderson White have been of tremendous assistance in moving the book to press. Most of all, I wish to thank Allison, Ian, and Anika. Their love and support have sustained me through this long journey, and they remind me every day of what matters most.

[ ix ]

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page x

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page xi

Republicans and Race

01-Thurber_front matter 7/5/13 3:20 PM Page xii

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 1

Introduction

Three weeks before he was officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush addressed the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Knowing he faced a hostile audience (in 1983 its delegates had booed and hissed when his father insisted that Republican policies benefited African Americans), Bush sought to disarm the crowd with humor, quipping that he had “a couple, maybe more than a couple” supporters among them. He then turned more serious and confessed that the “party of [Abraham] Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln.” But, the Texan insisted, the future could be different. He agreed that racism remained a serious national problem, pledged to vigorously enforce civil rights laws, and called for education reform, greater health care access, more home ownership, and help for religious organizations that assisted “the suffering and hurting.” A deeply religious man, Bush affirmed that the state should help the destitute but also insisted that such people “need[ed] what no government can provide, the power of compassion and prayer and love.” Audience members remained leery. One, who had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in nearly half a century, deemed Bush’s ideas “a step in the right direction” but then observed, “Face it, they haven’t done anything for us.”1 In contrast, the NAACP delegates warmly welcomed Bush’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Albert Gore Jr., three days later. They cheered when Gore proclaimed himself a member of their organization and reeled off a list of federal policy prescriptions that included supporting affirmative action, protecting Social Security and Medicare from budget cuts, curbing racial profiling by law enforcement officers, and fostering economic development. Gore contrasted his religious views with Bush’s by declaring that a person expresses faith through action, [ 1 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 2

[ 2 ] i nt ro duct i o n

not rhetoric. Results, he argued, matter more than good intentions. The NAACP delegates’ divergent responses to the two candidates foreshadowed Bush’s winning a paltry 9 percent of the black vote in the November election.2 That 91 percent of black voters cast their ballots for Gore is evidence that nothing separates the American electorate more than race. Black loyalty to the Democratic Party remains high across age, class, gender, national origin, and other demographic characteristics. Republican voters, in contrast, are overwhelmingly white. Since 1964, no Republican presidential candidate has attracted more than 15 percent of the black vote.3 Two narratives dominate contemporary discussions of African Americans and the Republican Party. One stresses that during the mid-1960s and early 1970s, Republicans consciously abandoned their identity as the pro–civil rights “party of Lincoln” to woo whites, especially in the South, who were eager to preserve their political, economic, and social power in the face of challenges from the civil rights movement and federal authorities. In this view, race has played a decisive role in the nation’s conservative turn since the late 1960s. A second interpretation, usually offered by Republicans themselves or by conservative activists, denies any transformation. Proponents of this view uphold the GOP as fighting to desegregate the South and protect black voting rights. They contend it was the Democratic Party that stood in the way of racial progress during the mid-twentieth century and continues to offer policies that harm black families and communities.4 I offer a fresh look at the relationship between African Americans and the GOP. This book explores how Republicans at the federal level approached racial policy and politics between 1945 and 1974. Though the struggle for black equality existed before then and continues today, these three decades constitute a distinct era in that battle. African Americans and their allies grew more assertive in challenging the status quo. Some focused on direct action protests, while others primarily lobbied the federal government. Civil rights reformers demanded changes in economics, segregation, voting, housing, and other matters. Their struggle encompassed the entire nation, not just the South. The most prominent and influential reformers focused on removing racial distinctions from the law—they fought for a “color-blind” society.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 3

introduction [ 3 ]

The mid-1970s marked another turning point. Important legal victories had been achieved. Direct action subsided, as did the large-scale racial violence that had been so common in the second half of the 1960s. Controversies over whether the federal government would force the integration of suburban and urban schools and launch a massive new antipoverty initiative receded. Most important, civil rights activists now championed “race-conscious” remedies for inequality. Though such thinking had been present in the earlier period, it took a backseat to universalist ideas that emphasized a common humanity. Celebrations of “diversity” began to supplant the “color-blind” model.5 Between 1945 and 1974, Republicans exerted considerable influence over the timing and content of racial policy. The GOP’s impact was evident at the White House, where Dwight Eisenhower and later Richard Nixon made important decisions. It was also at work in Congress. By focusing heavily on Congress, I aim to bring greater balance to a narrative that has placed presidents and presidential contenders at center stage. Republicans’ involvement differed from that portrayed by the two dominant narratives. They were not steadfast supporters of civil rights reforms prior to 1964. To be sure, Republicans did not speak with one voice, and at crucial moments they aligned with the NAACP and other prominent black leaders. More often than not, however, they were at loggerheads. Most Republicans opposed the reformers’ agenda or were uninterested in race altogether. They usually saw little political advantage in pressing for change. Their understanding of race, the role of the state, and American society was fundamentally different from that of most African Americans. Like their nineteenth-century forebears, Republicans proved effective at minimizing the reach of federal authority into racial matters outside the South—or preventing it altogether. The reforms they did support applied almost exclusively to Dixie. Scholars who emphasize a sharp turn to the right after 1964 ignore or trivialize significant policy developments. During the early 1970s, civil rights activists felt embattled and dejected. Their differences with the GOP remained substantial, and policy clashes were frequently acrimonious. Nevertheless, Republicans, especially those in the Senate, proved crucial to fending off attempts by conservatives (usually southerners) in

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 4

[ 4 ] i nt ro duct i o n

both parties to roll back reforms regarding education, voting, and employment. The Nixon administration launched several notable initiatives. Republicans supported measures their predecessors had rejected or never would have favored. The reform impulse of the 1960s survived and was expanded on. The GOP adapted to a racial context different from that which had existed in earlier decades. The early 1970s offer an important reminder that shifts in party control of the White House do not necessarily mean policy changes and that developments in Congress matter as much as, if not more than, presidential politics. I also explore the role race played in Republican politics. The GOP remained the minority party throughout the period covered in this book. During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats built a coalition of white southerners, factory workers outside the South, intellectuals, and African Americans. These diverse groups often quarreled, but their loyalty on Election Day meant that Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for almost the entire era covered in this book and held the White House for much of it. The GOP thus had to find new voters if it wanted to regain the dominance it had enjoyed before the New Deal. For thirty years, race played a prominent role in intraparty debates over how to do that. Some Republicans favored allying more closely with the civil rights movement as a means of rallying support from whites and blacks alike. Others considered that approach futile if not counterproductive. The latter faction usually prevailed. Liberal Republicans were small in number and wielded minimal influence over the party’s direction. The GOP usually paid little or no political price for— and indeed, benefited from—its lack of African American supporters. Between 1945 and 1974, civil rights leaders’ recurring claims that blacks constituted the “balance of power” on Election Day often proved greatly exaggerated. This book is about men who held or sought power and how they dealt with racial issues from those positions of influence. It speaks to two important topics in post–World War II American history: the struggle for racial justice, and the development of the Republican Party. The Republican Party shaped the modern African American freedom struggle. That fight also transformed the GOP.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 5

1

Fair Employment Practices Commission, Voting Rights, and Racial Violence

On February 4, 1945, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin convened in Yalta. With victory against Germany and Italy imminent, they had gathered to make plans for the political and economic future of Europe.1 The degree to which government would shape the postwar order stood at the center of domestic politics too. Roosevelt’s New Deal had expanded federal authority over economic activities. Though many Americans despised the president, millions adored him and believed the New Deal had created a more just society. African Americans were among the latter. The New Deal reinforced and expanded racial discrimination, but it also brought jobs, education, improvements in health, and attention from prominent members of the administration. African Americans saw the federal government as a positive force. As blacks looked ahead to the postwar era, they believed further assistance from Washington would be necessary for economic opportunities, voting rights, and protection from violence. They would be sorely disappointed. Southern Democrats, who wielded considerable power in Congress, continued to block federal efforts for racial change. So, too, did Republicans, who viewed the world very differently from African Americans and felt no compelling reason to woo black voters.

[ 5 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 6

[ 6 ] ch ap t e r o ne

The Battle for Fair Employment Legislation The day after Roosevelt arrived in Yalta, Senator Robert Taft (R-Ohio) introduced a bill to create a federal fair employment practices commission (FEPC). This five-member body would investigate individual complaints of job discrimination, establish regional committees, undertake studies, and work with employers and labor unions to ensure that race, ethnicity, and religion would not be factors in hiring, firing, compensation, and other decisions. The commission would have no enforcement powers; it would rely on persuasion and negotiation. In the parlance of the day, it was known as a “voluntary” commission. Because discrimination might well function differently in various parts of the country, Taft argued, solutions should vary accordingly. The first step was to study those regional differences.2 Taft’s words and actions commanded attention. The son of former president William Howard Taft, he had graduated first in his class at Yale and then at Harvard Law School. He had been elected to the Senate in 1938 and quickly became the leader of the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and Republicans, formed in opposition to the New Deal. As far as Taft was concerned, the United States was already well down the road to socialism. Government officials were exerting influence over wages, prices, and other matters that should be reserved for business executives and markets.3 The senator found the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) particularly troublesome. Created in 1935, the NLRB had the authority to protect workers’ right to join unions and thereby engage in collective bargaining with employers. It helped facilitate a dramatic rise in union membership. By the mid-1940s, unions had negotiated wages, benefits, and work rules that previous generations of laborers and managers would have found unimaginable. Most union members saw the federal government as their ally and credited the Democrats for these gains. Most business leaders, in contrast, detested the NLRB and unions. They wanted to set the terms of employment, and they believed that unions encouraged workers to see their bosses as greedy adversaries rather than benevolent allies. In management’s eyes, class conflict had, with government assistance, replaced the harmonious labor relations of earlier eras.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 7

fair e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 7 ]

Business leaders wanted to hold labor’s power in check or roll it back to pre–New Deal levels.4 Given Taft’s opposition to federal involvement in labor affairs, his sponsorship of FEPC legislation appeared to be a contradiction, but the senator thought otherwise. “In many places, [African Americans] are the last to be employed and the first to be laid off,” he acknowledged. “Custom and prejudice interfere with improvement in their position.” Taft believed discrimination constituted an artificial barrier that could keep an individual from making the most of his or her abilities.5 Taft’s bill reflected recent trends. World War II had made race a prominent issue in public discussion and popular culture. American propaganda countered Nazi theories of white supremacy by highlighting themes such as democracy, equality, and opportunity. Universalist ideas, which aimed to replace a belief in racial hierarchy with a standard of law and custom that emphasized a common humanity, had gained strength. Taft’s committee resembled the many state and local agencies created during the war to foster harmonious intergroup relations. These bodies typically appealed to conscience and morality while arguing that prejudice was un-American. Several states in the North and West were even considering some sort of antidiscrimination employment policy. Finally, Taft’s legislation grew out of developments in management. Many corporations continued to refuse to hire blacks and other minorities or relegated them to the least desirable, lowest-paying work; they often justified their actions by citing concerns that white employees might engage in violence or other work disruptions rather than accept black coworkers. Yet business executives were not monolithic. Wartime rhetoric, as well as labor shortages and pressure from civil rights activists, had led some to seek expanded opportunities for African Americans. Business leaders wanted to control this process.6 Taft hoped to preserve that autonomy by heading off “compulsory” FEPC legislation. Although voluntary and compulsory FEPC models shared several characteristics, they differed regarding enforcement. If a compulsory FEPC found evidence of discrimination, it could, like the NLRB, issue a cease-and-desist order enforceable by a federal court, thus compelling businesses and unions to change their behavior. Penalties for noncompliance might include fines or the mandatory hiring or

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 8

[ 8 ] ch ap t e r o ne

promotion of the individual who had filed the complaint (perhaps with back pay), or some other affirmative step. Compulsory FEPC advocates distinguished between prejudice and discrimination. Government could not force an individual to hold particular beliefs (prejudice), but it could, through the threat of punishment, prevent him or her from acting on those beliefs (discrimination). According to Congresswoman Mary Norton (D-N.J.), a sponsor of compulsory FEPC legislation, intent to discriminate was evident in union contracts, job advertisements in newspapers (which often expressed a preference for “white” or “colored” workers), and payroll records. Norton also believed discrimination could be proved through “an employer’s pattern of rejections or statements made by personnel officers.”7 The drive for a compulsory FEPC had begun in 1943 with the creation of the National Council for a Permanent FEPC. It consisted of unions, civil rights groups, and liberal religious organizations (primarily Jewish and Catholic) that supported the New Deal. Left-wing groups, such as the Socialist and Communist Parties, also favored a compulsory FEPC. Few Republicans or conservative organizations were involved, although Senator Arthur Capper (R-Kans.) was an honorary cochair with Senator Robert Wagner (D-N.Y.), a longtime labor ally. The council wished to make permanent the temporary FEPC created in 1941 by Roosevelt’s executive order. The wartime FEPC had inspired civil rights reformers to question the status quo and look to federal authority for assistance, but it opened few jobs for African Americans.8 Reformers believed results would be different under a permanent, compulsory FEPC. Decades of moral suasion had been found wanting, according to A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (an African American union). Randolph believed that employers mouthed pious phrases about opportunity but then failed to act. For him, protest and pressure mattered more than talk. Recent employment gains among African Americans had come largely from the enormous demand for wartime labor, and reformers feared blacks would suffer extensive postwar job losses, as they had after World War I. A compulsory FEPC would minimize layoffs or ensure that they were made without regard to race.9 Reformers also regarded a compulsory FEPC as part of a larger strug-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 9

fair e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 9 ]

gle in which government would intervene in the employer-worker relationship to provide greater protections and wealth for labor. FEPC proponents drew inspiration from Roosevelt’s 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech, which included “freedom from want” as a basic right for all citizens. Freedom, they believed, had a material component. This contrasted sharply with Taft’s definition of freedom as the ability to live with minimal government regulation.10 Taft had other differences with compulsory FEPC advocates. The senator was convinced that few people understood the radical implications of a compulsory FEPC. The agency would be “bound by no rules of evidence,” he claimed, thus allowing government to run roughshod over business. Whereas compulsory FEPC proponents insisted that discrimination was relatively easy to discern, Taft found it a nebulous concept, especially in a legal setting. How did one prove that an employment decision was based on discrimination rather than on a job candidate’s qualifications or the lack thereof? Noting that anyone who failed to get a job or a promotion could claim to be a victim of discrimination, Taft feared there would be “thousands of lawsuits” against employers. He postulated that an employer could avoid these “harassing suits” only by “[choosing] his employees approximately in proportion to the division of races and religions in his district.” Warning that “race and religion will enter into every decision,” the senator foresaw a world in which “Catholic institutions . . . will have to employ Protestants” and “white waiters and porters could insist upon most of the work in the Pullman sleepers and dining cars.” Taft believed that mixing people who did not want to be mixed would lead to “more bad racial and religious feeling” and would “do the colored race more harm than good.”11 The senator was especially worried that federal efforts would provoke violence. “You can pass some legislation, but if you go forward too quickly, reaction will set in,” he had told the Afro-American (a black newspaper chain) in May 1944. “When you pass some laws you are liable to run into race riots.” Taft saw prejudice as a fundamental part of human nature that had “existed from the beginning of time” and would “likely continue to exist.” Change was not impossible, but it required a soft approach and would come slowly.12 Taft was undoubtedly referring to the considerable racial conflict that

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 10

[ 10 ] ch ap t e r o ne

had occurred in both the North and the South. Most whites wanted to keep African Americans out of their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. Riots had broken out in Harlem and Detroit, but smaller racial clashes also occurred. In March 1943, 2,000 women at a rubber plant in Detroit walked off the job to protest plans for integrated bathrooms. Two months later, white dockworkers in Mobile, Alabama, attacked blacks after hearing that twelve of them would be promoted to welders; the melee occurred even though the African Americans would be kept segregated.13 A year later, 8,000 white workers at the Philadelphia Transit Company brought public transportation to a halt when they went on strike to protest management’s decision—made under pressure from the FEPC and other federal agencies—to hire eight blacks as motormen and conductors. Claiming they were being discriminated against, whites saw federal intervention on behalf of blacks as a threat to their job security. White and black leaders in Philadelphia worked feverishly to avoid violence; there were a few incidents, but no widespread rioting. Alarmed that war production at the city’s factories was suffering, federal officials brought in troops to run the streetcars, trolleys, and buses. The union went back to work after five days. This and other “hate strikes,” which occurred in Detroit, Portland, and elsewhere, were the latest incidents in a long history of workplace conflict between blue-collar whites and blacks outside the South.14 Taft’s 1945 proposal meant that a compulsory FEPC had no chance of being enacted. Reformers had hoped to build a coalition of Republicans and nonsouthern Democrats, but GOP support was now unlikely. Senate convention held that legislators followed their leaders’ wishes. A lawmaker won a pork-barrel project, gained a seat on a desired committee, or rallied votes for a piece of legislation by toeing the party line. Mavericks found themselves ostracized; they could deliver speeches but little else for their constituents.15 Activists were angry with Taft for other reasons. They believed bold government action would reduce racial tension and prevent violence. Members of the Cincinnati branch of the NAACP charged the senator with betraying earlier positions as well as the GOP’s 1944 platform pledge; Taft vigorously denied both allegations. The senator’s warning

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 11

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 11 ]

about proportional hiring, they protested, was not only factually incorrect but also “a deliberate attempt to incite misinformed opposition.” Discussion of fair employment practices as a zero-sum game in which blacks gained jobs at whites’ expense had to be squashed.16 Reformers were especially troubled by Taft’s comments, offered to civil rights representatives during a private meeting on February 2, that blacks should be pleased with their progress and should not demand jobs where they were not wanted. Accusing him of “temporizing and indulging prejudice,” they pointedly asked him in a follow-up letter, “Did it ever occur to you that all Negroes are not satisfied with being porters and waiters, and that some might desire to be train engineers, but for racial discrimination, which bars them?” Roy Wilkins, editor of the NAACP’s journal The Crisis, suspected that Taft did not understand the extent of discrimination. He told the senator that study of the issue was “far behind the times because all Negroes, even illiterate ones, are cognizant that discrimination exists” and believe “persuasion is of no avail.” Enforcement powers were essential, Wilkins added, because African Americans had neither the time nor the money to file private lawsuits and wait for the courts to act.17 The NAACP put the onus for change squarely on the GOP. “The hatchet is out and it is not in the hands of [southern Democrats] . . . but in the aristocratic fingers of the distinguished senator from Ohio,” The Crisis editorialized. Unless the GOP backed a compulsory FEPC, “Negroes cannot do other than consider the Republicans unfriendly to their basic necessity of earning a living.” The NAACP was officially nonpartisan, although its leaders had established close ties with several nonsouthern Democrats in the 1930s. Taft’s relationship with the national organization was chilly at best; in 1944 he had denounced “the NAACP Communists” who had “sold themselves to the New Deal.”18 Few Republicans proved willing to support an FEPC. GOP members of the House Rules Committee cooperated with southern Democrats to block Norton’s compulsory FEPC bill. Nearly all legislation in the House required approval from the committee to be eligible for debate by the full body. Norton filed a discharge petition in April, but by December, just 50 of the 190 House Republicans had signed it. The petition remained roughly 50 signatures short of the 218 needed to pry the bill

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 12

[ 12 ] ch ap t e r o ne

from the committee. Republicans in both the House and the Senate, meanwhile, allied with southern Democrats to pass legislation that ended funding for the wartime FEPC beyond June 30, 1946.19 Southern Democrats launched a filibuster when a compulsory FEPC measure came up in the Senate in February 1946, bringing the upper house to a standstill. The filibuster and the reaction to it represented a test of lawmakers’ determination to pass or defeat a bill. Two options existed for ending a filibuster. Leaders could try to wear out participants by keeping the Senate in session around the clock, but members of both parties considered this taboo because so many legislators were quite elderly. The other alternative was cloture, by which two-thirds of those present and voting could halt the debate. The Senate had adopted cloture in just four of the twenty-one attempts since Rule XXII, the filibuster rule, had been implemented in 1917; it had never been achieved on a civil rights bill. Cloture failed this time, too—by eight votes. Although twenty-five Republicans voted for cloture, eight opposed it, and five did not vote.20 A vote for cloture was not a vote for a compulsory FEPC. A senator could favor ending the debate but then vote against the bill itself. Wilkins accused both parties of timidity. “The record made by the Republicans is nothing about which the party can boast,” he wrote to Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Herbert Brownell Jr. The Crisis insisted the compulsory measure would have passed if the White House and congressional Republicans had wanted it.21 Battles over an FEPC occurred regularly over the next several years. Several northern Democrats pushed for a compulsory body, and Harry Truman, who became president when Roosevelt died in April 1945, offered rhetorical support. Though Truman privately harbored racist views, he believed in equal opportunity, was sincerely troubled by violence against African Americans, and recognized that blacks constituted a core Democratic constituency. The president did little to prod congressional Democrats to act, however.22 Since the days of slavery, southern Democrats had fought diligently to keep federal authority out of the region’s labor market. They had blunted the impact of New Deal labor and social welfare legislation, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Social Security Act, by demanding provisions that limited the laws’ applicability to blacks or excluded them

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 13

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 13 ]

altogether. Eager to preserve their region’s low-wage, racially hierarchical labor structure, southern Democrats filled the Congressional Record with sharp denunciations of an FEPC.23 Republicans spoke far less frequently, but what they said revealed important beliefs about race and American society. A few Republicans endorsed a compulsory FEPC. Senator Wayne Morse (R-Ore.) had seen discrimination firsthand while serving on the War Labor Board during the early 1940s. Born in Wisconsin, Morse stood squarely in the tradition of Robert La Follette, the state’s early-twentieth-century progressive Republican governor and senator. Morse displayed a fierce independence throughout his career. During the 1946 filibuster, he urged Senate leaders to demand around-the-clock sessions. Soon after cloture failed, he publicly condemned the “legislative tyranny of a willful minority.” Out of step with most of his GOP colleagues on labor, race, and several other issues, Morse became a Democrat in the mid-1950s.24 Irving Ives of New York was another Republican champion of a compulsory FEPC. Before being elected to the Senate in 1946, he had been chair of the New York Temporary Commission against Discrimination and had led the successful struggle in 1945 for a compulsory FEPC in the Empire State. A former insurance and banking executive, Ives was the founding dean of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. He personified a new perspective in management theory—one that was less hostile toward government and looked to promote more harmonious labor-management relations. “The right to earn a living regardless of one’s race or religion or national origin or ancestry is inherent in our American Creed,” he proclaimed. Ives’s language reflected the influence of Gunnar Myrdal’s famous 1944 book An American Dilemma. Myrdal posited that the gap between the nation’s ideals of freedom and opportunity and the realities of racial oppression could be overcome, primarily through enlightened leadership from elites. Throughout his twelve-year Senate career, Ives regularly worked with liberal Democrats, most notably Senator Hubert Humphrey (Minn.), on the FEPC and other civil rights matters.25 Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) also advocated a compulsory FEPC. Elected to the House in 1946, he served three terms. After a brief stint as attorney general of the Empire State, he was elected to the Senate in 1956 and re-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 14

[ 14 ] ch ap t e r o ne

mained there until 1981. A Jew who strongly believed that government could help the less fortunate, Javits might well have been a Democrat. However, he saw the Democrats as a southern-based party that oppressed blacks, favored the prohibition of alcohol, and was hostile to immigrants; the latter two positions were decidedly unpopular on the Lower East Side of New York City, where Javits grew up. The rampant corruption in the city’s Tammany Hall political machine, which Democrats controlled, also pushed Javits into the GOP.26 The New York FEPC stood as a source of pride for proponents of a compulsory federal FEPC. In 1947 Ives proclaimed it a success because none of the 752 allegations of discrimination it had investigated in the past year had wound up in court; all had been either settled amicably through negotiation or dismissed. For Ives, this was powerful evidence that claims that an FEPC would foster discord were erroneous. Over the next three decades, liberals in both parties would similarly portray the North as making racial progress through enlightened public policy.27 Whereas Taft and other critics of a compulsory FEPC regarded Nazi Germany as a dramatic reminder of the dangers of a powerful state, advocates drew different lessons from the war. According to Senator H. Alexander Smith (R-N.J.), blacks had proved themselves in the military and deserved equal opportunities in the postwar era. Noting Hitler’s theories of white supremacy, he asked, “Shall we find that while we have conquered this false ideology by force of arms, we have ourselves been overcome by this same false thinking?” The United States could win the allegiance of nonwhites, who made up two-thirds of the world’s population, by promoting equal opportunity and living up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Smith saw these issues in terms of American exceptionalism. “Is not equality of opportunity the eternal truth that America, the New World, has given to the Old World?” he asked. Racial or ethnic hatred, and the violence that might result, took on new meaning in a world where atom bombs existed. “We have come to a new age of human history,” Smith announced, “where tolerance and the goal of human understanding must be our objective if the human race is to survive.”28 These were minority views, advocated by only a handful of lawmakers who stood on the margins of power within the GOP and Congress. Most Republicans wanted no FEPC whatsoever. Some regarded it as an

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 15

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 15 ]

overwrought response to a minor or even nonexistent problem. Insisting that he had long worked for black advancement in his community, Senator Albert Hawkes (N.J.) announced that during his seventeen years as president of a chemical company, racial friction had never been a serious matter in his plants. Senator Alexander Wiley (Wis.), who had served as district attorney in a small town with few African American residents, proclaimed his own racial innocence and that of his constituents. “I come from a state,” he proudly declared, “where there has been little or no prejudice.” Staunch New Deal critic Clare Hoffman (Mich.) noted, “I have seen so little discrimination in my community that it is difficult for me to realize that some of the statements made by advocates of this sort of legislation are factual.”29 Republicans believed government intervention was not needed and might make racial problems worse. In their view, employers were benevolent figures who would immediately correct inequities once they became aware of them. Hawkes recalled that when he discovered that some black workers were making ten cents an hour less than whites, despite performing at the same level, he met with supervisors to equalize pay rates. “That shows what can be done by education and being on the ground,” he affirmed. Like Taft, Hawkes considered a compulsory FEPC a form of social engineering that was destined to fail. “Neither you nor I can make things move any faster than the human family can absorb them,” he maintained. The rapid influx of large numbers of black employees would, he feared, spark white violence. “No employer,” he declared, “had the power to put into a plant a given number of people who were distasteful to those in the plant, and make them all get along together.”30 Viewing an FEPC through the lens of the New Deal, Republicans crafted a historical narrative that emphasized a steady loss of employers’ freedom. Senator Wallace White (Maine) worried that federal power had to be checked “if our America is to be saved.” “If this bill were enacted into law, it would be another nail in the coffin of free enterprise,” Hawkes lamented. “We have already put many nails in the coffin in preparing it for the burial of free enterprise. The patient is not yet dead, but he is extremely sick and all that is needed to finish him is a few more doctors.” Business leaders, Hawkes reported, were “very weary and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 16

[ 16 ] ch ap t e r o ne

tired” after a decade of government regulation of wages and prices and higher taxes; further regulation would leave the United States a “secondrate nation.” A compulsory FEPC would establish “an army of examiners . . . to harass and badger busy men to such a degree as to prevent the successful operation of their businesses.”31 Wiley similarly described an FEPC as “a dangerous instrument for statism.” Citing the hundreds of letters he had received from business leaders denouncing the Office of Price Administration, a wartime agency that had controlled prices and rationed many products, Wiley inquired, “Shall we create a government Gestapo which will make life perfectly miserable for the men who produce and create and build?” For Wiley, business, not government, drove progress. The senator forecast that the FEPC would, like the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, become a vehicle by which self-serving government officials dispensed unproductive jobs in return for votes.32 FEPC opponents drew another parallel with the 1930s. The NLRB, critics routinely charged, was neutral only in theory. Through their Democratic allies in government, unions had seized control of a federal regulatory body and used it to further their own narrow ends. Management carried no weight with NLRB officials. A compulsory FEPC would, Hoffman protested, empower “professional reformers” who would “exercise their professional talents as creators of unrest.” It would lead to “punishment imposed by some bureaucrat, by some partisan, by some crackpot.” According to Congressman Charles Halleck (Ind.), a compulsory FEPC would be “judge, jury, as well as investigator.”33 Republican critics insisted that a compulsory FEPC would inevitably lead to a racial spoils system. This was not a new controversy. Some civil rights activists during the 1930s had called for racial proportionalism in employment. Courts wrestling with the dilemma of how to prove discrimination considered the issue, and some New Deal agencies had adopted numerical targets for minority hiring.34 Republicans maintained that proportionality meant that white workers, not just white managers, would be treated unfairly. A compulsory FEPC “would discriminate against a man simply because he was a member of a majority rather than a minority,” Wiley noted. Better-qualified whites, he asserted, would lose their jobs or fail to be hired in the first

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 17

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 17 ]

place as firms sought to boost black employment to avoid lawsuits or federal oversight. These white workers would then develop even greater animosity toward African Americans. Hoffman insisted that there was already evidence that an FEPC would be biased against whites: African Americans, he alleged, had held 59 percent of the jobs at the wartime agency.35 Proportionality would also hurt African Americans, some claimed. A black worker, Wiley affirmed, should be judged on ability “rather than on the basis of some special privilege because of the fact that [he or she] is a member of a minority.” Hawkes recalled that knowing he could be fired at any time, and that he “could not go someplace else and demand a job,” fueled his determination to succeed. Wiley and other Republicans invoked heroic African American figures such as George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington as evidence that self-help was the surest path to economic uplift. The Wisconsin senator spun a folksy tale about an anonymous African American man who had wandered across the South during the Great Depression and eventually repaired a decrepit shack. “That colored man, not by legislation but by work and industry, did the job,” he declared. Hoffman similarly emphasized the “marvelous” progress blacks had made since the Civil War, while Senator Eugene Millikin (Colo.) pointed to the economic success of European immigrants as proof that “we have not done so badly in this country.” For Republicans, a compulsory FEPC would punish the successful, reward the undeserving, and erode African Americans’ ambition. They saw the United States as a society where any person could rise, provided he or she was willing to work diligently.36 Republicans were not of one mind regarding proportionality, however. Some cited proportionality itself as the problem, whereas others spoke of it in more benign or even favorable language. Intending to show that his chemical plants provided equal employment opportunities without federal prodding, Hawkes pointed out that African Americans made up 22 percent of the workforce—higher than the percentage of blacks in the local population. Taft thought it would be appropriate for an FEPC to discuss the types of jobs blacks held, whether they were being used to full capacity, and what constituted a “proper proportion” of African American workers. During hearings held in 1947, the senator noted that

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 18

[ 18 ] ch ap t e r o ne

a Firestone plant in Akron, Ohio, had adopted a policy whereby 10 percent of its workforce would be African American. “There should be a relationship between the percentage, the number of people there, and the percentage of jobs available,” Taft commented. He also noted that discrimination—“not conscious, perhaps, but actual”—often led to a dearth of jobs for African Americans. He proposed that a federal commission could gather data about employment patterns in a local black population and then use that information to lobby executives to boost black employment. The key was that businesses act voluntarily, not in response to federal orders or out of fear of lawsuits.37 Republican critics often proclaimed discrimination to be morally wrong but then defended an individual’s right to think and act in such a manner. Here, too, the core issue was the protection of individual choice, even if such choices were repugnant. An FEPC was yet another dangerous attempt, Millikin insisted, to “coerce conformity in human thinking.” Millikin rejected bigotry, but he vigorously upheld a person’s right “to give or withhold the use of his enterprise or his premises to those of another faith or race.” Everyone, Hoffman declared, regularly exhibited personal preferences; doing so was simply a part of human nature and untouchable by law.38 Republicans sometimes pushed back against southern Democrats’ negative views of African Americans. When Senator Allen Ellender (La.) linked blacks’ morality with criminal behavior, Taft offered a different explanation. “I think that discrimination in employment,” the Ohioan declared, “makes it very difficult for colored people to make their living in honest ways and causes them to turn to crime.”39 More often than not, however, Republicans sounded like southern Democrats. Southern politicians had a long resisted change by alleging black inferiority, the evils of racial mixing, and ties between civil rights activists and communists. Some reiterated these themes, but they also used race-neutral language that trumpeted free enterprise and denounced federal power. Senator James Eastland (Miss.) warned that an FEPC would result in widespread lawsuits and “bureaucratic control of the whole economic life of the United States.” The leader of the southern bloc in the Senate, Richard Russell (Ga.), predicted that an FEPC would lead to discrimination against “the ordinary, garden-variety of American

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 19

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 19 ]

citizens who are not fortunate enough to associate themselves with some minority group.” Dixie lawmakers claimed that the region was making racial progress and would continue to do so, provided federal authorities left it alone. Pushing too hard for racial change, southern politicians warned, would lead to friction in the workplace and possibly violence in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.40 These similarities were not lost on civil rights activists. Carl Murphy, editor in chief of the Washington Afro-American, wrote to Taft to denounce his “sissified, emasculated FEPC bill.” He pointedly noted, “Funny how you and the southern Democrats now sing out of the same book.” To Murphy and other reformers, it was irrelevant whether Republicans who opposed an FEPC were hiding racial malice or expressing sincere convictions about the role of government in business. What mattered was that GOP lawmakers allied with those whom African Americans had long regarded as hostile to their progress.41

Voting Rights Civil rights reformers also wanted federal protection for voting rights. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited states from discriminating against voters based on race. Other parts of the Constitution, however, gave states the authority to determine voter eligibility. Since the late nineteenth century, southern states had used ostensibly race-neutral literacy tests, the poll tax, manipulation of registration requirements, and violence or the threat of violence to deny blacks the vote. Dixie leaders insisted that these rules were legitimate attempts to prevent fraud and ensure an informed electorate. By 1940, just 3 percent of age-eligible African Americans in the South were registered voters. Reformers, however, received a boost in 1944, when the Supreme Court struck down the white primary, another device whites had used to maintain power.42 Civil rights and labor activists demanded that the federal government outlaw the poll tax. Since the 1920s, several states had abolished this levy, but it remained in effect in others. Reformers believed that expanding the number of black voters would result in the election of politicians who would expand education and other social welfare provisions. Eliminating the tax was also part of an effort to change the criminal justice system.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 20

[ 20 ] ch ap t e r o ne

Some states selected jurors from rosters of those who had paid the poll tax, and all-white juries were notoriously biased—dealing harshly with black defendants and often refusing to punish whites who had committed crimes against African Americans.43 In 1944 Republicans had endorsed a constitutional amendment to abolish the poll tax. As far back as Reconstruction, the GOP had exhibited stronger support for guaranteeing political rights than for instituting economic reforms. Moreover, the poll tax was a regional issue. Republicans could vote for its repeal knowing that increased federal authority would not affect their constituents or change the political dynamics of their own states or districts. The GOP’s stance put the party at odds with the NAACP, which viewed legislation as a quicker route to change. It also allied the party with some southern Democrats, who favored a constitutional amendment as a means of delaying or avoiding more farreaching electoral reforms.44 Anti–poll tax legislation had cleared the House, with overwhelming Republican support, in 1942 and 1944, only to die at the hands of a southern filibuster in the Senate. The House passed it again in 1945, and the following summer, southerners filibustered. Truman sat on the sidelines, and sixteen Republicans (roughly 40 percent of the GOP caucus) did not vote on a cloture motion. Wayne Morse called the episode a “farce.” Walter White, head of the NAACP, lamented that liberals such as Morse “still represented a pathetic minority” in “a party dominated by the [Robert] Tafts . . . and Clare Hoffmans.”45

Republicans in Control The 1946 election ended the Democrats’ thirteen-year control of Congress. Republicans gained fifty-five seats in the House and thirteen in the Senate. The GOP performed well everywhere except in the South, which had no Republican senators and only two Republicans in the House. Racial matters received scant attention; one exception was California, where voters rejected a proposed state fair employment law by a two-to-one margin. As in the 1944 Philadelphia transit strike, whites felt threatened by the prospect of government action against employment discrimination.46

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 21

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 21 ]

Republican leaders attributed the party’s improved showing in urban areas partly to “a large switch in the colored vote.” The NAACP agreed that the GOP had registered some gains but chalked them up to blacks’ frustration with the Democrats rather than support for the Republicans. Election results from the North and West had to be interpreted carefully. Politicians and pundits (and later, historians) often focused solely on the percentage of the black vote for one party or the other, but this might distort reality. For example, the percentage of the vote won by a Republican could rise if a sizable number of African Americans, who generally favored Democrats, stayed home. Thus, increased percentages did not automatically mean a shift in voters’ loyalties.47 As far as the NAACP and other civil rights activists were concerned, Republicans now controlled congressional committees and had the votes to pass legislation. But over the next two years, the GOP would exhibit little desire to change civil rights policy. The Senate immediately faced a controversy involving race and region when it convened in January 1947. An interracial group from Mississippi had called on lawmakers to prevent Theodore Bilbo, a Democrat, from taking his seat. A former member of the Ku Klux Klan, Bilbo had praised the racial theories of Nazi Germany and regularly denounced nonwhite groups as well as Jews. Taft and other senators considered Bilbo an embarrassment but defended his right to free speech. By 1947, however, such naked bigotry had drawn increased fire from the national press and liberal activists around the country. Critics found Bilbo’s campaign rhetoric from the previous fall particularly egregious. “I’m calling on every red-blooded American who believes in the superiority and integrity of the white race to get out and make sure that no nigger votes,” he had declared, “and the best time to do that is the night before!” A Senate investigation revealed that black voters in Mississippi often encountered white violence. The three Democrats on the committee cleared Bilbo of responsibility, but the two Republicans concluded that he had abused his right to free speech. Senate Republicans agreed with their two colleagues, although legislators postponed a final decision about Bilbo’s status owing to his poor health. The senator, who was suffering from throat cancer, died in August.48 Civil rights activists were happy that Bilbo was out of the Senate, but

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 22

[ 22 ] ch ap t e r o ne

they were more concerned with the FEPC, voting rights, and a federal antilynching law. Murder and other forms of violence were state crimes, and all-white juries in the South would not punish white perpetrators, some of whom did not even face trial. Activists had been fighting for federal legislation, with assistance from some Republicans, for nearly thirty years. Several antilynching bills had passed in the House, only to die in the Senate, where opponents in both parties warned against expanding federal authority. Lynching had declined since its peak in the early 1900s, but a wave of violence against blacks had swept the South in 1946. A mob of twenty whites murdered two African American farmworkers and their wives in Georgia, and Isaac Woodward, a black veteran, was blinded by whites in South Carolina. In the spring of 1947, thirty-one whites escaped punishment for their involvement in the murder of Willie Earle, a twenty-four-year old resident of South Carolina. Some of the men had signed confessions or identified the man who had pulled the trigger.49 Congress showed little interest. House Judiciary Committee chair Earl Michener (Mich.) refused to move on antilynching legislation, noting that he could be reelected without the votes of those who favored it. Citing a lengthy committee agenda, he argued that there was little point in acting on a bill that was certain to fail in the Senate.50 An FEPC remained reformers’ top priority. The Crisis editorialized in February, “If the GOP’s heart really bleeds for the Negro as they say it does, if they really want him to come home to the party of Lincoln, they might try passing an effective FEPC bill.” Opponents continued to allege that a compulsory FEPC would mean that the government could force employers to hire someone. Ives retorted that it was the “exact antithesis” of that approach. He and a small bipartisan group rallied behind a modified bill, but Republicans helped ensure that FEPC legislation remained stalled in committee in both houses of Congress.51 Other reforms suffered similar fates. Although a handful of Senate Republicans agreed with civil rights leaders’ demand for majority cloture, GOP members of the Rules Committee helped kill such a proposal. House Republicans overwhelmingly lined up behind anti–poll tax legislation, but GOP leaders brought it up near the end of the congressional

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 23

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 23 ]

session, which left no time for success in the Senate. Some Republicans confessed that this move was in part payback against southern Democrats, who had recently helped sustain Truman’s veto of a GOP taxreduction measure. Republicans focused their attention in 1947 on cutting taxes and curbing the power of unions. Civil rights was not a priority.52 The Republican American Committee (RAC), an organization of approximately 200 African Americans, gathered in Philadelphia that August. Robert R. Church Jr., a Memphis businessman who had long been prominent in local and national Republican politics, headed the group. Church was also active in the local branch of the NAACP and was a close friend of Randolph, who had persuaded him to join the board of the National Council for a Permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee. The RAC warned Republican leaders, “The Colored voter will not be deceived by legislative jockeying, buck-passing and double-talk.” A compulsory FEPC, along with antilynching and anti–poll tax legislation, the committee predicted, would improve the GOP’s electoral prospects.53 Democrats, meanwhile, worked to retain African Americans’ loyalty. In February 1948 Truman sent a package of civil rights measures to Congress. These included a compulsory FEPC, anti–poll tax and antilynching legislation, a commission to investigate racial problems and educate the public, and a bill to end discrimination in interstate transportation. Truman usually stayed out of the legislative fray, but he now had several reasons to get off the sidelines. The president was personally troubled by the violence against blacks in the South, and he wished to burnish the nation’s image abroad to gain supporters in the emerging struggle with the Soviet Union for global influence. Given his low public approval rating, Truman also hoped to inspire blacks to turn out for him in November.54 Though Church told GOP lawmakers that a compulsory FEPC would mean “better housing, food for the table, [and] shoes for the baby,” Republicans in both houses were unmoved. Some talked about passing antilynching and anti–poll tax bills, but there was little enthusiasm for either. As the end of the session neared, The Crisis declared that the Republican Congress “has produced a big fat zero as far as the Negro is concerned.”55

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 24

[ 24 ] ch ap t e r o ne

Race and Republican Politics Republicans were in a buoyant mood when they assembled that June to select a presidential candidate. Truman remained decidedly unpopular, and Democrats were divided. Henry Wallace, who had been vice president from 1941 to 1945 and then secretary of commerce under Truman until September 1946, had formed the Progressive Party. He attacked Truman as too conservative on civil rights and other matters. Southern Democrats, meanwhile, thought the president was too liberal. A Republican victory in November appeared certain.56 New York governor Thomas E. Dewey bested Taft to capture the GOP nomination. Dewey personified the liberal, eastern wing of the party. Compared with their conservative colleagues, who were based largely in the Midwest and West, liberals favored a more active role for government in the economy and a more internationalist foreign policy. Republicans, they believed, had to adapt to a changing world if they wanted to regain power. A former prosecutor, Dewey had become governor in 1942 and then lost the 1944 presidential election to Roosevelt. Two years later, he was reelected governor by the largest margin in New York history. His success in the nation’s most populous state, a Democratic stronghold, appeared to bode well for the GOP. Intelligent, efficient, and ambitious, Dewey conveyed an image of executive competence, but critics found him too reserved and uninspiring.57 Though Dewey had drawn fire from some civil rights activists, he had a stronger record on race than any governor of his era. He had, despite some private reservations, backed New York’s compulsory FEPC and named several African Americans to prominent posts. In the fall of 1945 he had condemned the banning of an African American singer from a Washington, D.C., concert hall. Two months prior to the 1948 convention he had signed a bill outlawing discrimination in higher education. Some of Truman’s advisers worried that the governor might bring a sizable number of black voters back to the GOP. Dewey’s racial views, however, were not a significant factor in his nomination.58 Dewey chose another liberal, Governor Earl Warren of California, as his running mate. Warren had favored a voluntary FEPC in his state, but

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 25

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 25 ]

the plan died in the legislature. He supported the desegregation of prisons, even though white guards threatened to riot. Warren also endorsed the state attorney general’s stand against restrictive covenants, which prohibited the sale of property to racial minorities, thus maintaining neighborhood segregation. Nevertheless, Warren had fared poorly among black voters in the 1942 and 1946 gubernatorial elections. This pattern would recur frequently for Republican liberals in the post– World War II era.59 At the convention, Republicans paid little attention to African Americans or their concerns. Former Connecticut congresswoman Clare Booth Luce denounced “lynch loving Bourbons, [and] white-shirted race supremacists of the Bilbo ilk,” but other speakers, including Dewey, ignored race. A coalition of twenty-one black organizations, whose membership numbered more than 6 million, sent representatives to Philadelphia. African Americans, they informed the Platform Committee, were “deeply disappointed” that the Republican-controlled Congress had failed to pass civil rights legislation. “The elephant never forgets—or learns,” one dejected member of the group told GOP leaders. The activists had no impact, however. Hoping to woo disaffected southern Democrats, the GOP replaced specific civil rights language with more generic wording. Randolph called the plank “lousy” and charged that the party had sunk “to its lowest depths of opportunism.”60 African American delegates stood on the margins of party affairs. They complained that southern delegations, which had once been majority black, were becoming increasingly “lily white.” Blacks felt excluded from important meetings as well as social occasions. Some grew irate when the Platform Committee refused to hear an African American lobby for a ten-point civil rights program. Walter White similarly blasted the GOP for its lack of urgency about racial injustice and for treating blacks in a patronizing manner.61 Truman, meanwhile, moved to the left. In late July the president signed executive orders desegregating the military and outlawing employment discrimination by the federal government. Calling Congress back into a monthlong special session that August, he challenged the GOP to support his February civil rights proposals. Despite appeals

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 26

[ 26 ] ch ap t e r o ne

from high-ranking officials in the Dewey campaign to back something, Republican leaders showed little enthusiasm. A southern filibuster killed an anti–poll tax bill.62 Republicans looked to the South as potentially fertile ground. The GOP had been trying since the early twentieth century to crack the Democrats’ lock on Dixie. Herbert Hoover had won four Upper South states in 1928, plus Florida and Texas, but since 1932, every former Confederate state had supported Roosevelt. Although the South benefited enormously from federal spending during the New Deal and World War II, by the late 1930s, increasing numbers of whites perceived the federal government as a threat to the racial status quo, and they considered the Democratic Party too beholden to northern interests, including labor unions and the racial and ethnic groups that populated urban areas.63 The Democrats’ convention exacerbated these sectional divisions. Led by Hubert Humphrey, then the mayor of Minneapolis, northern liberals fought for and achieved a strong civil rights plank. Some southern delegates walked out in protest. They joined other irate southerners to form the States’ Rights Democratic Party (known as the Dixiecrats), which nominated South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond for president. Preservation of white supremacy constituted the core of the Dixiecrats’ efforts.64 Prominent Republicans reached out to the South. Dewey’s aides reassured southern leaders that the governor would not “throw the book” of civil rights at the South. Harold Stassen, the former governor of Minnesota, told an audience in Charlotte, North Carolina, that Dewey would find “intelligent compromise between states’ rights and human rights which would satisfy Dixie.” Appealing to white voters in Florida and Tennessee, Taft emphasized fiscal conservatism and limited government and spoke of a “basic agreement between the Southern Democrats and the Republican Party.” (The senator had been eying the South for years. In 1946 he had privately noted that “the Republican Party would be willing to do anything to effect a union with the Southern Democrats” if the Democrats fractured along regional lines; he did not consider this likely, however, and indicated that the GOP had “a much better chance” of winning northern black votes than southern white votes.) Taft now predicted that Dewey would do well in several southern states and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 27

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 27 ]

might even carry Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida. Pundits observed that Republicans were making their most active play for southern support in decades.65 A few Republicans urged vigorous pursuit of the black vote. They embraced the theory—first articulated by W. E. B. DuBois and then repeated by Walter White and other black leaders for years—that northern African Americans constituted the “balance of power” in a presidential election. Blacks’ support for Roosevelt had always been stronger than their support for other Democrats. Francis Rivers, an African American adviser to Dewey, counseled the governor to get behind civil rights legislation and campaign aggressively in black areas. But the GOP nominee faced an uphill fight: 1948 was the first year that a majority of African Americans identified as Democrats. Fifty-six percent lined up with the party of FDR, and just 25 percent proclaimed loyalty to the GOP. Eight years earlier, blacks had been split evenly, with 42 percent for each major party.66 Certain of victory, Dewey ran a bland, cautious campaign. Although he enjoyed the backing of several prominent African American newspapers, he said little about race and largely ignored black voters; few African Americans attended his rallies. The GOP pointed to Dewey’s record in New York as proof that the Republicans offered meaningful action, whereas the Democrats were simply a party of words. Republicans also warned that voting Democratic would allow southerners to regain control of important congressional committees. These themes would reappear frequently in decades to come.67 Meanwhile, Truman had a few cards to play. He benefited from blacks’ identification with the Democratic Party, and he proved adept at convincing black voters that he was their ally. The president had spoken out against racial injustice, submitted civil rights legislation, and signed two important executive orders to promote equality in the federal government. His Committee on Civil Rights, created in 1946, had tried to educate the public about the evils of racism. During the fall campaign, Truman became the first president to stump for votes in Harlem.68 Truman won a stunning come-from-behind victory, and the Democrats regained control of Congress. The president’s triumph was attributable to the backing of several constituencies, but overwhelming African

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 28

[ 28 ] ch ap t e r o ne

American support in the pivotal states of California, Illinois, and Ohio was instrumental. Had Dewey received even slightly more black votes in two of those states, he would have won. Dewey did not receive a majority of black votes in any of the eighteen states surveyed by the NAACP. Truman was so popular among blacks in New York that Dewey received fewer African American votes there in 1948 than he had in 1944.69 The GOP fared poorly in Dixie. White southerners stayed loyal to Truman or, in the Deep South, backed Thurmond. Although Dewey lost every southern state, he received more total votes in 1948 than he had in 1944. Most of the gain came from Texas, Virginia, and Florida, which would be among the first southern states to drift to the GOP in the near future. Dewey received less than 5 percent of the vote in Mississippi and South Carolina. Republicans’ share of the major party congressional vote in the South fell from 17.4 percent in 1946 to 12.6 percent.70

New Congress, Same Results Civil rights activists renewed their drive to reform the filibuster when Congress convened in January. The three-month battle ended when the Senate easily approved a plan by Nebraska Republican Kenneth Wherry, the minority leader, that forbade a filibuster on motions to take up a bill; required two-thirds of the entire Senate (sixty-four votes) instead of two-thirds of those present and voting, for cloture; and prohibited cloture on a filibuster against motions to change the rules. GOP lawmakers backed the proposal by a four-to-one margin. Morse blasted his fellow Republicans for entering “an unholy political marriage with southern reactionaries.” Another disgusted Republican commented, “I wonder why every Negro in the United States doesn’t turn communist.” The Crisis accused the GOP of “a sellout,” and the Afro-American newspaper chain said it had erred in endorsing Dewey.71 Though the new filibuster rule made passing civil rights legislation more difficult, reformers pressed ahead. In January 1950 the NAACP and sixty labor, civil rights, civic, and religious groups held a National Emergency Mobilization rally in Washington, D.C. Four thousand delegates from thirty-three states attended, and their leaders proclaimed that an FEPC was their first priority. Congressional Republicans were un-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 29

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 29 ]

moved. When Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas (D-Ill.) called for a civil rights test on a compulsory FEPC, Wherry stressed antilynching legislation. The Nebraska Republican agreed that some sort of an FEPC was needed but noted that because Americans were “a tolerant people, fair and just,” a compulsory approach would be too harsh.72 House leaders moved forward on a voluntary FEPC bill sponsored by Republican Samuel McConnell of Pennsylvania—the first time any FEPC bill had been brought to a vote in either house of Congress. McConnell’s legislation revealed the depth of concern over the use of statistical evidence to gauge discrimination. It stated that a person lacking skills did not deserve a job because of his or her race and that low levels of employment among a particular racial or ethnic group did not prove discrimination. After blocking a compulsory bill, Republicans lined up behind the McConnell plan, which passed.73 There was no chance that an FEPC bill would be approved in the Senate. Two cloture votes failed to halt a southern filibuster. Although a solid majority of Republicans backed cloture in each case, civil rights leaders were not impressed. Many of the Republicans who favored cloture opposed a compulsory bill. H. Alexander Smith feared that a compulsory FEPC would exacerbate racial tensions in the South, forcing the president to send federal troops to restore order. NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell complained that the GOP was more interested in using civil rights to embarrass the Democrats than in passing necessary bills. “We must try,” he advised, “to place the Republicans in such a position when civil rights issues come to the fore they will not . . . back down or run out on us.”74 Mitchell and other civil rights activists would have no success doing so during the last two years of the Truman administration. Senators Ives and Humphrey offered a modified compulsory FEPC bill that granted more state and local autonomy, but it went nowhere. Alarmed by violence in the South against black veterans, a bipartisan group of legislators proposed to make it a federal crime to murder, assault, or intimidate members of the armed services. The Senate, including a majority of Republicans, rejected that proposal. Other civil rights bills remained stuck in committee. An attempt to liberalize the cloture rule in 1951 also failed.75

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 30

[ 30 ] ch ap t e r o ne

Race, Region, and Electoral Strategy The GOP’s unexpected defeat in 1948 sparked intense debates over the party’s future. Democrats had won five consecutive presidential contests and controlled both houses of Congress for all but two years since 1932. Some Republicans contended that taking a more liberal stand on civil rights would help remedy these problems. Robert Church Jr. highlighted the party’s failure to push for civil rights legislation and reminded RNC officials that they had ignored the 1938 recommendation of Ralph Bunche, a prominent African American intellectual and civil rights activist, to appoint more blacks to leadership positions. Party leaders in Cincinnati stressed that it was time for the GOP to stop talking about its role in passing Reconstruction-era constitutional amendments that provided legal protections for blacks. Ives, Morse, and others trumpeted more recent accomplishments, such as the 1949 election of Alfred Driscoll, a racial liberal, as governor of New Jersey.76 But it was questionable whether the North was as progressive as the Republicans contended. The same year Driscoll was elected, Republican Albert Cobo won the mayoral contest in heavily Democratic Detroit, partly by vowing to protect whites from neighborhood integration. Over the next several years, he would remain popular among his white constituents by ensuring that public housing projects, where many African Americans resided, would not be built in their neighborhoods.77 Most Republicans continued to either ignore or downplay racial issues. In May 1949 the RNC identified twelve policy objectives that could propel the GOP to electoral success. Civil rights did not make the list. Party leaders failed to invite any black Republicans to a January 1950 meeting to discuss how the GOP might improve its showing among African Americans. A month later, House Republicans released a statement of principles that contained a promise to “continue to sponsor and support legislation to protect the rights of minorities.” Ives, Javits, and other liberals found this wording far too tepid. The Crisis observed, “Judging Republican performance, we conclude that the Party no longer regards itself as the ‘friend’ of the Negro.”78 Other Republicans openly challenged the liberals’ prescription. Hoff-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 31

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 31 ]

man declared that Republicans were “barking up the wrong tree” if they believed supporting civil rights would garner more black support. The African American vote had been irrevocably lost, he claimed. Hoffman echoed the theme of the “bought vote,” a derisive concept employed by some Republicans since the 1930s to argue that Democrats rallied voters, including African Americans, through lavish federal spending. The 1950 election provided evidence to support Hoffman’s view. Among the New Deal coalition, no one remained more loyal to the Democrats than African Americans did.79 Some Republicans favored an aggressive pursuit of white votes in Dixie. A month after the 1950 election, RNC chair Guy Gabrielson lamented that conceding the South had left the GOP with a big electoral vote deficit. He stressed that such an obstacle “might not have been too serious . . . when we had solid Republican states north of the MasonDixon line, but some of those states that were at one time very solidly Republican are now becoming marginal areas, and if we are going to build towards a stronger Republican Party that can carry a national election we must do some effective and constructive work south of the Mason-Dixon line.” The Democrats’ success since the 1930s in northern industrial states, once solid Republican territory, had altered the political landscape.80 Other RNC members agreed. “There are certain definite changes in our political horizons that an alert party must consider,” one emphasized. “The South and the Southwest are the last remaining political frontiers for conquest by the Republican Party, to make up its losses in other sections of the country,” said another. In December 1950 the RNC passed a resolution to create a seven-member committee to boost the party’s fortunes in Dixie. A month later one committee member presciently forecast that Republicans might succeed in 1952 in Florida and the Upper South, but he also stressed that the party needed to organize throughout the region. Because building viable organizations might take two decades or longer, he pointed out, Republicans should start immediately.81 Clifford Case, a civil rights liberal, worried that his GOP colleagues were about to seek the support of racist whites in the South. This would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 32

[ 32 ] ch ap t e r o ne

be futile and a “betrayal of our heritage,” the New Jersey congressman stressed. Predicting that segregation’s days were numbered, Case urged the GOP to cultivate nascent progressive constituencies in agriculture, labor, and industry. For Case, the party’s future in Dixie involved attracting new voters rather than seeking Democratic crossovers. He also believed that allying with segregationists would worsen the GOP’s standing in the North. Dewey’s margins of victory in New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had been perilously thin in 1948, he observed, and trading those electoral vote–rich states for the relatively sparsely populated South would be foolish. Other northern Republicans would make essentially the same argument over the next twenty-five years.82

Conclusion Inspired by the New Deal and World War II, African Americans worked to enlist the federal government in their struggle for equal employment opportunity, the right to vote, protection from violence, and several other areas. Liberals’ hopes that the postwar era would revive New Deal–style domestic reform, including progress on racial issues, went unfulfilled. Southern Democrats effectively defended the status quo, but so did Republicans. The GOP helped tighten the filibuster rule and firmly opposed a compulsory FEPC—the item of greatest importance to civil rights activists—as well as other civil rights legislation. Republicans’ rhetoric often echoed that of southern Democrats, and Thomas Dewey largely ignored black voters in the 1948 presidential election. African Americans often criticized Democrats, but they stayed loyal in part because Republicans did not offer an attractive alternative. Most Republicans resisted demands for change by reiterating nineteenth-century notions of freedom of contract, upward mobility through hard work, class harmony, property rights, and localism. Anticommunism played a role, but it was a secondary concern. Politically, most Republicans saw little electoral incentive to pursue black voters. Those who favored a stronger federal role in racial matters or those who wanted to bring African Americans back to the GOP were few in number and powerless in Congress and the party.83 As the Truman era drew to a close, Republicans looked forward to the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:03 PM Page 33

fai r e m p l oy m e nt , vot i ng ri ghts, and racial violence [ 33 ]

1952 presidential campaign, the first in nearly two decades without an incumbent Democratic president seeking reelection. The political winds seemed to be at their back. Voters had grown weary of the Korean War, and Democrats remained sharply divided over race and other issues. Republicans, meanwhile, thought they had identified the man who would restore the GOP’s claim on the White House.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 34

2

Dwight D. Eisenhower and Reform of the Federal Government

In 1963 blacks across the nation, not just in the South, were challenging racial norms. They were participating in sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotting schools, protesting corporate and union employment policies, attempting to register to vote, and seeking to integrate neighborhoods. Martin Luther King Jr., the nation’s most prominent civil rights leader, identified several reasons for these developments, including the unwitting role of Dwight D. Eisenhower. King credited the two-term president’s “pronounced” sincerity regarding the evils of racial oppression but added that Eisenhower “had no ability to translate it to the public or to define the problem as a supreme domestic issue.” The president “was fixed and rigid,” King argued, “and any evil defacing the nation had to be extracted bit by bit with a tweezer because the surgeon’s knife was an instrument too radical to touch this best of all possible societies.”1 Eisenhower’s closest African American allies expressed similar feelings of fondness and disappointment. In January 1960 baseball legend Jackie Robinson, then a Republican and a columnist for the New York Post, wrote, “In this, the last year of President Eisenhower’s stay in the White House, is it too much to hope that he will finally take the reins firmly in his hands and give the nation some aggressive direction in the field of civil rights?” E. Frederic Morrow, who in 1955 became the first African American to hold an executive position at the White House, indicated that he “admired [Eisenhower] without reservation.” Yet Morrow also lamented that Eisenhower “at no time . . . made any overt gesture that would encourage Negroes to believe he sympathized with, [ 34 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 35

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 35 ]

or believed in, their crusade for complete or immediate citizenship.” Morrow’s critique extended to the GOP as well. He noted the solid record of “a few liberals in Congress and elsewhere” but stressed that “the whole Republican party seemed to have been embarrassed by the civil rights question” during the 1950s. “Any discussion of this question brought pained expressions and crafty evasions.”2 When interviewed by African American reporter Simeon Booker in 1962, Eisenhower offered a different interpretation. Recalling his disappointment over his poor showing in Harlem during the 1956 election, the former president acknowledged that economic issues had led blacks to vote Democratic. He nevertheless insisted that his civil rights record compared very favorably with that of the Democrats, whom he charged with making promises they did not fulfill. Better to match rhetoric with performance, Eisenhower stressed.3 These disparate recollections reflect the substantial differences between blacks and the Republican Party throughout the 1950s. African Americans continued to look to the federal government for help as they struggled to overcome racial injustices. Some groups, most notably the NAACP, worked for change primarily through filing lawsuits in the courts and lobbying political leaders. Others engaged in nonviolent direct action protests that would, they hoped, disrupt their communities and thus force local, state, and federal officials to act. These tactics usually had little or no impact on Republicans in Washington. For much of the 1950s, congressional Republicans rejected calls for civil rights legislation. Eisenhower ignored or opposed many black demands as well. Even so, the president believed the federal government had an obligation to eliminate racial inequalities in areas that were clearly under its jurisdiction, and he took several important steps that advanced racial justice. Some prominent African American leaders, who had been skeptical of Eisenhower, if not outright opposed to him, when he first took office, were pleasantly surprised by his early reforms. Black voters were less impressed, however.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 36

[ 36 ] ch ap t e r t wo

The 1952 Campaign On June 5, 1952, Abilene, Kansas, stood at the center of the American political landscape. The day before, native son Dwight Eisenhower had announced that he would seek the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. At a press conference that was televised live nationwide, the sixty-two-year-old Eisenhower answered an assortment of questions from the 300 assembled reporters, including whether he favored a federal FEPC. The former five-star general and commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II proclaimed his “unchangeable . . . unalterable support for fairness and equality.” He expressed sympathy for those who suffered from discrimination and pledged that he would “never cease” to use his personal influence to combat it. Nevertheless, he opposed an FEPC. “I do not believe we can cure all of the evils in men’s hearts by law,” he declared, “and . . . I really believe we can do more by leadership and getting states to do it than [by] mak[ing] it a federal compulsory thing.” In echoing the themes of localism, education, and freedom of contract championed by Republicans during the 1940s, Eisenhower stood squarely in the mainstream of the GOP.4 Eisenhower’s statements on any issue carried great weight. As one of the nation’s most admired figures, he immediately became a serious contender for the White House. Prominent Democrats and Republicans, including Harry Truman, had approached him to be their party’s nominee in 1948, and four years later, Truman lobbied Eisenhower again. But the former general was a Republican. He was troubled over the growth of federal power since the New Deal and worried that neither the Democrats nor the leading Republican contender, Robert Taft, would be able to counter the spread of communism abroad.5 Eisenhower’s background offered clues to how he would approach racial issues if he became president. Abilene, home to just a hundred or so blacks, was segregated. Eisenhower’s military career took him to segregated institutions at West Point and then in Texas, Maryland, and Georgia. He frequently visited Augusta, Georgia, to play golf and had developed many friendships during his time in the South; he had grown fond of the region. Segregation did not deeply trouble him. As was common among whites of his generation, Eisenhower occasionally used

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 37

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 37 ]

racial epithets and harbored doubts about African Americans’ abilities. While commanding troops in North Africa in 1943, he noted that his living arrangements included “a group of darkies that take gorgeous care of me.” Six years later he told a brief anecdote about a slow “darky servant” in at least two public speeches. New York Times journalist C. L. Sulzberger, who frequently golfed with Eisenhower, wrote that he “unquestionably [had] some bias against [blacks].”6 Yet Eisenhower also demonstrated a fondness for African Americans—sometimes with a dose of paternalism. Willie Frank Perteet, who caddied for Eisenhower at the Augusta National Golf Club, described him as a “gentleman” who paid twice the usual fee. The caddy noted that when he congratulated Eisenhower on making a good shot, the former general “just smiles and laughs and puts his hand on my head and says, ‘Good old Cemetary’ (Perteet’s nickname).” Several years after the war, Eisenhower helped John Hunt, one of his military cooks, secure admission to a graduate program by making a donation to the college. Hunt eventually earned a doctorate and became a teacher; later, at Eisenhower’s invitation, he brought his fifth-grade class to the White House.7 Eisenhower’s closest black friend was his valet, Sergeant John Moaney. The pair developed a deep bond that began in 1942 and lasted more than a quarter century. Moaney had been Eisenhower’s orderly during the war and performed a variety of other tasks for the general; Eisenhower warmly referred to him as “my companion” and “just about the irreplaceable man.” John’s wife, Delores, grew close to Mamie Eisenhower and served as her housekeeper. After the White House years, the couple lived with the Eisenhowers in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Eisenhower described John and Delores as “regular members of our household.” An associate recalled, “In Ike’s presence, not a person uttered an unkind remark about Moaney.” Moaney was too sick to attend Eisenhower’s funeral in 1969 but served as an honorary pallbearer.8 Eisenhower had a strong egalitarian streak. Although the armed forces remained segregated, with African Americans serving mostly in support rather than combat roles, Eisenhower pushed for integration at Red Cross and USO clubs. In early 1944 he ordered officers to ensure the “scrupulous enforcement” of “equal opportunities of service and of recreation” for all soldiers. While in London he overturned the military’s

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 38

[ 38 ] ch ap t e r t wo

policy of keeping reporters from interviewing African American troops, and he reversed the conviction of a black soldier who had allegedly raped a white woman. On several occasions, most notably during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944–1945, imperative military needs led Eisenhower to urge that blacks be allowed in combat.9 After the war ended, Eisenhower became army chief of staff. He continued to work for partial integration of the military and affirmed that soldiers should be judged as individuals. The contribution of African American troops, he wrote in 1947, “has not always received the public recognition or realistic appreciation it merited.” Ebony speculated in January 1948 that Eisenhower would “undoubtedly have popular appeal” among blacks if he sought the presidency.10 Eisenhower’s paternalism resurfaced during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 1948, when Richard Russell questioned him regarding integration of the military. “In general, the Negro is less well educated than his brother citizen that is white,” Eisenhower responded, “and if you make a complete amalgamation, . . . in every company the Negro is going to be relegated to minor jobs, and is never going to get his promotion . . . because the competition is too tough.” Eisenhower attributed this disparity to a history of deprivation rather than innate shortcomings. He predicted that integration would eventually occur but emphasized that forcing the issue would be counterproductive. “I do believe that if we attempt merely by passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else,” Eisenhower asserted, “we are just going to get trouble.” Instead, he proposed a vague program of “education . . . mutual respect, and so on.” Four years later, Eisenhower privately expressed regret that he had allowed southern military leaders to influence his testimony, but African American leaders would long remember the episode.11 Eisenhower invoked the universalist rhetoric that was common during the 1940s. “About the year 2000, what will they be saying about the Negro race?” he asked. Eisenhower then answered his own question: “I rather doubt at that time it will occur to us to mention the word Negro. . . . We will just be saying Americans, because that is what we are.”12 Eisenhower’s views about government and leadership also shaped his approach to racial matters. His military experience taught him the impor-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 39

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 39 ]

tance of duty and the common good. Leaders must act firmly—ideally through persuasion and conciliation—without calling attention to themselves. Their job was to help convince various segments of society to sacrifice their self-interests at appropriate moments. Eisenhower routinely searched for what he called “the middle way.” He also saw little value in making speeches, believing that results counted more than words.13 Eisenhower took the political stage at a time when Republicans were eager to court white southerners. “We want the Dixiecrats to vote for our candidate,” RNC chair Guy Gabrielson proclaimed. “The Dixiecrat party believes in states’ rights. That’s what the Republican Party believes in.” Another Republican argued that the GOP had paid too much attention to black voters in the North who had been “bought and paid for” by the Democrats. Republicans were “chumps” if they ignored the South, he maintained.14 Electoral math offered a compelling reason for Republicans to build strong party structures across Dixie. If a Republican presidential nominee lost the entire South (as every one of them had since 1932), that candidate would need to capture approximately 70 percent of the electoral votes in the rest of the nation to win the White House. That was a tall order, given the Democrats’ success since the Great Depression. Likewise, Republican losses in southern congressional races meant that the party needed to win about 70 percent of the contests elsewhere to control the House of Representatives. It had done that only once since 1928. Cracking the South would not be easy: only one out of eleven southerners identified as Republican, and many of these were clustered in the traditionally strong GOP areas of Appalachia. Southern whites continued to blame the Republican Party for Reconstruction and the Great Depression. As a result, Republican presidential candidates had won just ten southern states since 1900.15 When Senator Taft toured the South in November 1951, he focused mostly on agricultural issues but discussed race as well. He reiterated his support for a voluntary FEPC and asserted that although he personally approved of the Supreme Court’s 1950 decision (McLaurin v. Board of Regents) to desegregate graduate schools, education was a local matter, and the federal government should not force desegregation. Current laws were sufficient to preserve civil rights, he told a New Orleans audience.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 40

[ 40 ] ch ap t e r t wo

Taft also spoke more generally of the need to protect local rule from federal interference; white supremacists had long used similar language.16 Eisenhower had a wellspring of goodwill in the South. In 1948 he had briefly won the backing of some influential southern Democrats, including Richard Russell, Strom Thurmond, and Gessner McCorvey, head of the Alabama Democratic Party and a leading architect of the Dixiecrat revolt. “Eisenhower enjoys a popularity [in the South] second only to Jefferson Davis on his inauguration day,” the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser proclaimed. Eisenhower’s military background was a plus, and many in the South (and in the rest of the nation) regarded him as a man of outstanding character. Yet race was also a factor; a Mississippi congressman said he was “particularly pleased with [Eisenhower’s] stand on FEPC” and even lamented that the former general was not the Democratic nominee. One Mississippi resident pleaded with Taft to step aside so that Eisenhower could be nominated, citing a widely circulated joke in the Magnolia State: “I’d vote for Ike even if he ran on a nigger ticket.” The Ike for President Committee proclaimed him the “only Republican . . . who can break the one-party hold on the Solid South.”17 African American leaders found these developments deeply troubling. Relying on state and local authority meant preserving an oppressive status quo; Walter White pointed out to Eisenhower that thirty-seven states had failed to take action against employment discrimination. Southern states, White complained, eagerly accepted “hundreds of millions” of federal dollars while discriminating against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and others. The Chicago Defender lamented that Eisenhower was “clearly against sin but doesn’t plan to do anything about it.” A Taft or an Eisenhower presidency, NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell warned, would make “the northern bank of the Potomac River . . . an outpost of the resurrected Confederacy.”18 Black leaders nevertheless hoped to influence the GOP by touting the potential strength of the African American vote. Four days after Eisenhower’s Abilene press conference, eighteen civil rights organizations, led by the NAACP, drafted a statement that recalled the close outcome in 1948 and warned both major parties that blacks would not support any presidential candidate who opposed a compulsory federal FEPC. For African Americans, economic opportunity remained the primary issue.19

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 41

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 41 ]

Gathering in Chicago that July for their convention, Republicans hoped voters’ concerns over the Korean War and the economy would lead to victory in November. Republicans adopted a civil rights plank that omitted any mention of reforming the filibuster rule and offered vague pledges to act against lynching, the poll tax, employment discrimination, and segregation in the nation’s capital. The party shot down Irving Ives’s efforts to obtain a specific endorsement of a compulsory FEPC; any federal employment legislation, the GOP insisted, should not duplicate state efforts or “set up another huge bureaucracy.” Republicans reached out to the South by affirming “the primary responsibility of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions.”20 There was nothing in the plank regarding school or housing segregation outside the South nor any sign that the GOP regarded these as important matters. Republicans ignored a local incident, occurring days before the convention, in which a mob of about 4,000 whites vandalized and then set fire to a home that had been purchased by an African American in a traditionally white neighborhood. As the black population of many northern and western cities rose substantially during the 1940s and 1950s, whites used violence and other means to maintain a rigid color line.21 Black delegates were disappointed and angry. Approximately forty of them discussed launching a floor fight to demand that the party endorse a compulsory FEPC and pledge to curb filibusters. Concerned that it might harm Eisenhower, Ives and other northern liberals quelled the effort.22 Civil rights leaders and the black press were also upset. They condemned the plank as “essentially a states’ rights plank,” “watered down,” and “spineless.” The five members of a civil rights subcommittee were decidedly uninformed about the FEPC, Walter White observed. One “persisted in badgering the witnesses,” he noted, and spoke “in identical language and tone of the Dixiecrats” when he warned of “hordes of Federal police swarming over the country” and affirmed “states’ rights.” A dejected labor leader commented, “We talked about a plank which [had] already been drafted to people who [weren’t] of sufficient stature or influence to do anything about re-drafting it, if they wished to.”23

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 42

[ 42 ] ch ap t e r t wo

Reformers took little comfort in Eisenhower’s selection of Richard Nixon as his running mate. Although the California senator had regularly voted for anti–poll tax and antilynching legislation, the NAACP dismissed his record as “unsatisfactory” due to his opposition to a compulsory FEPC and other bills that reformers deemed important. A compulsory FEPC, Nixon argued, would “set the cause of good relations back fifty years.”24 The Democrats met in Chicago later that month and nominated Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson for president. Stevenson favored a stronger federal role in racial matters, but he was not an enthusiastic reformer. Although the Democrats endorsed equal employment legislation, they were silent on whether that meant a compulsory FEPC. They, too, ignored neighborhood integration and other racial tensions in the North. Stevenson selected Senator John Sparkman of Alabama as his running mate, a move that drew the ire of civil rights leaders.25 Several senior advisers in the Eisenhower camp, including Herbert Brownell Jr. and New Hampshire governor Sherman Adams, advocated a more aggressive pursuit of black votes. Proud of the Republican Party’s record on race during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Brownell had deep egalitarian principles and believed that a strong civil rights stance was critical to the GOP’s political success. He had managed Dewey’s campaign in 1948, when the governor had won several large northern states by a mere five percentage points or less. The loss of all or most of these states would make a Republican victory difficult if not impossible. Ives and Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. agreed, but they failed to convince Eisenhower to endorse a compulsory FEPC. Instead, the candidate proclaimed a broad egalitarianism: “Appeals to prejudice and bigotry have no place in America,” he declared. “Those were the tactics of the Nazis and the Fascists.”26 Civil rights leaders also prodded Eisenhower to endorse a compulsory FEPC during two meetings that August. The candidate told them he favored a voluntary committee, but Roy Wilkins countered that additional studies and talk would “be little comfort” to African Americans. Jobs, he emphasized, were blacks’ chief concern. Voicing frustration that his views on this issue had led blacks to doubt his racial goodwill, Eisenhower reiterated his determination to end segregation in Washington,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 43

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 43 ]

D.C., combat discrimination in federal employment, and act boldly in other areas of clear federal authority. Black leaders were impressed by Eisenhower’s sincerity, but they wanted specific answers about how he would accomplish these worthy goals. They also found him uninformed. Archibald Carey, a black Republican alderman in Chicago, voiced similar concerns later that month, citing Eisenhower’s confession to him that he had not been fully briefed about an FEPC. Carey also sharply criticized the GOP for its stand on the issue.27 Eisenhower had his eyes on the South. He toured parts of Dixie in early September—the first twentieth-century Republican presidential candidate to do so—and by November he had visited every southern state except Mississippi. Eisenhower won the support of Democratic governors James Byrnes of South Carolina, Allan Shivers of Texas, and Robert Kennon of Louisiana, as well as Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia. Georgia governor Herman Talmadge warmly welcomed Eisenhower to Atlanta but became less enthusiastic when the nominee indicated he was willing to consider naming an African American to his cabinet. Vowing to move “heaven and earth” to elect Eisenhower, the head of the Alabama Democratic Party circulated thousands of copies of a photograph of Sparkman with an African American delegate to the Democratic convention. More than fifty southern newspapers endorsed Eisenhower; just twenty-four had backed Dewey four years earlier.28 Eisenhower ingratiated himself to white southerners in several ways. When a band at a Columbia, South Carolina, rally began to play “Dixie,” a tune long associated with the Confederacy and the Old South, he rose from his seat and announced, “I always stand up when they play that song.” Eisenhower’s speeches often included a brief pledge to work for “equal opportunity,” but he focused primarily on economic concerns and foreign policy. There was no overt racial malice in his appeals to southern whites, and there is no evidence that he intended his denunciations of “Washington power mongers” and other warnings against federal authority as racially coded language.29 In fact, leaders of the Eisenhower campaign in the South wanted to avoid the race issue. Their strategy was to emphasize the candidate, not the Republican Party, and to underscore the idea that by supporting a winner, the South could be restored to political prominence. This ap-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 44

[ 44 ] ch ap t e r t wo

proach included welcoming former Dixiecrats who favored Eisenhower but were not ready to become Republicans. “Do not let the negro question enter the southern campaign, for there is no negro problem that the South cannot itself take care of,” one anonymous campaign memo stressed. “Even if that means alienating some of the negro vote in the populous northern cities—what of it?” The memo continued: The negro vote no longer belongs to the Republican Party as in days of old, for gratitude for freedom from slavery has long been forgotten. In its place, we have twenty years of “handouts” to the Negroes by the Democratic Party, which the negro cannot and will not forget at the polls. . . . The one hundred thirty-six electoral votes of the South mean more to the Republican Party than the possible loss of a few Northern states, even a big one like Pennsylvania.30 Race remained central to southern politics, however. At least three states (Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) were exploring ways to provide private education for whites should the Supreme Court side with the NAACP’s drive to outlaw school segregation. Employment issues also stirred white resentment. An organization known as South Carolinians for Eisenhower placed a newspaper advertisement in early October boasting that the GOP nominee opposed federal efforts to desegregate schools as well as employment policies that would allow African Americans to take whites’ jobs. Nearly 20 percent of whites in Greenville County, the group claimed, would join the ranks of the unemployed under the FEPC plan favored by Stevenson. “Eisenhower believes in states’ rights—not dictation by federal bureaucrats,” it insisted. Walter White asked the Eisenhower campaign to denounce the ad. It did not. Noting that the campaign had no control over what individual groups did, an aide replied that the candidate rejected the ad’s content.31 Similar messages appeared in other states. Leaflets warning of “Negro bosses in mills and factories” and “white women being forced to work alongside Negroes” fell from airplanes in some locales, while in Florida, the Ku Klux Klan urged “every red-blooded southerner” to vote Republican. An ad in the Birmingham News declared that Democrats favored an FEPC, “which would send snoopers to force southern employers to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 45

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 45 ]

hire and discharge employees at their command.” It is difficult to know how extensive or influential these appeals were, but it is clear that some segregationists viewed Eisenhower and the Republican Party as the more reliable defenders of white supremacy.32 Eisenhower’s southern allies emphasized the jobs issue as well. Days before the election, he and three southern governors participated in a radio and television broadcast that aired in twelve southern states. Byrnes stressed that Eisenhower opposed a compulsory FEPC.33 Though Republicans focused their fall campaign primarily on the Korean War, communism, and corruption in Washington, they did not ignore race. Eisenhower affirmed his belief in “equal opportunity” and reiterated his faith in the power of persuasion. “In this sensitive area of human relations we must always remember that an ounce of leadership is worth a pound of law,” he proclaimed. Campaign literature reminded blacks of the party’s pro–civil rights stand during Reconstruction and, contrary to Eisenhower’s doubts about law’s utility in this area, noted that most northern states with fair employment statutes had Republican governors. Nixon emphasized that the GOP offered “performance rather than promise.” A study by Republican leaders concluded that black voters could be won if the GOP appealed to their desire for “continuing economic security” by endorsing a compulsory FEPC. Eisenhower and Nixon remained unwilling to do so.34 African Americans exhibited little enthusiasm for the Republican ticket. Pointing to Eisenhower’s 1948 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, editors at Ebony departed from their nonpartisan tradition and stated that an Eisenhower victory would mean a reversal of recent gains. Several black newspapers that had endorsed Dewey now backed Stevenson. A civil rights rally in Chicago that was supposed to include Nixon and nineteen Republican governors was canceled, reportedly due to concerns about minuscule attendance. Only 2,000 residents of Chicago’s heavily black South Side turned out when Eisenhower visited a memorial honoring deceased African American World War I veterans; 25,000 had attended President Truman’s appearance two days earlier.35 Several Democrats attacked the Republican ticket over racial issues. Eleanor Roosevelt, who had remained an outspoken civil rights advocate

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 46

[ 46 ] ch ap t e r t wo

since her husband’s death, accused the GOP of trying to appeal to both white southerners and northern blacks. Democrats also highlighted the existence of a restrictive covenant on Nixon’s District of Columbia home. Hypocrisy surrounded both charges, however: Stevenson also hoped to win southern votes, and Democratic lawmakers lived in Nixon’s D.C. neighborhood. Truman accused Eisenhower of favoring segregation and mocked his faith in persuasion: “He’s sure that will fix everything,” the outgoing president commented. “I wonder how well he knows Jimmy Byrnes.” Truman reminded a Harlem audience of Eisenhower’s 1948 testimony about blacks in the military and dismissed the candidate as a “front man” for Republicans who were hostile to civil rights. Stevenson also appeared in Harlem.36 Eisenhower’s most forthright civil rights statements came in October. Democrats, he asserted in Newark, had intentionally engaged in “systematic political exploitation” of blacks for twenty years by “leaving social injustices uncorrected in order that votes could be gained in election after election.” Describing racial inequality as “unconscionable,” he vowed to work closely with governors, “without the impossible handicap of federal compulsion,” to eliminate employment discrimination. Eight days later, Eisenhower told a Harlem audience that his administration would prohibit discrimination in programs that received federal money. “What I promise you is work, never ending work, to make certain that justice is done,” he vowed. Black voters remained unimpressed. His appearance in Harlem drew just 5,000 people, and there were few onlookers when he drove through black neighborhoods afterward.37 Eisenhower trounced Stevenson that November. The former general triumphed in thirty-nine of the forty-eight states and received 55 percent of the popular vote. Stevenson received slightly more than 70 percent of the ballots cast by blacks, a modest increase over Truman’s performance in 1948. The NAACP’s “balance of power” argument fell flat: Stevenson lost every northern state.38 Eisenhower carried four southern states—Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida—and came close to winning several others. The former general amassed 2.5 million more southern votes than Dewey had, capturing a higher percentage of southern ballots than any Republican since Reconstruction. The tide of support was for Eisenhower, however, not the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 47

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 47 ]

GOP; Republicans’ congressional vote in Dixie inched up just two percentage points. The GOP failed to even field a candidate in many contests, won no Senate seats, and triumphed in just six House races, five of which occurred in traditionally strong Republican areas.39 Eisenhower did best among upper-class whites in urban and suburban areas of the border South, where economic development since the New Deal had been greatest and relatively few African Americans resided. An emerging class of southern business leaders was starting to vote like their northern counterparts. Undoubtedly, few of them agreed with the NAACP or other reformers, but Eisenhower’s constituency was not Strom Thurmond’s. Twenty-five out of the twenty-nine congressional districts that had voted for Thurmond in 1948 now returned to the Democrats. Nearly 40 percent of those that had stayed loyal to Truman shifted to Eisenhower. Contrary to what some pundits and historians would later argue, the Dixiecrats were not the start of southern Democrats’ move to the GOP.40 Though he had fared poorly with black voters, the president-elect reached out to prominent African Americans soon after the election. In late November he met with Walter White and three others from the NAACP. White came away impressed with Eisenhower’s commitment to treating blacks fairly, and he was hopeful that meaningful changes were imminent. Eisenhower, he believed, had evolved since his 1948 Senate testimony. Several weeks later, Eisenhower conferred with black religious leaders representing thirteen denominations with a combined membership of 7 million. Shocked that African Americans were denied service at some hotels, he vowed to appoint a commission to investigate the extent of segregation and other forms of discrimination.41

Reform of the Federal Government Eisenhower was sworn in on January 20, 1953. Soprano Dorothy Maynor, who sang the national anthem, was the first African American to perform at an inauguration. Before beginning his formal address, the new president recited a prayer he had drafted. “Especially we pray,” he stated, “that our concern shall be for all people, regardless of station, race, or calling.” During the speech itself, Eisenhower referred to all peo-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 48

[ 48 ] ch ap t e r t wo

ple being equal before God. In the days before the ceremony, he had tried to put that egalitarian spirit into practice by asking local businesses to integrate inaugural events. Most ignored the request.42 Eisenhower was more specific in his State of the Union remarks thirteen days later. “Much of the answer,” he emphasized, “lies in the power of fact, fully publicized, of persuasion, honestly pressed, and of conscience, justly aroused.” Vowing to engage in “friendly conferences” with state and local officials, Eisenhower asserted that his administration “[expected] to make true and rapid progress in civil rights and equality of employment opportunity.” He pledged to “use whatever authority exists in the office of the president to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the federal government, and any segregation in the armed forces.”43 The NAACP hoped to cooperate with the new administration and the GOP-controlled Congress. For the first time since 1929, Republicans held majority status in both the House and the Senate. Noting that many blacks felt “uncomfortable and frustrated” with the Democratic Party, Roy Wilkins speculated that meaningful improvements under Republican leadership would bring some African Americans back to the GOP and “generate a real two[-]party system in the South.” Wilkins described overwhelming black loyalty to one party as “a bad thing.” Real competition for black votes, he posited, would bring further reforms.44 When Eisenhower took office, Reconstruction-era statutes that forbade segregation in Washington, D.C., had been unenforced for decades. The city’s sizable black population had long sought action, but neither Roosevelt nor Truman had offered assistance. Congress was no help either, because southern Democrats controlled the committees that oversaw D.C. affairs. Segregation in the nation’s capital offended Eisenhower’s sense of fairness. He also understood that second-class treatment of nonwhite diplomats harmed America’s efforts to woo allies from the developing world in its battle to contain communism.45 The new president moved quickly. Taking into consideration black leaders’ concerns, Eisenhower appointed Samuel Spencer as president of the Board of Commissioners. That October, Spencer announced that government contracts would henceforth contain a nondiscrimination clause. A month later, he issued an order prohibiting employment dis-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 49

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 49 ]

crimination in the District of Columbia and segregation in publicly owned and operated facilities. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. appeared before the Supreme Court in 1953 to argue that the District’s antisegregation laws were constitutional. The Court unanimously sided with the administration, and Spencer quickly demanded compliance. Within days, the Afro-American enthusiastically advised the black population, “Eat anywhere!” Eisenhower celebrated both the decision itself, which he termed “substantial,” and the quiet, determined manner in which the changes had occurred. The president also lobbied the heads of several Hollywood movie studios, whom he knew personally, to pressure local theaters to end discrimination. Mamie Eisenhower did not attend the world premiere of a film that spring because the theater segregated its audience.46 The NAACP, B’nai B’rith, and National Negro Council commended the president. In April 1955 the Chicago Defender, a paper that had backed both Roosevelt and Truman, presented Eisenhower with the Robert F. Abbott Memorial Award, given to the person who “did the most to extend democracy at home and abroad.” The National Newspaper Publishers Association honored Eisenhower with the Russwurm Award, the most distinguished prize given by African American publishers. Ralph Bunche observed that whereas he had turned down an important post in the Truman administration due to conditions in Washington, he would now gladly accept such a position because the city had undergone “remarkable changes.” In February 1956 Ebony proclaimed “Democracy Comes to Washington” and cited the central role played by the White House. Three years later, Jet ran an article trumpeting that Washington had become a positive environment for African Americans to live and work.47 Eisenhower’s initiatives in the District of Columbia sparked criticism from southern Democrats, who alleged the president had infringed on congressional authority. One Georgia legislator accused the president of “trying to out deal the New Deal.” Herman Talmadge complained, “Now it looks like Eisenhower is trying to go Truman one better. Nonsegregation won’t work in the South.”48 The administration also moved against discrimination by firms that had been awarded government contracts. On August 13, 1953, Eisen-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 50

[ 50 ] ch ap t e r t wo

hower signed an executive order creating the President’s Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC) and, hoping to give the committee instant credibility, tapped Nixon to lead it. The PCGC consisted of representatives from the six federal agencies awarding the largest contracts and nine individuals from business, labor, and civic groups. A small staff administered daily operations. The PCGC reflected Eisenhower’s faith in education and cooperation; it could receive complaints, investigate employment conditions, educate the public, advise federal agencies, and work with other organizations. Enforcement powers, as well as the authority to cancel contracts, remained with federal agencies.49 Several factors prompted Eisenhower to act. The federal government had been inserting antidiscrimination clauses into contracts since the 1930s, but businesses routinely flouted them. Civil rights groups pressured the White House to follow the Truman administration’s recommendation to create a new federal body. Eisenhower also hoped to head off the drive (weak though it was) for a compulsory FEPC. The mere creation of the committee immediately sparked worry among business and political leaders that federal officials would meddle in corporate affairs; Eisenhower instructed Nixon to give a speech to calm the waters.50 The PCGC also arose from the autonomous concerns of policy makers. As Secretary of Labor James Mitchell observed, the nation was suffering from a shortage of skilled workers, especially scientists and engineers, and most of the near-term growth of the labor force would consist of women, racial minorities, and youth. The economy was shifting away from manufacturing and toward high technology. Opening up opportunities for African Americans in these areas would be essential to maintaining the robust economic expansion that had occurred since World War II. Confidence in economic growth coexisted with anxiety that the United States might fall behind the Soviet Union. Shortly after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, Nixon warned that “the national interest and our very survival” compel us to “develop the complete human resources with which we are blessed.”51 The committee sought to change whites’ minds about African Americans and remove some of the formal aspects of discrimination, such as racial questions on job applications. The PCGC held numerous conferences with business, labor, and community groups; it produced short

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 51

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 51 ]

films, distributed pamphlets, published a newsletter, and crafted advertisements. During the 1956 Christmas season 3,000 postal trucks were emblazoned with the PCGC message of equal opportunity. The committee consistently emphasized that discrimination was un-American; it hurt the economy and undermined the battle against communism. Bringing whites and African Americans together in the workplace would, the committee insisted, foster interracial harmony.52 The PCGC also developed a structural analysis of labor markets. Recognizing that insufficient skills kept many blacks in poverty, the committee urged minority youth to set high aspirations for themselves and held conferences with educational and business leaders to discuss training. It used racial proportionality as a test of whether discrimination existed. This contrasted with a strict color-blind policy that aimed to remove racial considerations from employment matters, which is almost surely what Eisenhower had in mind when he created the PCGC. Rather than waiting for complaints to come in, the committee wanted federal agencies “to take positive steps to inspect and evaluate” contractors, according to PCGC staff director Jacob Seidenberg. Minorities might be unaware that the PCGC existed, or they might be reluctant to file complaints due to fear of reprisals from employers. Nixon publicly acknowledged that some workers doubted that complaints would lead to any real changes. The committee always insisted that it was against hiring quotas, yet it maintained that having companies simply pledge not to discriminate would open few jobs and do little to encourage advancement and training.53 Proportional thinking thus coexisted with educational efforts. In 1954 the PCGC cited the low percentage of black employees (170 out of 11,800), the dearth of blacks in more advanced positions, and the lack of recruitment efforts at local black colleges to challenge a Navy Department conclusion that a company had not discriminated. “I am sure you will agree that it is not enough . . . to have 5 percent of your labor force Negro if they are all in the lowest jobs,” Secretary Mitchell told business executives a year later. “It may be necessary to look at the levels people have reached, their classifications and the kinds of jobs on which they are employed. This . . . is essential to compliance with the nondiscrimination clause.”54

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 52

[ 52 ] ch ap t e r t wo

In 1956 the committee completed a more formal set of guidelines. Federal agencies, the PCGC advised, should be dubious of any company’s claim that it did not discriminate. The absence of racial questions on job applications was a requirement, but it was insufficient to prove equal opportunity. Instead, compliance officers should tour plants, compile statistical reports on the number of minorities employed and the types of jobs they held, and meet with local black leaders to determine the broader social and economic contexts. If the skill level of the African American population was high, the committee observed, integration at all job levels should occur over time. During a presentation to the cabinet in 1959, the PCGC emphasized that real progress came “only when hard and fast specific commitments have been secured from . . . contractors.” This meant that contractors had to “spell out . . . that a definite number of qualified [African Americans] will be employed within a given period of time in jobs from which they have been traditionally barred.”55 Numerous obstacles severely limited the PCGC’s effectiveness. The committee had a tiny budget, and the scope of its mission overwhelmed the full-time staff of nine. Numerous companies simply omitted or ignored the required nondiscrimination clause. Some claimed they did not have to follow it because of state or local equal employment laws. Firms resented federal interference, insisting that employers retained the right to control personnel decisions. Many refused to provide statistics on minority employment or protested that such information was too difficult to obtain.56 Federal agencies offered little or no cooperation either. Some lacked sufficient investigators, or their personnel had a limited understanding of the issues and procedures. Many investigators simply accepted a company’s verbal pledge of nondiscrimination or let corporate officials fill out the compliance form themselves. They took at face value executives’ claims that there were too few qualified applicants, or they considered the presence of a few African Americans in low-level jobs satisfactory. Investigators often ignored PCGC guidelines about meeting with local black leaders. PCGC training programs for investigators were of limited value; investigators complained of being overworked and feared the loss of their jobs if they pushed too hard. Some said agency heads gave little

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 53

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 53 ]

or no priority to equal employment, while others believed their role was to side with the company under review.57 The PCGC faced a storm of criticism. When Eisenhower first created it, the Atlanta Constitution accused him of double-crossing the South, and James Byrnes protested that it would “open [a] Pandora’s box of woes” and lead to a flood of unwarranted federal regulations. Six years later, a Tennessee paper declared that the committee was part of Eisenhower’s “forced integration” program. Civil rights groups, in contrast, insisted that the committee was too feeble. Herbert Hill, the NAACP’s labor secretary, denounced the PCGC as “mainly ritual and rhetoric with little substance.” On occasion, activists were able to influence the committee’s work, such as boosting black employment in D.C. department stores and utilities, but overall, their impact was negligible. PCGC officials rebuffed their numerous appeals to strengthen the committee’s legal authority and resented much of their criticism.58 The committee also encountered resistance on Capitol Hill. In 1959 southern Democrats tried to kill the PCGC by forbidding it to fund operations from money appropriated to federal agencies—a process Seidenberg frustratingly described as “beg, borrow, and conceal.” This effort failed, but Congress denied the Eisenhower administration’s requests in 1959 and 1960 to give the committee statutory authority and thus entitle it to its own budget. Nixon, who had urged federal agencies to take a “firmer approach” and be more aggressive in canceling contracts, was dejected. “This is no way to run a committee,” he wrote. In the fall of 1960 Nixon candidly admitted that the PCGC struggled with serious financial and statutory limitations. The committee opened up few jobs for African Americans, yet many of its concepts of equal employment opportunity would reappear in the late 1960s and early 1970s.59 The President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy compiled a similarly poor record. Created by executive order in 1955, this committee, which had two African American members, was supposed to ensure equal opportunity in the civil service. The move reflected Eisenhower’s sense of fairness, but it also stemmed from his desire to reduce the power of a similar body established by Truman and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 54

[ 54 ] ch ap t e r t wo

blunt employers’ criticism that the federal government itself practiced discrimination, even as it investigated contractors through the PCGC. A complaint-driven approach, poor enforcement by federal agencies, and a lack of skills among applicants meant that the few African Americans hired were clustered in low-wage positions.60 The administration enjoyed better results in its drive for equality in the armed forces. Eisenhower was deeply troubled by the military’s sporadic efforts to comply with Truman’s 1948 desegregation order, but once again, he hoped to avoid a public battle by delegating enforcement to subordinates. The last segregated unit was disbanded in October 1954—an important milestone. Nevertheless, African Americans continued to suffer discrimination with regard to recruitment and promotion, as well as access to services such as health care and housing. Tradition and a desire to maintain cordial relations with local leaders meant that some military officials offered little protection or empathy to African American soldiers who encountered racism while off base. The administration, moreover, did little to end segregation in the National Guard.61 Integration of the military involved not only combat units but also bases and Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals. The armed forces and the VA had long upheld segregation across the South, and in May 1953 Secretary of the Navy Robert Anderson declared his intent to continue that policy. When the NAACP protested to Eisenhower, he ordered Maxwell Rabb, his chief adviser on racial matters, to instruct Anderson and other navy officials to end segregation at such facilities. Four hundred white workers at a base in Charleston boycotted to protest the integration of the cafeteria that fall, but by January 1954, segregation had disappeared from the sixty bases across the South. Six months later, the head of the VA gave similar news to the president. These actions drew the ire of James Byrnes, but civil rights leaders were elated. Walter White noted to himself, “Praise Eisenhower.”62 Integration of schools attended by the children of military personnel took a rockier path. Schools located on bases and controlled by federal officials were integrated with relatively little trouble, but when authority was shared with local officials, federal officials often deferred to local custom. Integration was achieved in some cases, but it often required a long, tumultuous process.63

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 55

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 55 ]

The administration advanced racial justice in other areas directly under its control. Upon taking office, Eisenhower told his chief of staff he wanted qualified blacks to be considered for subcabinet positions. Notable black appointments during Eisenhower’s first term included J. Ernest Wilkins as undersecretary for international labor affairs and Ralph Bunche as deputy secretary-general of the United Nations. Eisenhower also hired the first African American woman to work in the White House secretarial pool. The NAACP’s efforts to persuade the State Department to hire more African Americans for positions in nonblack-majority nations proved largely unsuccessful, however.64 Eisenhower’s most high-profile appointment came in 1955, when he chose E. Frederic Morrow to work at the White House as the administrative officer for special projects—the first African American to hold such a position. A former public affairs officer for CBS, Morrow had served on Eisenhower’s campaign staff. However, administration officials were loath to cause controversy and debated whether to bring Morrow on board, causing him to suffer substantial financial hardship because of the lengthy delay. Once hired, he was given a shoddy office, and some members of the administration ignored him; several secretaries refused to work for him. White House visitors were often shocked to find a black man in such a high-level job. Morrow faced scorn from white southerners as well as some African Americans, who regarded him as a “traitor” and resented his criticism that blacks were not sufficiently committed to racial change. Morrow pressed ahead, accompanying Eisenhower and Nixon to several important conferences and international ceremonies. He also offered political and policy advice to Eisenhower and other officials, although it was usually ignored. Morrow regularly criticized the administration’s policies over the years, leading some Republicans to brand him a “radical” and call for his dismissal, but Eisenhower refused to fire him. Morrow retained his respect and admiration for the president, who tried but failed to help Morrow find work after Nixon lost the 1960 election. (Morrow eventually became the first black vice president at Bank of America.) In 1961 he published a memoir, Black Man in the White House.65 Eisenhower also broke down racial barriers at social functions. He opened the White House’s 1953 Christmas party to black employees.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 56

[ 56 ] ch ap t e r t wo

Ebony noted that African Americans were receiving an “unprecedented” number of invitations to dinners, parties, and other White House events. “Seeing Negro guests at official functions is getting to be such a usual occurrence, it’s news if none shows up,” one administration official commented. When there was a shortage of African Americans who fit the particular theme or purpose of an event, the White House sometimes invited blacks who would not have been included if they were white.66 The president left a more important civil rights legacy in the courts. He nominated or appointed several justices to the Supreme Court (most notably William Brennan Jr.) and the lower federal courts who often sided with the civil rights movement. His record in this area surpassed that of Harry Truman as well as John F. Kennedy. Eisenhower selected many of these nominees with a clear understanding of their positions on school segregation and other racial matters, and he stood by them when they faced stern opposition from southern Democrats.67

Conclusion Civil rights leaders frequently praised Eisenhower’s efforts during his first term. In September 1954 the NAACP lauded him for “substantial steps in the direction of full democracy for all.” Nine months later the organization proclaimed, “We owe a debt of gratitude” to the president for his “firm stand against racial segregation.” (The organization added that “very few” congressional Republicans merited similar commendation.) According to Walter White, southern conservatives who had hoped to grow the GOP across Dixie by exploiting racial hatred “have learned that the Republican Party under President Eisenhower affords them no haven for their anti–civil rights prejudices.” The publisher of the Chicago Defender acknowledged that Eisenhower had “accelerated the pace and extended the area of achievement.” Blacks’ fears that Eisenhower’s election would halt racial progress had abated, he stressed.68 Prominent white commentators agreed. Conservative U.S. News & World Report columnist David Lawrence lamented that “the Republican party has lost out in the South for decades to come” because the “Eisenhower administration has reverted to the [party’s] traditional position . . . on the civil rights issue.” Mississippi editor Hodding Carter, an Eisen-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 57

e i s e nh ow e r and re f o rm o f the federal government [ 57 ]

hower supporter, stated that the administration’s civil rights record “has left the South nowhere to take its racial mores, politically speaking.”69 Eisenhower had achieved notable advances. Even so, desegregation of Washington, D.C., or reforms in the military did little, if anything, to improve the lives of black factory workers in the North or sharecroppers in the South. The economy suffered a recession from late 1953 through mid-1954, with the national unemployment rate peaking at 6.1 percent in September; the black joblessness rate was roughly twice that of whites. African Americans remained loyal Democrats in the 1954 elections. Jet reported that in Philadelphia, Democrats received 84 percent of the black vote. In Pittsburgh, where 13,000 unemployed black steelworkers were receiving government-surplus food, the Democrats enjoyed a six-to-one margin among African Americans. The magazine noted that blacks appreciated the president’s successes but continued to see the GOP as hostile to their economic interests. “We go jobless every time the Republicans get in,” said a St. Louis factory worker. Similarly, an Indianapolis porter commented, “The Democrats are the poor man’s party.” Eisenhower was apparently surprised by the lack of African American support; the following spring he commented that the GOP’s 1954 vote total among blacks was lower than it had been previously, despite favorable press coverage of his civil rights initiatives.70 By the mid-1950s, conflicts, especially in the South, would draw the president into battles over schools and voting rights. Eisenhower’s responses would cause many black leaders to temper their enthusiasm and reinforce existing feelings among the broader African American population.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 58

“At Sea on This”: Eisenhower and Black Protest

3

On the morning of January 25, 1954, Dwight Eisenhower was thinking about taking a vacation to Southern California for a few days of golf. Yet with important congressional matters demanding his immediate attention, the president called several senators as well as Attorney General Herbert Brownell. Brownell had a special matter he wanted to share, in strict confidence. He had heard that the Supreme Court might rule soon on the constitutionality of legalized segregation in the public schools of the South. The Court, Brownell conveyed, apparently wanted to move more slowly on enforcement, so a decision about remedies would be delayed until the fall. Eisenhower confessed uncertainty about the enforcement issue but expressed a desire that the justices “keep with past decisions.” (The Court had already exhibited some sensitivity toward white southerners in recent decisions on the desegregation of graduate and professional education.) Eisenhower then laughed and said that perhaps the justices could delay the matter until he was out of office.1 The president was nervous. Integration of the military and in the District of Columbia had occurred peacefully, but the Court, he feared, was pushing into more contentious territory. Eisenhower worried that chaos and perhaps violence would result if federal officials pushed for rapid and substantial changes across Dixie. Having spent a considerable amount of time in the South, he knew the degree to which most whites affirmed the region’s racial hierarchy. And as a military man, he knew the heavy toll of conflict. Any clashes over this matter would involve children. Caution, he thought, was a virtue. [ 58 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 59

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 59 ]

But Eisenhower could not control events. The NAACP still sought reform by lobbying national leaders and through the courts, which, since World War II, had become more willing to assert federal authority over southern race relations. Other blacks took to the streets in nonviolent protests. White southerners showed little inclination to yield; they sometimes turned to violence to defend the status quo. Congressional Republicans managed to avoid dealing with many of these conflicts, but as president, Eisenhower often did not have that option. At times, he stood squarely with black demonstrators through his rhetoric or actions, advancing the cause of racial equality but earning the enmity of many white southerners. Nevertheless, African Americans’ lobbying and protests usually had little or no effect on the president, especially if no violence ensued. Eisenhower frequently rejected civil rights leaders’ demands for greater federal involvement in southern affairs and rebuffed their numerous requests for meetings, high-profile conferences at the White House, and speeches. Sometimes he appealed for understanding of white southerners’ viewpoints. As a result, Eisenhower lost much of the goodwill he had earned among black leaders during the early years of his presidency. African Americans considered him insensitive or, worse, a defender of an oppressive racial order. Although the Democratic Party compiled a meager civil rights record during the 1950s, blacks saw no compelling reason to reconsider their views of the GOP.

Brown v. Board of Education In 1953 seventeen states and the District of Columbia required segregated schools. Four other states permitted local communities to segregate their schools. State and local governments flouted the Supreme Court’s requirement, outlined in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), that separate facilities be equal. They spent far more money on white students, and the quality of teachers, facilities, and academic programs was often glaringly disparate. Black students were unprepared for college or well-paying jobs. This was not an accident. Keeping African Americans severely undereducated reflected whites’ doubts about blacks’ capabilities and helped whites maintain economic, political, and social supremacy.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 60

[ 60 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

Whites also saw separate schools as an important way to discourage miscegenation. By forging a common white identity, segregation diminished class antagonisms. It lay at the heart of southern society.2 Many black parents had concluded that their children could have better lives only if the schools were integrated. They believed that access to quality education symbolized American democracy and that integration would erode racial prejudice. Because fighting segregation on a case-bycase basis would be impossible both logistically and financially, the NAACP demanded in October 1950 an end to segregated schools altogether. Segregation, the group insisted, violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. School integration would remain a central goal of the NAACP for decades to come.3 Led by Thurgood Marshall, NAACP attorneys worked with African American parents to file lawsuits. Plaintiffs in four states and the District of Columbia who lost their cases then appealed to the Supreme Court, which combined them into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The first set of oral arguments occurred in December 1952, but the divided Court moved slowly. In the summer of 1953 it scheduled a hearing for October and then, at the Eisenhower administration’s request, pushed it back to December.4 Eisenhower initially hoped to limit the administration’s involvement. He expressed concern over the Court’s request that the White House take a stand regarding the history of segregation, federal power, and enforcement challenges should Plessy be overturned. These were issues best left to the judiciary, he thought. More important, the president feared that southern states would close their public schools to avoid desegregation, and violence might break out. “I believe,” he wrote in the summer of 1953, “federal law imposed upon our states in such a way as to bring about a conflict of the police powers of the states and of the nation would set back the cause of progress in race relations for a long, long time.” He doubted that “prejudices, even palpably unjustified prejudices, will succumb to compulsion.”5 Southern officials were determined to maintain segregation. “Negroes will not be admitted to white schools as long as I am governor,” Georgia’s Herman Talmadge vowed. He talked about the state leasing public schools to private individuals for a minuscule fee, such as $1 per year, and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 61

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 61 ]

the Georgia legislature developed plans to halt state funding to any institution that was forced to admit African Americans. Governor James Byrnes suggested that schools in his state might be handed over to churches or other private organizations. South Carolina voters had already approved a state constitutional amendment that empowered the legislature to close public schools. These were not toothless threats: state and local governments financed and controlled public education. Federal authorities had little economic leverage and could not compel a community to keep its schools open.6 Eisenhower and Brownell discussed the Brown issue frequently that summer. The more liberal Brownell persuaded Eisenhower that the administration could not avoid the Court’s request, and he informed the president that he believed school segregation was unconstitutional. The president instructed the attorney general to state that position if the Court inquired.7 Several southern Democrats who had supported Eisenhower in 1952 lobbied him to stay out of the matter or allow the region to control the pace of change. Byrnes was the most persistent. When he and the president met in July, the governor briefly noted the possibility of violence and indicated that several southern states would immediately shut down public education if the Court overturned Plessy. And, he warned, there would be negative political consequences for the GOP across Dixie. Eisenhower replied that he would not let politics interfere in the case and would uphold localism to the extent it was compatible with the law.8 The brief Brownell submitted to the Court on November 27 had Eisenhower’s approval. Although it did not explicitly urge the repeal of Plessy, it affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment gave the justices the authority to outlaw school segregation if they chose to do so. Localism, Eisenhower believed, did not mean letting the South do as it wished.9 On May 17, 1954, the justices voted unanimously to overturn Plessy. Earl Warren, whom Eisenhower had nominated to be chief justice the previous September, had worked mightily to forge a consensus. “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” he emphatically declared. Recent social, economic, and international developments had made quality education more essential than ever, Warren observed. He also emphasized that segregation “generates a feeling of inferiority”

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 62

[ 62 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

among African American students. Warren indicated that the Court would solicit advice for a second ruling, regarding implementation, that fall.10 Some white southern leaders pledged to follow the law, but others preached resistance. Richard Russell charged the Court with “flagrant abuse of judicial power.” James Eastland tied the decision to “the Red conspiracy.” Irate white southerners flooded the White House with letters that blamed Eisenhower.11 Most African American leaders were ebullient. The president of Fisk University speculated that segregation in other areas would soon crumble. Marshall confidently forecast that it would take “up to five years” to desegregate schools. But these were the opinions of the black elite. Many African Americans were probably unaware of the decision or doubted that it would have much impact on their lives. Skeptical about white society’s willingness or ability to change, some opposed the ruling.12 The mood at the White House was decidedly cautious. Eisenhower was still worried that southern states might close schools. At a news conference on May 19, reporter Harry Dent of Columbia, South Carolina, asked the president if he had any suggestions for the South. “Not in the slightest,” Eisenhower replied. Another journalist inquired about the political repercussions, pointing out that the Court had made its ruling under a Republican administration. The president distanced himself by stating that the Court was not part of “any administration.” Eisenhower met privately with school officials in the District of Columbia just days after the ruling and instructed them to begin desegregation immediately so that D.C. could be “a model for the nation.” Yet the president was reluctant to press the issue elsewhere. Three months later, he told a reporter he had not considered seeking legislation to enforce Brown.13 Desegregation occurred peacefully in several border states, but white opposition was fierce across most of the South. Politicians were not eager to buck public opinion. Fearing violence, the Supreme Court kept a sharp eye on these developments. The NAACP, meanwhile, insisted that integration begin immediately and finish no later than September 1956.14 The administration prepared another brief as the Court wrestled with implementation. Eisenhower added language urging the justices to remember the feelings of white southerners, who faced the demise of an in-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 63

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 63 ]

stitution that had existed for decades; he did not think they would change quickly. Marshall was so upset by the brief that he told a friend, “It stinks.”15 The Court issued its second ruling, known as Brown II, on May 31, 1955. The justices followed the administration’s proposal to have school officials file desegregation plans with their local federal district courts but rejected its recommendation that they be required to do so within ninety days. Sympathizing with southern arguments that integration would be a difficult process logistically as well as emotionally, the justices mandated only that districts make “a prompt and reasonable start” and move “with all deliberate speed.” Segregationists could not postpone action indefinitely and had to cite legitimate reasons for any delays, but the Court rejected a firm timetable.16 There were many types of segregationists. Concerned that violence would draw federal attention and thus be self-defeating, some lawmakers sought other means to avoid or delay compliance. The challenge was to preserve segregation in such a way that race was not an explicit criterion in school assignments. In the summer of 1955 Judge John Parker of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals provided some legal guidance when he ruled that Brown merely forbade government enforcement of segregation; it did not require integration. This distinction would shape the debate over school integration for more than a decade. Among the most common, effective, and ostensibly nonracial means of preserving segregation were pupil placement laws, whereby local officials assigned students to schools on the basis of ability, and freedom of choice plans, which allowed parents to select which school their children attended. Some southern leaders favored token integration as a way to postpone broader changes. White Citizens’ Councils, which largely consisted of private, upper-class citizens, often defended the status quo through economic reprisals, such as firing black activists or denying them credit. The Ku Klux Klan and other groups engaged in violence or threats of violence to intimidate blacks who pressed for reform.17 In the face of southern defiance, Eisenhower did little for a year and a half. He did not ask Congress for legislation to assist school integration until 1956 (discussed in the next chapter), and few members of Congress from either party were eager to tackle the issue. Nor did Eisenhower

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 64

[ 64 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

publicly endorse Brown. No president could simply order change and expect it to happen, and as Brownell noted years later, the Court’s Brown II decision left southern defenders of the status quo a large legal loophole. Nevertheless, the president’s approach did not warm black voters to the GOP.18

Violence in the Deep South In August 1955 Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American, traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to visit relatives. Around 2:30 a.m. on August 28, Roy Bryant, his half brother J. W. Milam, and at least one other individual forced Till out of bed and took him to a nearby plantation, where they beat him severely and then shot him. Bryant and Milam used barbed wire to tie a seventy-five-pound cotton gin to Till’s body, which they then dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Bryant believed Till had behaved in a sexually suggestive manner toward his wife four days earlier. He was also outraged that the teenager carried a picture of a white woman in his wallet and claimed to have had sexual relations with her.19 Till’s badly disfigured corpse was found three days later and shipped to Chicago. His mother insisted on an open casket so that, as she later said, the world could view “what they did to my baby.” Thousands came to the funeral home; grisly photographs of Till appeared in Jet, a weekly newsmagazine that was popular among African Americans. Bryant and Milam went on trial in September. Till’s uncle courageously identified them as the murderers, yet the all-white jury easily acquitted the two. The following January, Look magazine printed a story based on interviews with Bryant and Milam in which they defiantly confessed to the crime.20 The Till case galvanized black Americans in a way that Brown had not. National and local civil rights leaders undertook extensive publicity efforts. Media coverage of the wake, the funeral, and the trial brought the horrors of Mississippi racism to a global audience. Several rallies, some of which included Till’s mother, occurred in black neighborhoods across the North. One demonstration in New York City drew an estimated crowd of 50,000.21 African Americans demanded action from Washington. Till’s mother

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 65

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 65 ]

asked the White House to help bring the killers to justice. A. Philip Randolph requested a meeting with the president. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Democratic congressman from Harlem and the most prominent black politician in the nation, told a New York City crowd that Eisenhower, who had suffered a heart attack in late September, should call a special session of Congress. Clarence Mitchell implored the administration to move aggressively for legislation to protect voting rights and to ensure the safety of civil rights workers. “SEND U.S. TROOPS TO MISSISSIPPI,” demanded the Pittsburgh Courier. E. Frederic Morrow, who talked regularly with black leaders across the nation, warned the administration that the nation was “on the verge of a dangerous racial conflagration.”22 The White House had no plans to hold meetings, introduce legislation, send troops, or even issue a statement by the president. Some officials simply did not regard Mississippi as worthy of attention; others were sincerely troubled but felt there was nothing Washington could do. Because no federal law had been broken, the administration lacked the legal authority to act. African Americans had little interest in debating the letter of the law. They believed the federal government could bring the killers to justice if it wanted to. When Eisenhower returned to Washington in early November, he and most other Republicans ignored proposals from civil rights activists to cut off federal aid to states that took little or no action in the face of blatant and repeated civil rights violations; they also called for FBI agents to be better trained regarding racial matters. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, no friend of the civil rights movement, and even presidential adviser Maxwell Rabb, who was more sympathetic, resented what they perceived to be exploitation of the Till situation by communists.23 Political calculations came into play as well. Some administration officials worried that any move by the White House would alienate the South in the upcoming presidential election and undermine Eisenhower’s legislative priorities by stirring the wrath of powerful southern lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Nixon hoped that dumping the problem in Congress’s lap would take the heat off the White House and focus attention on sectional divisions among the Democrats.24 For several months that fall, the White House searched for a response. Brownell informed Mitchell that the president was very worried and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 66

[ 66 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

might address the violence in his upcoming State of the Union address; several other African Americans had been murdered in Mississippi, and the perpetrators had not been convicted. Chief of staff Sherman Adams asked Morrow what could be done to reverse a poll showing that African American support for the GOP was lower than ever. Adams was perplexed by blacks’ lack of appreciation for the administration’s civil rights accomplishments. Similarly, Rabb had been dumbfounded by an August survey in which respondents identified “encourages segregation” as one of the president’s top five shortcomings; he called such criticism “outrageous.”25 Morrow replied that although blacks liked Eisenhower, they felt his accomplishments were long overdue. They regarded jobs as more important than desegregation and saw the GOP as serving primarily the interests of the wealthy. Blacks continued to vote Democratic out of fondness for New Deal economic programs and out of loyalty to Democratic politicians, who had brought them into urban and state political machines by providing government jobs and contracts and personal favors. African Americans, Morrow stressed, took comfort in the civil rights rhetoric of northern Democrats and felt that the White House had made them easy prey for hostile state and local leaders. Similar complaints arose when Rabb met with black members of the administration on December 19.26 The White House remained flabbergasted by blacks’ loyalty to the Democrats. Howard Pyle, who had joined the administration after losing his bid for reelection in the 1954 Arizona gubernatorial race, commented that blacks there had not supported him, despite all he had done for them. Pyle, Morrow observed, “was not so much bitter about this as reflective and puzzled.” The former governor now felt that African Americans failed to show sufficient gratitude toward Eisenhower.27 Val Washington, director of the RNC’s Minorities Division, offered a sharply critical assessment. Washington was fond of Eisenhower and believed the president had a sound civil rights program, but he relayed numerous complaints from African Americans. For example, the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote, “Val, this thing is serious. Something must be done. Negroes are mad.” A black Republican minister from Indianapolis advised that the party needed to show forceful and clear support

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 67

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 67 ]

for southern African Americans. The Urban League’s Lester Granger informed Washington that black federal workers remained stuck at lower job levels and were suffering disproportionately from personnel cuts. Many black workers were “barely existing,” Washington told Adams, and they regarded the GOP as “a bunch of hard, calculating businessmen, who gauge everything by the dollar sign.”28 Washington also chided his party regarding outreach. His paltry annual budget of $30,000, he claimed, meant that the Republican message reached few blacks. Unions routinely bombarded African Americans with pro-Democratic literature. Blasting the GOP for “patting ourselves on the back and talking to each other instead of the masses,” Washington charged that Republicans “treated [African Americans] as a ‘hot potato’ and have been unwilling to accept us in the high councils of the Party.”29

Ongoing Violence On January 30, 1956, a bomb exploded at the Montgomery, Alabama, residence of Martin Luther King Jr. The twenty-seven-year-old Baptist minister was away at the time; his wife and two-month-old daughter narrowly escaped harm. The home of E. D. Nixon, who headed the local branches of both the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the NAACP, was bombed the next day. The pair had been targeted because they were leaders in a boycott against the city bus system. The effort had begun on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, a forty-two-year-old seamstress and civil rights activist from Montgomery, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger. Meticulously organized, the boycott caused financial hardship for the bus company as well as for white merchants downtown. The protest signaled the ongoing debate among civil rights activists over whether a legal strategy or a direct action approach would bring change.30 By early February, King and nearly a hundred other demonstrators had been arrested. A. Philip Randolph asked Eisenhower to investigate the bombings and do something to halt the violence. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. issued a statement that he held the administration responsible for the safety of the detained. King faced possible prison time, which often meant great suffering and even death for African Americans in the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 68

[ 68 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

South. The administration replied that it had no authority to act because no federal law had been broken. King appealed to the president in early March to bring black leaders, bus company officials, and others to the White House. “You and you alone can tap fountainheads of goodwill and activate ‘white corpuscles’ of brotherhood,” he wrote. Despite telling his cabinet that white leaders had erred in their approach to the boycott, the president rejected King’s request. When asked about the Montgomery situation at a press conference, Eisenhower commented that he did not know much about the local laws, insisted it was “incumbent on the South to show some progress,” and asked for “understanding, for really sympathetic consideration of a problem that is far larger both in its emotional and even its physical aspects than most of us realize.”31 Another crisis soon developed in Alabama. On February 3, 1956, Autherine Lucy, a twenty-six-year-old African American woman, enrolled at the University of Alabama’s flagship campus in Tuscaloosa. She had won a case the previous summer granting her admission, and the Supreme Court had upheld that decision. White students protested bitterly: there were cross burnings and rallies, where some students carried Confederate battle flags and shouted, “Keep ’Bama white” and “To hell with Autherine.” University officials, who claimed they could not guarantee Lucy’s safety, suspended her. “It took her four years and the Supreme Court to get her in, and it took us only four days to get rid of her,” one student boasted. A month later, officials at the university responded to a court order for Lucy’s return by expelling her on the grounds that she had slandered the institution. Not until 1963 did another African American student enroll at the campus.32 When queried by a black reporter about Tuscaloosa, Eisenhower indicated that the Justice Department was looking into the matter. He stressed that although there had been “an outbreak that all of us deplore,” local officials deserved more time to handle the situation. Behind the scenes, the White House was more worried than the president had let on. Officials contemplated various scenarios, including what would happen if Lucy were murdered or race riots broke out across the nation. Federal troops, they speculated, might be needed.33 African Americans wanted Eisenhower to show more support for civil rights demonstrators. Morrow relayed these concerns to other ad-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 69

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 69 ]

ministration officials but made little headway. Fearing for Morrow’s safety, and troubled by reports of a sizable communist influence in the civil rights movement, Adams rebuffed Morrow’s request to travel to Birmingham, Alabama, to meet with black leaders. Morrow talked with Pyle, who said that a civil rights commission, which Eisenhower had called for in January, was sufficient. Morrow also conferred with Rabb, who noted that he and other administration officials were extremely frustrated by blacks’ lack of appreciation for what Eisenhower had done for them. Some White House officials felt that civil rights activists were becoming too demanding. A dejected Morrow noted how difficult it was to explain to whites, even well-intentioned ones like Rabb, that African Americans were tired of gradualism.34 The White House simultaneously kept an eye on Powell. The congressman wanted Eisenhower to arrange meetings between black and white leaders to deal with the crisis in the South. He also proposed a National Day of Prayer on March 28 to express support for activists in the South, and he publicly talked about a possible one-hour national strike by black workers. The administration feared the Day of Prayer would feature criticism of Eisenhower and might turn violent. Morrow went to New York City on February 26 and spent eight hours with Powell’s aides and other African American leaders. All agreed that certain groups—undoubtedly referring to communists and other left-wing organizations—should be kept from participating in the Day of Prayer. The ceremonies, which were held in numerous cities, proceeded peacefully.35 The administration also anxiously watched developments among southern whites. Polls showed that 80 percent of them opposed Brown. In January voters in Virginia had approved by a more than two-to-one margin a plan that would allow state leaders to provide tuition grants for white students to attend private schools. Four southern states had passed interposition resolutions. Interposition, an eighteenth-century doctrine crafted by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, asserted state sovereignty against federal authority. Whites eager to protect slavery from federal regulation had invoked it, along with the similar doctrine of nullification, which insisted on a state’s right to declare federal laws void. When a reporter asked Eisenhower about these matters, the president af-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 70

[ 70 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

firmed his commitment to gradual change. Asserting that he was “not going to attempt to tell them how it is going to be done,” the president emphasized that the Supreme Court had delegated integration decisions to the district courts.36 Southern leaders were showing no interest in progress at any pace. On March 12, 101 southern members of Congress released the Southern Manifesto, which denounced Brown as “a clear abuse of judicial power” that had no basis in law, infringed on states’ rights, and poisoned race relations. Insisting that an “explosive and dangerous condition” existed in the South and that the federal government had no right to enforce school integration, the signers vowed to “use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision” and called on white southerners to do the same.37 The “first thing” about the manifesto, Eisenhower commented two days later, was its insistence on “legal” resistance. He drew a clear distinction between expressing differences of opinion and espousing nullification, which he feared would lead to “a very bad spot” because he was firmly committed to defending the Constitution. In Eisenhower’s view, the Court had found segregation unconstitutional, and if white southerners refused to change, a showdown with federal authority would be the unpleasant but certain result. He continued to believe that such a confrontation could be avoided, however. Noting that peaceful integration had occurred in some locales, he reiterated his call for “moderation” and “understanding” from both civil rights activists and white southerners. Though confident that change would come, the president confessed uncertainty “about the length of time it will take.”38 The administration soon received another lesson in southern obstinacy. Addressing a national convention of state attorneys general later that month, Brownell called for the southern states to cooperate on school integration. He then huddled privately with the southerners there, who acknowledged that enforcing Brown was a thorny problem and stressed that supporting integration was political suicide—many of them wanted to become governors. Most southern politicians believed still that Jim Crow schools could be maintained.39 The Supreme Court again sided with civil rights activists in April, when it upheld a ruling against bus segregation in Columbia, South Car-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 71

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 71 ]

olina. Federal authority over interstate issues was clearly affirmed in the Constitution, but Eisenhower saw this as purely an in-state matter. Worried that the Court was growing too powerful, Eisenhower felt trapped by its decisions.40 Yet he also felt duty-bound to uphold the law. Eisenhower was disappointed that southern leaders spent more energy trying to defy Brown than seeking a peaceful transition to integrated schools. He desired progress, but he also wanted to avoid going “further than moderate intelligent people” would. In Eisenhower’s view, segregationists needed to speed up, and civil rights activists needed to slow down. Worried that events were spinning out of control, he confessed feeling “at sea on this.”41 Rejecting appeals for meetings and other public gatherings from both civil rights advocates and white officials from the South, Eisenhower quietly sought the aid of the Reverend Billy Graham. The president and Graham, a southern Baptist minister and one of the most admired men in the nation, had become friends in the early 1950s. Graham had been holding integrated rallies in the Upper South since 1953 and enjoyed close relationships with many prominent politicians across Dixie. Like Eisenhower, he emphasized the need for individual transformation through education and a search of conscience. The president asked Graham to think about how the clergy could promote racial understanding and highlight the progress made in the border states. Eisenhower believed that if Graham and other prominent figures took a clear stand, public opinion might follow, and local federal judges “would be inclined to operate moderately and with complete regard to the sensibilities of the population.”42 Meanwhile, African Americans in Montgomery were in the ninth month of their bus boycott. Citing ongoing violence, the denial of African Americans’ voting rights, the marching of the Ku Klux Klan, and the arrest of hundreds of demonstrators on “trumped-up charges,” King appealed to the president to intervene. Local officials could not be trusted to protect African Americans’ lives, property, or constitutional rights, he claimed. The mayor alleged that E. D. Nixon’s home had been bombed by African Americans eager to rally support for the boycott, and some city officials had joined the White Citizens’ Council. King sent the president newspaper clippings about police officers leading a proces-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 72

[ 72 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

sion of whites downtown, culminating in the hanging in effigy of an African American and a white man sympathetic to the cause. That was illegal, King pointed out. He also sent photographs of white protests and the bombings that had occurred earlier that year.43 The administration still considered such events a local matter. Two Justice Department officials reiterated that there was nothing the federal government could do because no federal law had been broken. They did, however, request more information about the denial of voting rights. A month later, Rabb informed King that the administration was monitoring the Montgomery situation “with interest.” The protesters soldiered on. The Supreme Court ruled in November that state and local statutes permitting bus segregation were unconstitutional. Eisenhower predicted that African Americans would be harmed by the tensions that would surely follow. The president was worried that some sort of general strike across the South was imminent, and he remained skeptical about his authority to move against segregation in public schools that were financed by state and local funds. He told staff members he was more of a “States’ Righter” on some matters than the Court was. Noting that the governor of Mississippi had already promised to ignore the bus decision, Eisenhower feared that he would soon face a crisis and be compelled to send federal troops to the South to enforce a contempt citation against a local official.44 Southern whites’ determination to uphold the status quo was evident that fall in Mansfield, Texas, where the city school district had been ordered to integrate. A U.S. district court, a federal appeals court, and the Supreme Court had rejected school officials’ requests for a delay. When three black students tried to register, several hundred people appeared in protest. The students were hanged in effigy, some adorned with red paint and a sign reading, “This Negro tried to enter a white school.” The principal refused to challenge the mob. Governor Allan Shivers directed local officials to transfer any student whose registration caused disorder. The NAACP appealed to the White House to act against this defiance of federal authority.45 Eisenhower chose to stay out of the Mansfield affair. His restraint, as well as his public comments criticizing “extremists on both sides” and praising local law enforcement, sparked the wrath of several black lead-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 73

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 73 ]

ers. Thurgood Marshall excoriated the president for constructing a false equivalency “between lawless mobs and other Americans who seek only their lawful rights.” Eisenhower’s critics have often cited Mansfield as proof of his indifference to racial injustice, but Brownell persuasively noted years later that involvement was not simply a matter of personal will. A federal district court judge had to request intervention before the president could act, and no such request came. When Shivers dispatched the Texas Rangers to prevent integration and restore order, another potential avenue for federal action disappeared.46

The 1956 Election Eisenhower’s attention was drawn elsewhere that fall, when two major international crises flared simultaneously. The Soviet Union sent troops to Hungary to quell a rebellion against communist rule, and disputes over control of the Suez Canal almost led to war in the Middle East. The president was also focused on his bid for reelection. Earlier in the year, several prominent African Americans had talked publicly about greater black support for Eisenhower and the GOP. Some thought the president had earned it, while others saw voting Republican as a strategic move to loosen southerners’ power in the Democratic Party and in Congress. Roy Wilkins called on African Americans in the North to use the franchise to “strike a blow in defense of our brothers in the South . . . by swapping the known devil [Democrats] for the suspected witch [Republicans].” Dr. T. R. M. Howard, a civil rights leader in Mississippi, announced in May that he was changing his party affiliation to Republican and would campaign for the GOP. A few liberal Democrats worried about a possible African American shift. Several polls that spring and summer reported some movement by African Americans toward the GOP, although they were more enthusiastic about Eisenhower than the party. Asked which party had done the most for blacks over the previous decade, 67 percent of African Americans identified the Democrats, and just 16 percent chose the Republicans.47 When Republicans assembled in San Francisco for their convention that summer, they again faced choices about race and region. Southern delegates urged officials to soft-pedal civil rights, while black leaders

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 74

[ 74 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

lobbied the GOP to endorse reform of the filibuster rule, quick and effective implementation of Brown, a compulsory FEPC, protection of voting rights in the South, and antilynching legislation.48 Eisenhower was in no mood to line up with the civil rights activists. The president implicitly blamed the Supreme Court for the turmoil in the South, commenting that the racial situation had worsened since 1954. Two weeks prior to the convention, he met with Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, who headed the Platform Committee, and made his feelings known. The Platform Committee nevertheless drafted a plank stating that the Eisenhower administration supported Brown. Livid, Eisenhower threatened not to come to San Francisco if those words remained in the Republican platform. He told Brownell that he felt bound to enforce the Constitution, but the Court had made his job harder. The president also saw little political value in making a strong appeal for the black vote. African Americans outside the South, he told an aide, supported the Democrats because of economic concerns. Whatever he did about race in the South would not change their minds.49 The Platform Committee conformed to Eisenhower’s wishes. Praising the Court for its emphasis on “all deliberate speed” and sensitivity to the “acutely emotional problems” stirred up in the South, the GOP’s civil rights plank simply stated that it “accept[ed] Brown.” The party supported the enactment of the civil rights bill Congress had rejected that summer (discussed in the next chapter) but said nothing about an FEPC or reforming congressional rules. Republicans boasted that in areas of clear federal authority, “more progress has been made . . . than in any similar period in the last 80 years.” The NAACP credited the GOP with at least acknowledging Brown (the Democrats had ignored it) but then hammered both parties for greatly underestimating the seriousness of racial tensions in the South.50 Race played a part in other aspects of the convention as well. When the initial plans failed to include African Americans in any prominent role, Morrow suggested that Dr. Helen Edmonds, a history professor from North Carolina College in Durham, be chosen to second Eisenhower’s nomination. The North Carolina delegation screamed in protest, and one member vowed that the whole group would walk out. The administration held firm, Edmonds spoke, and Tar Heel delegates stayed put. J. Ernest

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 75

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 75 ]

Wilkins seconded Nixon’s nomination as vice president. Both Nixon and Eisenhower mentioned civil rights in their acceptance speeches, with the vice president stressing the need to extend economic prosperity to African Americans and the president insisting that “quietly effective actions” had led to “genuine—and often voluntary—progress.” The theme was clear: Republicans got things done, whereas Democrats only talked.51 Republicans carried this message to African American voters that fall. One GOP pamphlet entitled “Abe and Ike: In Deed Alike” compared Eisenhower to Abraham Lincoln and lauded the president for advancing racial justice without raising “false hopes.” Posters appeared in black neighborhoods in the North, stating: “Remember, when you vote for a Democratic Senator, Representative, or Alderman in New York, Chicago, Detroit—or anywhere—you vote to make EASTLAND and the Southern race-baiters chairman of the important committees in Congress.” Early in the campaign, Nixon spoke out against southern efforts to thwart black voting, and he gave a speech in Harlem in late October. If African Americans voted Republican, they would “get action, not filibusters” in vital areas such as jobs, housing, and education, he pledged. Eisenhower, in contrast, gave scant attention to racial matters. When Adlai Stevenson, his Democratic opponent, denounced him as “virtually silent” on civil rights, the president took it as a compliment.52 Eisenhower won several prominent African American converts. The wife of lobbyist Clarence Mitchell and the widow of Walter White announced that they were switching from Stevenson to Eisenhower. In October, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. formed a group called Independent Democrats for Eisenhower. The congressman insisted that this act stemmed from his sincere beliefs and denied the existence of a secret deal with the administration to halt federal investigations into his alleged income tax fraud and evasion. Powell campaigned for the president in several northern cities. Only one of the ten largest African American newspapers, the Chicago Defender, endorsed Stevenson. The GOP tried but failed to get Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a group of ministers on a campaign tour for Eisenhower. King told a Republican activist that both parties had “betrayed” African Americans, charging the GOP with “capitulating to the blatant hypocrisy of conservative right wing northerners.”53

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 76

[ 76 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

The GOP, meanwhile, continued to look for southern support. Stumping for the president in Virginia, Pyle emphasized that white southerners had little to fear from Eisenhower on the race issue. Southern leaders’ views of the president varied. James Byrnes blamed him for Brown and refused to endorse him, but the chairman of the Alabama GOP told state Democrats, “You can go home and tell your people that if they are interested in preserving segregation in Alabama, then their man is Dwight D. Eisenhower.”54 In the election, Eisenhower crushed Stevenson once again. A Gallup poll reported that the president’s share of the African American vote rose from 20 percent in 1952 to 38 percent. Journalist Samuel Lubell found that in eighty-six cities, black support for Eisenhower increased from 25 percent to 36 percent, while an NAACP survey of sixty-three cities pegged his gain at 19.9 percentage points. In several black areas, Eisenhower performed better than any GOP presidential candidate had since 1932.55 Eisenhower’s improvement among the small but growing black electorate in the South was substantial. Few blacks could vote in the Deep South, but sharply increased black support helped the president carry Tennessee, Virginia, and Louisiana. Notable shifts occurred even in states he lost. The press widely reported these results, which some Republicans heralded as a sign that the black vote was returning to the party of Lincoln. James Hicks, a prominent black journalist, likened the results to the demise of a marriage. “The divorcee is carrying on a flirtation with a new boyfriend [the Republican Party] but she isn’t going to invite him in unless he puts a ring on her finger,” he quipped.56 Journalists, politicians, and civil rights activists misunderstood what had happened. Some blacks did shift their support to Eisenhower, but his percentages were inflated primarily because many African Americans did not vote at all. The RNC Research Division perceptively noted that Eisenhower’s gain of 8.7 percentage points among blacks in ten large northern cities was the result of 23,000 more votes for the president and 119,000 fewer votes for Stevenson. The RNC tried to temper the party’s enthusiasm over the results among southern blacks, emphasizing that most African Americans still did not or could not vote, the percentage of the African American population was declining in many areas, and any

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 77

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 77 ]

future increase in black support for the GOP could easily be offset by greater white turnout for the Democrats. These were powerful political arguments that southern Republicans would echo a decade later. Furthermore, whatever gains occurred were limited to the president. Black support for the GOP in congressional races, especially in populous areas of the North, showed no change from 1952.57 Eisenhower again enjoyed substantial success among white southerners. He won five ex-Confederate states—Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia—plus Kentucky and West Virginia. The president improved his totals in several states he had lost four years earlier. Eisenhower’s core supporters remained middle- and upper-class urban and suburban dwellers in the peripheral South; the Deep South voted for Stevenson. In the 158 southern counties with a black majority, Eisenhower lost support in 117 of them, compared with four years earlier. These results strongly suggest that whites preferred the Democrats on race and other issues. The GOP once again failed to field a candidate in many southern congressional races and fared poorly where it did.58 Race shaped northern politics too. Lubell, who gauged political trends by talking to voters personally, observed that racial tensions in the urban North had pushed some whites into the Republican column. The enormous surge in the African American population in large and mediumsized cities in the North since the 1940s had created conflicts over education, jobs, and, above all, housing. White northerners, he wrote, “draw the line—often profanely—at living alongside of Negroes.” According to Lubell, these whites “felt themselves under siege.” Eisenhower did not seek to exploit these tensions, but he and other Republicans benefited from whites’ belief that the Democrats had become too sympathetic to African Americans. This issue would become more prominent over the next two decades.59

Eisenhower’s Second Term Eisenhower devoted most of his second inaugural address to calling on Americans to remain vigilant in their support of freedom-loving people around the globe. The United States, he declared, must “help others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 78

[ 78 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

shores.” Mississippi governor James Coleman refused to participate in the parade or other events owing to his anger over Eisenhower’s racial policies.60 Civil rights leaders wanted the president to pay more attention to the denial of freedom in Dixie. Ten days before the inauguration, King and three other African American ministers informed Eisenhower that several black homes and churches in Montgomery, Alabama, had been bombed; African Americans in Mississippi who sought to register to vote were being forced off their land under threat of death; black children in Tennessee were being attacked; and a pregnant black woman had been shot in the legs. “A state of terror prevails,” they starkly observed. The ministers called on the president to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to justice and asked him to speak in the South about the urgent need for racial progress.61 Affirming that all freedom-loving people supported the vice president’s recent trip to refugee camps on the Austria-Hungary border, King asked Nixon to tour the South and report his findings directly to Eisenhower. Thousands of African Americans trying to uphold their constitutional rights had fled Mississippi, King observed, but unlike the Hungarian refugees, they received no aid from Washington. Morrow noted that black newspapers were making similar links and that blacks were writing to him, urging the president to do something.62 The White House showed only cursory interest. Nixon directed Morrow to ask civil rights leaders what the administration could do. Rabb sent King a perfunctory note stating that the White House condemned violence and stood ready to act if a federal statute were violated. Eisenhower himself weighed in at his February 6 press conference. When a reporter asked why he could not give a civil rights address in the South, the president testily replied: Well, I think I have a pretty good and pretty sizable agenda on my desk every day, and as you know I insist on going for a bit of recreation once in a while, and I do that because I think it is necessary to keep up the state of fitness essential to this job. Now, I have just got as much as I can do for the moment. And I will say this, however. I have expressed myself on this subject so often in the South, in the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 79

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 79 ]

North, wherever I have been, that I don’t know what another speech would do about the thing right now.63 King and the ministers who had written in January informed the president that these remarks were “a profound disappointment.” Violence against African Americans in the South had shifted from random acts to “an organized campaign of . . . terror” that had reached “alarming proportions.” They wanted Eisenhower to both speak out and call a conference on law and order. “Action on your part at this moment can avert tragic situations by cooling passions, fostering reasonableness, and encouraging respect for law,” the ministers contended. “Morality, like charity, begins at home,” they pointedly added.64 These were familiar appeals, but the ministers offered new warnings as well. African Americans would turn increasingly violent if they believed the federal government would not protect them. Blacks’ understandable “frustration” in the face of white violence, the ministers confessed, “has already been difficult to contain.” They vowed to stage a march in Washington, D.C., stating, “If you, our president, cannot come South to relieve our harassed people, we shall have to leader [sic] our people to you.”65 Randolph, Wilkins, King, and others soon started planning for such an event. As many as 50,000 people would come to Washington, they announced. Fearing that violence would erupt despite the organizers’ peaceful intentions, White House officials reached out to Clarence Mitchell and other black leaders. The NAACP lobbyist helped convince the organizers to keep criticism of the president to a minimum, and Wilkins assured the administration that planners were closely monitoring the possibility of communist infiltration. King tried to arrange a meeting with Eisenhower to coincide with the rally, but the president’s staff rebuffed him.66 Between 15,000 and 20,000 people attended the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom that May. Federal officials had a military helicopter fly over the crowd to make sure the event was peaceful. The afternoon’s activities included prayers, music, Bible readings, and speeches. Civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had urged King to call for federal economic relief for the poor, white and black alike, but King focused instead on voting as the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 80

[ 80 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

key to protecting civil rights as well as blacks’ personal safety. He briefly criticized the president, who was at his Gettysburg farm, for being “all too silent and apathetic.” Both parties, King claimed, had “betrayed” racial justice by having “a high blood pressure of words and an anemia of deeds.”67 Meanwhile, Adams and Morrow discussed whether African Americans felt as if Eisenhower had let them down. Morrow noted that he routinely met blacks who denounced the president, and he suggested that Eisenhower see King. Two weeks later Morrow pressed his case further, writing to Adams about “tremendous unrest” among African Americans. Warning that the end of peaceful protest might be imminent, Morrow reported that blacks doubted the administration’s sincerity and felt abandoned. White House officials sought the assistance of black leaders. In early June, Rabb informed Adams that he had talked with King, who “agreed to be patient.”68 King’s cooperation did not mean that he would cease all activity. He and fellow minister Ralph Abernathy met with Nixon and Secretary of Labor James Mitchell in Washington on June 13. The vice president had been introduced to King the previous March in Ghana, where both had traveled to mark its independence from European colonialism. King again lobbied Nixon to come to the South; Nixon responded by inviting him to Washington. The Ghana event had been part of Nixon’s three-week journey through Africa, and he returned with a deeper understanding of how racism at home threatened to undermine the enormous goodwill the United States enjoyed throughout the rapidly changing continent.69 Scheduled for sixty minutes, the four-man conference lasted more than two hours. King stressed that the fight for racial justice was part of a worldwide movement and that stronger action by the federal government was essential. He also insisted that whites would accept integration if they saw vigorous leadership from federal authorities. Mitchell wondered whether stepped-up federal efforts would undermine the progress that had already occurred. Abernathy replied that without more vigorous enforcement, African Americans might turn violent. King urged either Eisenhower or Nixon to make a pro–civil rights speech in the South. The vice president indicated that he would hold a meeting of his contract compliance committee in a southern city and intimated that he might set

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 81

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 81 ]

up a meeting between King and the president. Nixon was impressed with King, whom he saw as bold yet sensible. King came away believing that Nixon was willing to advance civil rights, provided the political price was not too high, yet he was uncertain about the vice president’s true feelings. “It is time [the Eisenhower administration] discovered that Birmingham is as significant as Budapest,” King observed.70 Eisenhower was frustrated too. “No other single event has so disturbed the domestic scene in many years as did the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 in the school segregation case,” he wrote to a longtime friend. Invoking Prohibition, Eisenhower insisted that laws were rarely effective unless they affirmed the will of the majority. An emotional issue such as race needed to be dealt with slowly to prevent a difficult situation from worsening. White southerners, he reiterated, had long believed that segregation was morally and legally correct. Eisenhower lauded the Court for taking a gradual approach to integration and affirmed that it had to be obeyed, lest “we have . . . chaos.” The president had good reason to be concerned. By 1957, at least 136 new laws and constitutional amendments intended to maintain segregation had been enacted across the South.71

Little Rock A month later, events in Little Rock, Arkansas, tested Eisenhower’s commitment to defend the Constitution. More than two years earlier, a U.S. district court had approved the city’s proposal to integrate its schools by 1963. Integration would begin at the high school in 1957 and then steadily proceed to lower grade levels. Only one high school would be integrated, and with only a small number of African American students each year. “The plan,” one board member confessed, “was developed to provide as little integration as possible for as long a delay as possible.” In February 1956 African American leaders had filed a lawsuit to speed up the process. Six months later, the district court sided with the school board, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in the spring of 1957. Integration of Central High School in Little Rock was scheduled to commence that fall, with nine black students selected by white officials.72

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 82

[ 82 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

Whites in Little Rock regarded even token integration as unacceptable. Fear of miscegenation was strong, and working-class parents resented that their children would have to attend an integrated school while students from wealthier families could enroll at a new, segregated school. As the beginning of the school year neared, some whites telephoned Governor Oval Faubus and Virgil Blossom, the school superintendent, warning of mob violence. There were reports that both blacks and whites were buying up guns and knives. Arthur Caldwell of the Justice Department met with Faubus and indicated that although officials in Washington had little desire to get involved, the federal government would not tolerate efforts to undermine the courts. Worried about chaos, the Pulaski County Court issued a temporary injunction against integration on August 29. The segregationists’ triumph was short-lived, however, for that same day, district court judge Ronald Davies ordered that integration proceed when school opened on September 3.73 Faubus appeared on television on September 2 to announce that he was sending the National Guard to Little Rock. He claimed the soldiers were there to maintain peace, but he had ordered them to keep the black students out. On September 3 nearly 300 National Guardsmen took up positions at Central High. Following instructions from school leaders, the black students stayed home. Judge Davies again insisted that integration commence, but Faubus refused to remove the troops.74 That morning, reporters asked the president for his views. Eisenhower responded that the Justice Department was monitoring the situation and reiterated his belief that law could not change people’s minds. Although the president said the Supreme Court was “probably” correct that segregation caused psychological damage to African American students, he again noted the “very strong emotions on the other side.” Privately, Eisenhower doubted that federal officials had the authority to intervene. Brownell assured him they did and indicated that Davies might seek their help.75 The crisis escalated dramatically on September 4. White and black ministers led eight of the African American students to Central High that morning. A mob of roughly 400 whites greeted them by flying Confederate battle flags, waving signs saying “Nigger Go Home,” and shouting defiantly, “Two, four, six, eight, we ain’t gonna integrate!” The Guard

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 83

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 83 ]

turned the African American students back. Late that evening Faubus sent a telegram to the president, who was on vacation in Newport, Rhode Island, requesting that he take steps “to . . . stop the unwarranted interference of federal agents. . . . The blood that may be shed, will be on the hands of the federal government and its agents,” he declared. The next day Eisenhower emphatically assured the governor that he would defend the Constitution.76 Davies denied the school board’s request for a delay and asked the Justice Department to enter the case. Justice officials requested a temporary injunction, compelling Faubus to remove the Guard so integration could proceed. A hearing was scheduled for September 20, at which the governor would have to appear and show why he should not be charged with contempt of court. Eisenhower asked Brownell about his obligations if Faubus continued to defy the order. The attorney general firmly believed that local officials could not cite potential disorder as a justification to obstruct the law. Unless Faubus reversed course, the president would have to intervene or allow the nullification of federal authority.77 The administration carefully monitored how the situation was being perceived internationally. Photos of the white mob harassing the black students appeared on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The nation’s standing at the United Nations was suffering, and its criticism of the Soviet crackdown in Hungary appeared hypocritical. Egypt tied the oppression of blacks to American imperialism in the Middle East. Brownell reassured Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that the president understood the international implications.78 African American leaders also watched intently as the situation in Little Rock unfolded. Wilkins, King, and others wrote to Eisenhower, expressing alarm and a desire to meet with him. Marshall offered to give the president a firsthand report on the plight of civil rights activists in the South. Eisenhower did not see any African American leader during the crisis, and there is no evidence that these appeals influenced his thinking or behavior.79 Faubus and Eisenhower met in Newport on September 14. During a private twenty-minute conversation, Eisenhower instructed the governor to allow integration. In return, the Justice Department would request that Faubus’s contempt-of-court hearing be dropped. The pair

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 84

[ 84 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

then huddled with several administration officials and Brooks Hays, an Arkansas congressman who had been working on a compromise solution. The president asked if Brownell could request the federal court to delay integration. Eisenhower already knew the answer, but he wanted Brownell to lay the situation out for Faubus. “No, that’s impossible,” the attorney general declared unambiguously.80 At the September 20 hearing, Davies demanded that Faubus comply with his order. Eisenhower phoned Brownell that afternoon, worried that violence would spread across the South if he sent troops to Little Rock and that Faubus and other governors would close the public schools. That night, Faubus announced he would remove the National Guard and accept Davies’s ruling. Eisenhower issued a statement on September 21 crediting Faubus and affirming his belief that white Arkansans would abide by the judge’s decision quickly and peacefully. Privately, he was far less sanguine.81 On September 23 more than 1,000 whites, including members of the clergy, assembled to block the integration of Central High. Some shouted for the black students to be murdered. Whites attacked several out-of-town journalists who were covering the showdown. Eight of the black students entered the school through a side door while the crowd was distracted; the ninth student fled to safety. “I hope they bring out eight dead niggers!” one protester yelled. Police officers then transferred the students into police vehicles via a basement corridor. The crowd threw bricks, stones, and other objects as the cars sped away from the school.82 Informed by Brownell that the situation was rapidly deteriorating, Eisenhower abruptly canceled his afternoon round of golf. Just before 4:00 p.m. he received a telegram from Woodrow Wilson Mann, the mayor of Little Rock, declaring that the police were unable to protect the black students. About an hour later, Eisenhower released a statement vowing to use “whatever force may be necessary” to ensure that federal laws were obeyed. Two hours after that, the administration issued a proclamation ordering anyone blocking integration to cease their efforts. That night, Little Rock police disrupted a caravan of approximately 100 cars on the way to black residential areas.83 The situation continued to go downhill the next morning. Shortly af-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 85

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 85 ]

ter 9:00 a.m., Mann sent a telegram to Eisenhower indicating that the mob at Central High was turning violent. Even though the African American students had stayed home, Mann described the situation as “out of control” and was “pleading” with the president to dispatch troops. Eisenhower signed an executive order shortly after noon to deploy 1,000 soldiers from the army’s 101st Airborne Division and to federalize the Arkansas National Guard. The soldiers arrived early that evening. This was the first time since Reconstruction that a president sent armed forces to the South to protect the rights of African Americans.84 Eisenhower flew back to Washington that afternoon. “You know, this doesn’t really settle anything,” the president soberly commented to reporters off the record. “This thing is going to go on and on and on in other places.” Eisenhower appeared on national television at 9:00 p.m., telling viewers that Brown was the law, and he had no choice but to dispatch the soldiers. The president tried to mollify white southerners by attributing the disorder to the actions of a few. Eisenhower stressed that the Soviet Union and other enemies of America were “gloating.” An estimated 100 million people watched the speech, which was translated into forty-three languages.85 The following morning, thirty federal soldiers escorted the nine students into Central High at bayonet point, and they took the students home that afternoon. No violence occurred. Realizing the futility of their efforts, the protesters did not show up the next day. Over the next several months, some white students left the school altogether, while others regularly harassed the African Americans. Carlotta Walls later recalled that white students had spit on her, knocked books out of her hands, kicked her, put glue or spit on her chair, and left notes with statements such as “Nigger go back to Africa.”86 Eisenhower enjoyed strong public support for his handling of the crisis. Sixty-four percent of the nation approved of the president’s actions; just 26 percent were opposed. Outside the South, 74 percent approved. The public was also solidly behind the president’s decision to delay sending the troops.87 Another poll taken in early October showed that for the first time, more white southerners disapproved of the job the president was doing

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 86

[ 86 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

than approved of him. “I voted for Ike twice, but by God I hate his guts now,” one Arkansas woman proclaimed. The president, the Mobile Register lamented, was “unrecognizable as the man who only last year pleaded earnestly for patience and understanding.” The Jackson Daily News similarly observed, “The followers of Eisenhower in Mississippi have departed faster than the Israelites out of Egypt.” Southern politicians often compared Eisenhower’s move to the Soviet Union’s crackdown in Hungary, likened him to Hitler, or invoked memories of Reconstruction.88 Eisenhower met with four southern governors on October 1. He vowed to enforce court orders, yet he wanted the troops out of Little Rock as quickly as possible. Administration officials and the governors drafted a statement for Faubus to sign: if he agreed to keep the peace and not obstruct integration, federal troops would be withdrawn and control of the National Guard would be returned to the governor. When Faubus failed to give Eisenhower the assurances he demanded, the president issued a statement expressing his disapproval and promising “to maintain Federal surveillance of the situation.” The next day Eisenhower wrote to Nixon that he would probably be unable to play golf because his plans were “necessarily so uncertain because of the stupidity and duplicity of one called Faubus.”89 The strain on Eisenhower was evident at his October 3 press conference. Liberal Democrats and some civil rights activists had accused him of contributing to the crisis by failing to speak out in favor of Brown. They also believed he had moved too slowly once it escalated. “I am astonished how many people know exactly what the President of the United States should do,” Eisenhower retorted. Events in Little Rock, he maintained, were about upholding the authority of the courts and the rule of law, not about segregation or integration. Eisenhower pointed out that such scenarios had been privately discussed within his administration since Brown, and he again cited Prohibition as an example of the failure of law to effect social change. He had “preached patience, tolerance,” and the importance “of understanding both sides before you move.” When a reporter observed that this strategy had accomplished little, the president replied, “I don’t know really much more that can be done.” Eisenhower grew more exasperated when reporters continued to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 87

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 87 ]

ask about racial matters. “This is really getting very repetitious,” he commented.90 Tensions subsided over the next month. Eisenhower sent letters of support to the parents of each of the nine students. Soldiers escorted the students to and from school, stood guard outside their classrooms, and accompanied them from room to room. The president withdrew some troops in late October, and the rest were gone by the end of November. The federalized National Guard remained at Central High until the end of the school year, when Ernest Green, one of the nine, graduated.91 The crisis in Little Rock took a heavy toll on Eisenhower personally. It was “troublesome beyond imagination,” he wrote to a friend. Ann Whitman, the president’s secretary, told an aide that Eisenhower was not himself; she later believed that Little Rock contributed to the stroke he suffered that November.92 Civil rights activists were elated. “You can’t view Little Rock as anything but a sign of progress,” declared singer Harry Belafonte Jr. King wired Eisenhower to express his appreciation for the use of troops. The parents of the nine students offered “heartfelt and lasting thanks” and praised Eisenhower for giving them “an abiding feeling of belonging and purposefulness.” The students had similar reactions. Terrence Roberts later recalled that thanks to the soldiers, he could attend school without getting murdered. Thelma Mothershed-Wair described the soldiers’ arrival as “the greatest thrill of [her] life. . . . We then knew that somebody big with all the authority cared about nine little black children,” she remarked at a 1990 conference on Eisenhower’s civil rights legacy. Four of the nine students attended that gathering; they gave Brownell a standing ovation when he finished his address.93 Further progress in Little Rock was slow in coming, however. Once the violence abated, the media shifted their attention to other stories. In the summer of 1958 a judge granted the school board’s request to end integration to maintain public order. The NAACP filed suit, and the Eisenhower administration stood firmly with the civil rights organization. The White House also developed contingency plans in case troops had to be dispatched again. That September the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Cooper v. Aaron that violence could not be used as a reason to delay integration. The Little Rock school board then devised a

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 88

[ 88 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

clever plan to lease Central High to a private entity. The Justice Department and the NAACP tried to block this move, but Faubus succeeded in shutting down the city’s high schools for the 1958–1959 school year. Although they reopened a year later under court order, by 1963, less than 1 percent of the students attending Little Rock’s junior and senior high schools were African American.94 The November gubernatorial election in Virginia offered the first evidence that Little Rock had hurt the GOP in the South. Essentially, the contest was about which party could best defend white supremacy. Democrats linked Ted Dalton, the GOP candidate, with the White House and warned that a Republican victory would lead to Little Rock–type incidents in the Old Dominion. Dalton tried to distance himself from the president and preached a message of obstruction and delay when it came to integration. He charged that the Democrats’ strategy of “massive resistance” would spark federal intervention and either produce integrated schools or lead communities to shut down public education. Democrat J. Lindsay Almond triumphed easily. “Little Rock knocked me down to nothing,” Dalton lamented. Several southern GOP leaders similarly complained that Little Rock had made their jobs more difficult.95

Searching for the Middle Way Eisenhower was still hoping to deal with integration in a much slower, more deliberate manner than civil rights leaders wanted. He met with Senator Harry Byrd (D-Va.) in July 1958. The president was interested in Byrd’s idea to integrate graduate schools and then work down one level each year thereafter, a process that would take more than a dozen years. On August 6, when a reporter asked Eisenhower how he would alleviate tensions in the South, the president gave his usual reply about the limits of law and the importance of education; he added that he had no plans to make any speeches. When reporters inquired later that month if he had ever opposed Brown, Eisenhower replied that at some point he might have indicated that integration ought to occur more slowly. Faubus welcomed that statement, but Wilkins noted that integration had not even begun in seven states and was proceeding at a token pace in four others.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 89

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 89 ]

“Would [the president] give Arkansas two hundred years, or only 150?” Wilkins asked tersely.96 Eisenhower remained perplexed. He grumbled that northern whites naively thought that integration could occur quickly and smoothly. The president wrote to Ralph McGill, a prominent journalist in Atlanta and an open critic of segregation—just the type of person Eisenhower hoped could lead the South to orderly change. The racial situation, Eisenhower confessed, “distresses me profoundly.” He added, “All of us, collectively, seem to lack the wisdom we should have to deal adequately with the entire problem.”97 Tensions continued across the South that fall. On September 3 King was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, and charged with loitering. News photos showed a police officer sharply twisting King’s arm behind his back as he leaned the minister’s body over a counter. Furious, Wilkins reminded Morrow that King had publicly and privately defended the administration on several occasions; it was time for the president to reciprocate. “Doesn’t the White House understand that it cannot remain aloof from this struggle?” Wilkins pleaded. “Can’t the White House see the wisdom—no, the necessity—of a strong, direct statement to the issue—no generalizations?” Morrow took the matter to chief of staff Sherman Adams. The president offered no comment.98 There were other problems. Officials in Charlottesville, Virginia, had closed public schools rather than integrate them. Eisenhower privately called the decision “a material setback” and publicly expressed support for African American parents battling school shutdowns both there and in Arkansas. But William Rogers, who had become attorney general after Brownell’s resignation in late 1957, indicated that although the administration was watching developments in those two states, it had no plans for action. He told a California audience in early October that white southerners’ efforts to evade integration by using state taxpayer dollars to fund private schools “present[ed] no constitutional question.” Eisenhower, meanwhile, speculated to McGill that pressure for integration might ultimately come from white students, who would not want to see their education disrupted by school closings. When an Atlanta synagogue headed by an avid civil rights supporter was bombed in early October, King

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 90

[ 90 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

praised Eisenhower for condemning the attack and again urged him to host a White House conference on race. No such gathering occurred.99 Black leaders continued to pressure the White House. A. Philip Randolph and several other activists organized an interracial Youth March for Integrated Schools. On October 25, 1958, roughly 10,000 people paraded down Constitution Avenue to the Lincoln Memorial. Despite reassurances from Randolph, some administration officials privately worried about potential participation by communists and other leftist groups. Randolph praised Eisenhower, and attendees also heard from King’s wife, Coretta, and other prominent African Americans. Planners resolved to bring 20,000 people to Washington the following May to mark the fifth anniversary of Brown.100 The one discordant note of the day came when Harry Belafonte Jr. led a delegation of ten youths to the White House. They were denied admission and did not meet with any officials, although a guard promised to forward their petition to the president. Belafonte warned that the rebuff would be noted around the globe and would hurt American foreign policy. Morrow noted that a month later he was still receiving mail criticizing the White House for ignoring the youths. The White House likewise rejected requests for meetings from Wilkins and the National Council of Negro Women.101 With civil rights activists continuing to criticize him for doing too little, and segregationists blasting him for Little Rock, Eisenhower again approached McGill in February 1959. The president said he hoped to “inspire extremists on both sides to gravitate a bit more toward the center line, which is the only path along which progress in great human affairs can be achieved.” Pointing to Prohibition as well as the “carpet-bagging government of the South” during Reconstruction, he again argued that reformers had too much faith in the power of laws to change deeply held views. At the same time, he denounced southern Democratic senators Olin Johnston (S.C.), Strom Thurmond (S.C.), and James Eastland (Miss.) for being “so entrenched in their prejudices and racial antagonisms that they never show so much of a glimmer of readiness to see the other side of the problem.” The president speculated that these popular lawmakers had little to fear politically by supporting moderate changes.102

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 91

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 91 ]

Two months later approximately 30,000 people gathered in Washington for another Youth March for Integrated Schools. Criticizing both the executive and legislative branches for a “lack of decisive action,” the demonstrators urged Eisenhower to convene a civil rights conference, back civil rights legislation, provide moral and legal protections for those who were “harassed” for civil rights activities, and boost federal law enforcement efforts in the South. Marchers presented the White House with a document noting that just 801 of 2,890 southern school districts had even begun to integrate, and many of those had taken only minimal steps. No changes whatsoever had occurred in several states. Eisenhower was out of town, so an assistant accepted the petition. Activists also went to Capitol Hill with a similar petition, but most members of both parties ignored it.103 The following April a mob of white men dragged Mack Parker, who had been accused of rape, from his Mississippi jail cell and shot him. Eisenhower condemned the brutal crime and expressed confidence that the FBI and local authorities would find and punish the perpetrators. He saw no need for additional legislation to boost federal law enforcement. The FBI located Parker’s body and handed material over to state officials to use against those who had committed the heinous act, but no one was prosecuted. The Justice Department then convened a federal grand jury. Eisenhower privately hoped the jury would do what state leaders had not, but in January 1960 it found no grounds for action. Similarly, a Philadelphia, Mississippi, police officer shot an African American man in October. When the coroner’s office ruled the incident a justifiable homicide, local NAACP activist Medgar Evers asked Attorney General Rogers to investigate. The Justice Department concluded a month later that no federal law had been violated.104 By the fall of 1959, the Justice Department had filed only three voting rights suits, and none of them involved Mississippi, the state with the worst abuses. Rogers worried that losing a civil rights case would constitute a grave setback for racial justice. Clarence Mitchell told Nixon’s aides that he was “quite disappointed” with Justice. Although federal investigative efforts increased modestly in 1960, the law itself impeded progress. The 1957 Civil Rights Act (discussed in the next chapter) required individuals to file complaints, but many African Americans

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 92

[ 92 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

lacked knowledge of the process, had little confidence that meaningful change would result, or feared white retaliation. The law also contained loopholes that southern communities exploited to hide or destroy voting records.105 This slow pace of change deeply troubled black youth. On February 1, 1960, four African American students entered a Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat at the lunch counter reserved for whites. Staff refused to serve them and asked them to leave. The nonviolent students refused and remained seated until the store closed nearly an hour later. Other students joined them the next morning, and the protests grew larger over the following days. By the end of the week, the manager, who had received a bomb threat, closed the store. By the end of February, similar events had occurred in thirty cities across seven states. By April, all southern states had been affected, and nearly 50,000 people had participated. These tactics even spread to the North, where some college students expressed solidarity with their black counterparts.106 Sit-ins were not new. Similar tactics had been used earlier but had quickly been abandoned. What differed this time was the scale of the protests and the violence, usually instigated by whites, that occurred in some cities. More than 1,000 people were involved in a melee in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in late February.107 The sit-ins symbolized the maturation of a new generation. Diane Nash, who attended Fisk University in Nashville, articulated the students’ refusal to accept delays. “It has been ninety-five years since the end of the Civil War,” she observed. “Of course, some progress has been made, but it certainly could have been made more rapidly. There is no reason why it should not go faster.” A young woman arrested in Tallahassee, Florida, baffled her mother by rejecting her offer of bail money, even though serving time in jail might ruin her future, bring shame on her family, or even result in death. “Mama, I love you,” the young woman said. “But I am not free. And I’m not free because your generation didn’t act. But I want my children to be free. That’s why I stay in jail.”108 Eisenhower commented on the demonstrations at his March 16 press conference. “I am deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights, the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 93

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 93 ]

Constitution,” he declared. A reporter inquired if he would convene a national conference in Washington. “I think there ought to be biracial conferences in every city and every community of the South, which would be much better than trying to get up here and direct every single thing from Washington,” the president replied. “I am one of those people that believes there is too much interference in our private affairs and, you might say, personal lives already.” Eisenhower distinguished between local grievances, which he wanted local authorities to address, and voting rights, which he saw as a federal responsibility. Another reporter asked if he thought African Americans had a right to eat at desegregated lunch counters and if the federal government had an obligation to protect that right. Eisenhower noted, “My own understanding is that when an establishment belongs to the public, opened under public charter and so on, equal rights are involved.” He confessed to being uncertain about that principle, however.109 The administration offered a modicum of assistance to civil rights activists that spring. The Justice Department sued Biloxi, Mississippi, for denying African Americans access to a beach. Rogers lobbied executives from three large drugstore chains to desegregate, and two months later, the businessmen announced that they would. The influence of federal pressure is difficult to measure. Financial self-interest often shaped these decisions, because boycotts and the fear of violence drove away customers.110 The White House also stood squarely for integration that fall as tensions escalated in New Orleans. In May a federal judge had ordered that public schools begin integrating in September. In late August a threejudge federal panel upheld the school board’s appeal for a delay until November 14. On November 12 the head of the state education system mandated a school holiday. Rogers bluntly informed Governor Jimmie Davis, who had vowed to go to jail rather than permit integration, that he would use “the full powers of [his] office” to support the court. The federal government, Rogers added, had obtained an injunction against a state law that called for the arrest of any federal official who attempted to enforce integration.111 Eisenhower kept abreast of the situation while playing golf in Georgia. He informed the Justice Department that he was exasperated by the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 94

[ 94 ] ch ap t e r t h re e

segregationists’ resistance and would again use federal troops to uphold the court order. “Little Rock was a tragedy and I hoped they learned their lesson,” the president asserted. “But if they need to learn it again, we’ll deal with it.” Four African American students entered a white school on November 14, and the white-led violence commenced two days later, but federal marshals and local police quickly restored order. At the end of the month, Senator Jacob Javits urged Eisenhower to take advantage of the “moral opportunity” to speak out in favor of integration. The president begged off, saying the situation remained too uncertain.112 Despite this important breakthrough for racial justice, more extensive changes were slow in coming. As in Little Rock, whites in New Orleans terrorized the black students. Traumatized by threats that she would be poisoned, six-year-old Ruby Bridges did not eat the sandwiches her mother made for her lunch. She studied by herself with the assistance of a white teacher from Massachusetts because no local instructor would work with her. Ruby’s father, a Purple Heart recipient, lost his job, and her family received numerous harassing phone calls that promised violence if Ruby continued to go to school. Only a handful of African Americans attended integrated institutions the following year. Whites moved to the suburbs, where few blacks resided.113

Conclusion The sit-ins and the New Orleans controversy signaled that African Americans across the South would continue to fight for changes in the racial status quo. Protesters did not believe that segregation and other forms of racial oppression would die a slow death as a result of abstract forces such as urbanization, industrialization, or education, as some intellectuals were predicting. They insisted that individuals could bend history, as well as speed it up. Deeply distrustful of state and local authority, they wanted action from Congress and, more important, the president. Black protest profoundly shaped the economic, political, and social climate where it occurred. With few exceptions, however, Republicans in Congress paid little or no attention to civil rights rallies and other direct action efforts. Eisenhower rarely acted because of such pressure; mostly,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 95

e i s e nhower and black protest [ 95 ]

it just annoyed him. The Prayer Pilgrimage, the two youth demonstrations for integrated schools, and other protests initially caused concern in the White House, particularly because of the possibility of violence. Once these events ended, the administration quickly focused on nonracial matters. It would often be many months before subsequent protests caught the White House’s attention. This differed sharply from what would happen in the mid-1960s, when direct action efforts became larger and more frequent, occurred nationwide, and sometimes led to violence. The fear of violence also became more widespread among citizens and politicians alike. Republicans would not be able to turn away so easily then. The Montgomery bus boycott is a telling example. Today, it is enshrined as a seminal moment in modern American history. At the time, the White House saw things much differently. According to Brownell, the administration did not consider the boycott worthy of much attention. Officials followed events in the media, but prominent white-owned publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post offered cursory accounts that did not appear on the front page. Brownell and other officials did not regard the boycott as a significant shift in black activism.114 Eisenhower took several important steps, most notably at Little Rock, that advanced racial justice. But the more important story of the 1950s was the chasm between the president and African Americans. That large and persistent divide ensured that blacks were not inclined to reevaluate their relationship with the GOP, despite their frustration with the Democratic Party, where southern segregationists retained great influence. Eisenhower rejected activists’ calls for meetings, conferences, speeches, and other steps to promote integration and stem violence across Dixie. He also disagreed with them regarding the efficacy of federal law as an instrument of social reform. Later, when he did move to enact legislation, his efforts, as well as those of most Republicans in Congress, would again spark criticism from black leaders and, more important, fail to alter African Americans’ impression of the GOP.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 96

Republicans and Civil Rights Legislation, 1952–1960

4

On January 14, 1959, Dwight Eisenhower appeared before the National Press Club. Not one who enjoyed making speeches, he departed from the organization’s customary practice and immediately took questions from the audience. Someone asked whether Congress, having approved a voting rights bill two years earlier, should pass legislation to advance school integration in the South. “I would like to see this problem of voting solved with whatever laws may be necessary,” Eisenhower asserted. “It is my belief,” he emphasized, “that now voters themselves—local voters, state voters, and national voters—will have greater and finer opportunity to proceed with, you might say, the proper protection of other rights.”1 Eisenhower’s comments marked several important developments. First, he was willing to seek legislation to achieve changes in the racial status quo. That approach had been absent for most of his first term. Second, it revealed the president’s priorities. His administration was focused on the South and continued to oppose a compulsory FEPC, which activists believed would aid blacks around the nation. Furthermore, the president was standing with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, who had similarly connected voting rights to progress in other battles across Dixie. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, few civil rights bills came up for a vote in Congress, and those that did were defeated. Firmly opposed to federal intervention in their region’s labor, social, or political life, southern Democrats used their control of committees and their extensive knowledge of parliamentary rules to thwart civil rights initiatives. There [ 96 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 97

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 97 ]

were ways to overcome these obstacles, provided Republicans and nonsouthern Democrats made civil rights a priority, but that commitment was absent for most of Eisenhower’s presidency. Eager to preserve party unity, Democrats usually preferred to avoid the issue, while Republicans showed little interest in civil rights legislation and voted against proposals to expand federal authority. At other times, they cynically used race as a tool to defeat federal initiatives they opposed. That pattern shifted in Eisenhower’s second term, when Congress passed civil rights laws in 1957 and 1960. Historians and pundits tend to credit these achievements to Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, a Texas Democrat. Although Johnson shaped the two laws, the president and congressional Republicans exerted substantial influence over their content and timing. Largely symbolic breakthroughs, these reforms did little to transform the South and offered few if any benefits to blacks in other regions. Whereas African Americans connected FDR’s actions with improvements in their lives, two decades later, they did not believe the Republicans had made any difference. It is thus not surprising that blacks’ political loyalties remained unchanged when Eisenhower departed in 1961.

Eisenhower’s First Term In January 1953 Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since 1929. The NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR; an umbrella organization of civil rights, labor, and religious groups), and others continued to believe that federal law could better the lives of African Americans. But no civil rights bill could pass, they concluded, without strong Republican support. Given that party leaders and committee chairs set the legislative agenda, prospects for success were dim. Ohioan Robert Taft, the new Senate majority leader, retained his objections to a compulsory FEPC, but he was also worried that pushing racial issues of any sort would undermine parts of Eisenhower’s domestic agenda that he deemed more important and erode the GOP’s gains in Dixie the previous November. Neither Republican leader in the House, Speaker Joseph Martin Jr.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 98

[ 98 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

(Mass.) or Majority Leader Charles Halleck (Ind.), considered civil rights a pressing concern.2 Civil rights advocates pushed ahead anyway. Believing that policy could not change until congressional procedures were changed, a small bipartisan group proposed cloture by a majority of those voting, rather than two-thirds of the entire Senate. The president stayed out of the fight, and the Senate defeated their plan by a vote of 70–21. Just five Republicans (four of them from the Northeast) favored reform. By a voice vote, the House rejected a proposal to allow members to bring bills directly to the floor rather than send them to the Rules Committee. Institutional roadblocks remained formidable.3 Working closely with the NAACP and the LCCR, this bipartisan group advocated an agenda that had been laid out during Truman’s presidency. It included protecting voting rights, forbidding segregation in interstate transportation, making lynching a federal crime, creating a civil rights commission, establishing a Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, and instituting a compulsory FEPC. These proposals went nowhere during the first two years of Eisenhower’s presidency. The president saw little value in using law as an instrument of change, and most congressional Republicans showed little enthusiasm either. They were skeptical about federal involvement in racial matters and were eager to work with southern Democrats on other domestic policies as well as foreign affairs. With no mass of civil rights demonstrators in the streets of Washington or elsewhere, no sign that whites cared strongly about federal reforms, and no sizable chunk of black votes within easy grasp, the GOP saw no reason to rethink its traditional views.4 Congress rejected appeals to insert antidiscrimination provisions into several laws, including legislation regarding school construction. Education had long been a state and local concern, but with the first wave of the postwar “baby boom” reaching school age, and federal policy makers linking education to national defense and the emerging knowledge-based economy, that was starting to change. Eisenhower and others favored an increase in federal funding for the building and remodeling of schools. During the summer of 1955 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. offered an amendment to a school construction bill to ensure that no federal aid went to segregated facilities. That move divided civil rights activists. Whereas the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 99

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 99 ]

NAACP enthusiastically backed Powell’s plan, labor and other organizations contended it would kill the bill and, with it, a necessary reform.5 Eisenhower also opposed the Powell amendment. Failure to build new schools, he argued, would hurt black students as well as white. The president drew the wrath of civil rights leaders that summer when he called Powell’s plan “extraneous.” Meanwhile, the House Education and Labor Committee defeated an antisegregation amendment that July, with a solid majority of Republicans opposed to it. The proposed amendment created some unusual voting patterns, however. Its GOP supporters included conservatives who hoped that including an antisegregation amendment would stir southern Democrats, who might otherwise be tempted by federal funds, to torpedo the legislation. In the end, the bill never came to a vote because the Democrats, who had regained control of both houses of Congress in the 1954 election, wanted to keep civil rights off the agenda. By the time the session ended that fall, it had been more than five years since Congress had voted on a civil rights bill.6 The debate did not change when a new session opened in January 1956. Several Republican congressmen who supported school aid and hoped to court black voters wanted the president to declare that if the construction bill passed, the administration would withhold funds from southern cities and districts that were segregated. Several Democrats asked for the same pledge and indicated that Powell would drop his amendment if the president did so. The administration replied that implementing Brown was the job of the judiciary, not the White House. The Powell amendment passed the House that summer with strong Republican support. But again, GOP backing was largely a ploy to rally southern Democrats against it. Although 148 House Republicans supported the amendment, 96 of them then voted against the bill. The measure was defeated by just 28 votes.7

The 1957 Civil Rights Act In his 1956 State of the Union address, Eisenhower noted that he found reports of economic intimidation and denial of voting rights in the South “disturbing.” Black voter registration was rising slightly in some places but falling precipitously in others. In December 1955 fourteen heavily

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 100

[ 100 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

black counties in Mississippi had no African American voters. Eisenhower asked Congress to create a commission to investigate these matters and announced that other proposals would be forthcoming. The NAACP welcomed this development but added that a commission was far from sufficient.8 The president and the attorney general hoped the formation of a commission would mitigate tensions and reduce the likelihood that Eisenhower would have to send troops to enforce school desegregation or maintain order. Brownell was also worried that Eisenhower, who was still recovering from his heart attack, might not seek reelection. With a presumably less popular figure at the head of the GOP ticket, black votes might be critical to victory.9 Brownell and his aides finished crafting a package of proposals by March. They included the creation of a civil rights commission and a plan to upgrade the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department to a full division, which would supply badly needed personnel and other resources. The package also involved strengthening federal protections for voting rights and, more important, allowing the federal government to file civil suits to protect a wide range of constitutional rights. This last provision, known as Title III, could potentially cover school desegregation and offered very broad powers to federal authorities. Traditionally, civil rights violations were prosecuted under criminal law, involving a jury trial and a higher burden of proof than a civil suit, which was typically heard only by a judge and required a lower threshold of proof. Because civil suits often led to court orders restricting individuals’ behavior, they were preventive rather than punitive. Several cabinet officials, as well as FBI director Hoover, found these plans troubling. Eisenhower supported his attorney general, although he warned Brownell not to come across as “another Sumner” (a reference to Reconstruction-era senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Republican and a strong supporter of African American rights who was despised across the South).10 Civil rights groups remained committed to a broader agenda. In March nearly 2,000 people from thirty-eight states gathered in Washington, D.C., for a conference organized by the LCCR. Attendees lobbied Congress, heard vivid testimony from southern activists, and listened to speeches from two prominent Democrats. Representing the GOP, Con-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 101

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 101 ]

gressman Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania reiterated the party’s standard charge about the Democrats’ sectional divisions and proclaimed the Eisenhower administration’s civil rights accomplishments the most important “since the Emancipation Proclamation itself.” The integrated meeting, he correctly pointed out, could not have occurred in the nation’s capital in 1953, and black attendees could not have eaten in local restaurants. Though delegates heartily voiced their approval of these changes, they also called on Congress to pass several reforms: a compulsory FEPC, the withholding of federal funds from states that refused to integrate their schools, majority cloture in the Senate, and an end to segregation in interstate travel. They also wanted a meeting between black leaders and the president.11 The administration focused instead on its legislative program. Democratic leaders were hostile, and GOP leaders were noncommittal, indicating that proposals to create a civil rights commission and a division at the Justice Department, and possibly an anti–poll tax measure, stood a chance of passing. Brownell nevertheless worked with Congressman Kenneth Keating (R-N.Y.) to bring all four parts of his plan before the House later that spring. Eisenhower sent mixed signals; sometimes he expressed support for only a civil rights commission and a division at Justice, and sometimes he stood squarely with Brownell. The president resented criticism from the southern press that his plan was too radical; nor did he appreciate demands from civil rights groups for more aggressive action. The latter, he grumbled, failed to grasp that black students would be hurt if federal officials pressed too hard for integration; southern whites would simply establish private schools. Eisenhower soon retreated from the political stage due to an attack of ileitis.12 The measure came before the House that summer. Claiming that the bill was a punitive, communist-inspired attack on their region, southern Democrats painted a scary picture, warning of minority groups filing unwarranted complaints and politically inspired federal officials trampling on the privacy rights of innocent citizens. Carl Vinson (Ga.) predicted that dictatorial federal officials would force white farmers who had failed to hire African American workers to come to Washington and explain why. John Riley (S.C.) insisted that the government could not legislate matters of conscience and compared the situation to Hitler tak-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 102

[ 102 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

ing power in Germany. Worried that Republicans might abandon them, southern Democrats alleged that the loss of liberty would soon spread across the nation. George Huddleston (Ala.) claimed that the attorney general would use his newly granted powers to intervene in management-labor disputes on behalf of unions.13 Most Republicans remained silent during the floor debate, but those who spoke sounded a lot like their Dixie colleagues. Congressman William Miller, a conservative Republican from upstate New York, likened the bill to Hitlerism. Miller charged that the legislation would lead “the corner grocer, who alleges that I do not trade with him and I get my friends not to trade with him because he is a Jew or a Catholic,” to file a complaint with the civil rights commission. He also contended that the legislation would divide Americans, noting that “the only thing that made this country great was the happy blend of labor and management working together.” Usher Burdick (N.D.) also saw the bill as a dangerous threat to free association and gave the following example: if a social club in Washington, D.C., did not want him as a member, he would not sue or complain to federal officials to force the club to accept him. To Burdick, African Americans who looked to Washington for help in ending segregation were foolishly trying to force themselves into places where they were not welcome.14 The House passed the bill 279–126 on July 23. In the end, 168 Republicans voted for it, and just 24 against it. With the end of the session near and the political conventions imminent, Lyndon Johnson and other Senate leaders easily thwarted liberals’ efforts to bring the measure to a vote.15 When Congress reconvened in January 1957, prospects for a civil rights bill were brighter than at any time in the last dozen years, for a number of reasons. Eisenhower endorsed the entire 1956 package in his State of the Union address. Roy Wilkins proclaimed that African American support for Eisenhower left blacks “in a much better bargaining position with both parties,” and Brownell told hesitant Republicans they would alienate the black vote and risk losing reelection if they opposed civil rights. Politics also guided Johnson, who thought passing a civil rights bill would boost his chances of winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. Johnson told southern Democrats that if blacks credited the GOP with enacting a civil rights law, Democratic control of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 103

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 103 ]

Congress, and thus their dominance of the committee system, might be lost. Finally, the fight over changing the filibuster rule buoyed civil rights activists’ spirits. Although reformers lost again, with most Republicans voting against any change, the margin of defeat was much narrower than in 1953. Eleven of the seventeen new supporters of reform were eastern Republicans.16 The House took up the bill first. Some Republicans argued that recent events had created an urgent need for enhanced federal authority. Marguerite Church of Illinois cited the lynching of Emmett Till and noted that Egyptian newspapers had carried reports of Autherine Lucy’s battle to attend the University of Alabama. And during her recent trip to India, the “first question” Church was asked involved the denial of voting rights in the South. Leaving racial matters to local authorities, Keating insisted, would mean unacceptable delays. “Instead of relief in 1957 or 1958, we would have relief in 1970 or 1978,” he contended.17 Republican opponents offered a variety of rebuttals. Some advocated an amendment allowing jury trials in civil rights cases. Noah Mason of Illinois cast doubt on the attorney general’s ability to protect civil liberties and affirmed his faith in juries, which, he proudly claimed, comprised “the grassroots of America.” Clare Hoffman echoed southern Democrats’ arguments by urging civil rights proponents to remedy voting and judicial problems in their own states rather than focusing on Dixie. Contending that no new law was needed to address the relatively few voting problems that did exist, he warned that the NAACP and “four or five other groups that do not like our government” would use the proposed civil rights commission to “deny the civil rights of those now in the majority.” Whereas proponents of the legislation focused on events that had already transpired, critics voiced fears of what would happen in the future.18 The legislation reached the House floor in early June. Richard Poff (R-Va.) moved to have it returned to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to add a jury amendment. The House defeated his motion 158–251, with 45 Republicans voting with the Virginian and 139 against him. GOP support for a jury amendment was stronger than this vote indicated, however; in an earlier tally in which individual votes were not publicly recorded, the amendment had been defeated 167–199. The

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 104

[ 104 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

House passed the bill later that day, 286–126, and overwhelming GOP support was the key to its success: 168 Republicans voted for the measure, and just 19 opposed it. This pattern, whereby Republicans initially favored a more limited expansion of federal power but then switched their position on the final vote, would be repeated in years to come.19 In the Senate, Sam Ervin of North Carolina joined Richard Russell to lead the fight for a jury trial guarantee. Combining a disarming, folksy style with a Harvard Law School degree, Ervin framed his opposition to civil rights in terms of constitutional principles, not blacks’ alleged inferiority or disapproval of racial mixing. Despite Brownell’s warning that a jury amendment “would permit practical nullification” of civil rights in the South, the Senate Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, added such language in early June.20 On July 2 Russell stood on the Senate floor and vehemently denounced the legislation as a surreptitious attempt to promote integration. “Prepare your concentration camps now,” he warned, “for there are not enough jails to hold the people of the South who will today oppose the use of raw Federal power to forcibly comingle white and Negro children in the same schools and the same places of entertainment.” Russell highlighted an obscure section of Title III that invoked a Reconstruction-era law enabling the White House to use federal troops to enforce court orders. He strongly hinted that southerners might filibuster.21 Russell’s speech was filled with hyperbole and misstatements, but it turned the tide in favor of the southern Democrats. His talk of fierce white resistance, which implied further violence in the South, deeply concerned members of both parties. Lawmakers often voted on legislation without reading it thoroughly (or at all), but Republicans encouraged senators to take their time and examine the measure closely. Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa denounced the bill as “a violation of the civil rights of the white race,” while Karl Mundt of North Dakota proposed to submit a substitute bill dealing solely with voting rights. Prescott Bush wanted clarification on what the bill would do. H. Alexander Smith was greatly disturbed by the thought of federal troops enforcing school integration and believed that voting and integration should be kept separate. Only a few Republicans challenged Russell’s address.22 Russell also caught the president’s attention. The next day Eisenhower

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 105

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 105 ]

publicly stated that he “didn’t completely understand” parts of the bill. Talking with Brownell several hours later, he wondered whether the measure was more expansive than he had understood and intended. During their previous civil rights discussions, the president observed, the focus had been on the franchise. Eisenhower stressed that although he was appalled by the denial of voting rights in Mississippi, if civil rights legislation stirred deep fear and anger across Dixie, it would undermine racial progress.23 Republican congressional leaders huddled with administration officials. Brownell emphasized that the administration had no intention of sending troops into the South, while lawmakers pointed out the growing desire on Capitol Hill for compromise on Title III. Eisenhower was open to some clarifying language but remained firmly opposed to any acknowledgment that southern states could interpret the Constitution as they wished.24 The White House now stood at the center of a political firestorm. Johnson told Eisenhower the bill would never pass with Title III, and he suggested that other items on the president’s agenda might also suffer defeat if the president refused to compromise. Eisenhower reassured Russell that he would not try to punish the South and that he was amenable to some changes. The White House dispatched Morrow to reassure black leaders of the president’s commitment to protecting voting rights. Citing Eisenhower’s meeting with Russell, King again asked for time with the president but was denied. Eisenhower signaled his retreat on the issue at a July 17 news conference. Baseball legend Jackie Robinson, who greatly admired the president and had defended him to other black leaders, informed Rabb that Eisenhower’s remarks had left him and other African American supporters “spinning.”25 Minority Leader William Knowland of California lobbied his fellow Republicans to defend Title III, but on July 24 the Senate voted 52–38 in favor of an amendment to remove it. Eighteen Republicans voted for the amendment; twenty-five voted against it. Eisenhower did not consider this a great loss. At a meeting with Republican legislative leaders on August 6, the president lamented that Title III had “beclouded the issue” because voting rights were the linchpin to protecting other civil rights. “The Republican Party can stand on that,” he affirmed.26

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 106

[ 106 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

Civil rights reformers viewed the matter differently. Striking Title III would leave southern blacks open to persecution by state and local officials, they feared. Without Title III, federal officials had to wait for local officials to ask for their assistance, which was extremely unlikely, especially in the Deep South. Wilkins and other civil rights leaders blamed Eisenhower. Had he held firm, they contended, Title III would have survived. That view overstated the degree to which Eisenhower controlled events. Congress asserted its will on Title III. Johnson wanted to pass a bill, but one that did not offend his fellow southerners. More important, there was little support among either Democrats or Republicans for a stronger federal role in school integration.27 Southerners next focused on adding a jury trial amendment to Title IV, the section that protected voting rights. The House version of the bill was up for debate, and it did not contain such an amendment. Eisenhower unequivocally opposed a jury trial amendment and dispatched several administration officials, including Nixon, to urge Republican senators to hold firm.28 Whereas jury trial proponents expressed concern over procedures, opponents worried about outcomes. Everett Dirksen of Illinois compared a jury trial amendment to the poll tax, the grandfather clause, literacy tests, and other devices used to block African Americans in the South from voting. Clifford Case noted with alarm that the governor of Mississippi had proclaimed that a jury guarantee would make the bill “fairly harmless.” Knowland warned Congress not to affirm the right to vote but then leave it “a hollow phrase.”29 The Senate approved a jury trial amendment, by a vote of 51–42, on August 1. A shift of just five votes would have reversed the outcome. Twelve Republicans supported the amendment; thirty-three opposed it. Knowland had expected an additional six or more votes against it, but several Republicans had calculated that supporting civil rights would jeopardize other priorities or constitute an unacceptable political risk.30 Describing the outcome as one of the most serious defeats of his presidency, Eisenhower told the cabinet there was “not much forgiveness in [his] soul.” Some aides reported that they had never seen the president so angry. Eisenhower issued a statement expressing his disappointment and wrote to a friend that the “week [had] been a depressing one.” The presi-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 107

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 107 ]

dent cast himself as a sensible moderate; he had bowed to congressional wishes on Title III, but Congress had not returned the favor on Title IV. Nixon was also irate. He and Johnson clashed in the Senate cloakroom soon after the vote. The vice president told reporters it was “one of the saddest days in the history of the Senate.”31 The weakened bill passed 72–18 on August 7. Forty-three Republicans backed it, and none were opposed. The elimination of Title III and the modification of Title IV led some civil rights activists to call on the White House and congressional allies to seek a stronger bill next year. King and others saw the Senate legislation as a modest step forward. NAACP leaders concluded there was no reason to believe that either party would remove the jury amendment. Republicans, they observed, had already achieved a strong record in the fight.32 Eisenhower wanted a bill passed that session. Congressional leaders worked out a deal to limit the impact of the jury amendment on some nonracial matters. Strom Thurmond earned the enmity of his southern brethren when he railed against the legislation for more than twenty-four hours—a record that still survives. By the end of August both the House and the Senate had, with near-unanimous Republican support, approved the modified legislation. Eisenhower signed it on September 9.33 The first civil rights statute in eighty-two years bore a heavy Republican imprint, and it would not have passed without substantial Republican support. The initial push for the legislation had come from the White House, not from Lyndon Johnson. The GOP set the policy agenda by emphasizing voting rights rather than an FEPC or other matters. Congressional Republicans then shaped the final product by voicing strong doubts about Title III. The results of the 1957 Civil Rights Act were varied. The creation of the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department exposed and combated racial injustices across the nation, most notably in the South. These were important gains. However, the act offered little ammunition against voting abuses. Enforcement mechanisms were triggered only when an individual filed a lawsuit. Many people did not know about the law, and those who openly challenged white authority risked serious reprisals. As critics had predicted, the 1957 Civil Rights Act would result in few new voters.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 108

[ 108 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

Eisenhower reaped no political dividends. According to a late-summer poll, his popularity in the South had dropped significantly. Although several civil rights leaders lauded the Republicans, particularly Nixon, there was little evidence of broader African American support for the GOP.34

Tension with Black Leaders Even those most approving of the 1957 law considered it just a start. When Attorney General William Rogers indicated that the administration would not seek civil rights legislation in 1958, Jackie Robinson told Nixon this was no time to rest. “In this fight no holds are barred,” Robinson stressed. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. informed the president that African Americans still viewed him as indifferent to their problems.35 After much pleading from staff members, Eisenhower tried to remedy that perception by speaking to the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders in May 1958. This was only the second time the president had appeared before an African American group. The 400 attendees greeted Eisenhower with warm applause and presented him with an award for his actions in Little Rock. Law and logic, Eisenhower told the crowd, were of limited value in solving “problems . . . buried in the human heart.” Describing progress as inevitably “evolutionary,” not “revolutionary,” Eisenhower pointed out that he had lived to see the end of a segregated military. Enforcement of existing laws, he added, must “not in itself create injustice.” This was standard Eisenhower rhetoric. The speech became noteworthy when the president urged blacks to exercise “patience and forbearance.”36 Those words were exceptionally ill chosen. Several audience members approached Morrow afterward and were “bitter in their denunciation,” he noted. Speaking to the same audience later that night, Wilkins upbraided the president. Robinson, who was also in attendance, wrote to Eisenhower the next day and told him the call to be patient made him feel “like standing up and saying, ‘Oh no! Not again.’” African Americans “have been the most patient of all people,” he observed, and Eisenhower’s words echoed those of segregationists. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Martin Luther King Jr., issued a statement expressing “shock and dismay” over Eisenhower’s lan-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 109

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 109 ]

guage. The organization feared the president was undermining the Supreme Court.37 The criticism baffled and troubled Eisenhower. He explained to Robinson that he had not meant “patience and forbearance” to be used “as substitutes for constructive action or progress.” He reminded the baseball great that he had never asked for any individual, group, or government to halt efforts toward racial equality. In a 1962 interview with Simeon Booker, Eisenhower was still perplexed by blacks’ negative response. Patience, he said, was a worthy trait for anyone, including a president. He then told Booker a story about the value of planting a seed and waiting for its development.38 The controversy prodded the White House to grant civil rights leaders’ long-standing demand for a meeting with the president. Eisenhower and several aides convened with King, Randolph, Wilkins, and Lester Granger, president of the National Urban League, for approximately one hour on June 23—the first gathering of its kind. Commending Eisenhower for his actions in Little Rock and other civil rights advances, Randolph relayed the group’s request for stronger federal action in nine areas, nearly all of which focused on combating school segregation, protecting civil rights workers, and ensuring voting rights across the South.39 Each of the four civil right leaders then spoke briefly. King acknowledged that morality could not be legislated but then challenged the president by insisting that law could influence behavior. He predicted that a national conference would embolden moderate whites in the South to assert their views and thus weaken more extreme segregationists. Wilkins highlighted the need for Title III and the protection of voting rights, which he termed the “most effective and bloodless” way to advance racial justice. Even though nearly a year had passed since enactment of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the Justice Department had not filed a single voting rights case. Granger reported that African Americans’ anger and frustration over the slow pace of change had never shown “more signs of congealing.”40 Eisenhower and his aides reacted defensively and offered few commitments. Though conceding there might be “some value” to a conference, the president expressed doubt that “anything much” would result. In

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 110

[ 110 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

particular, Granger’s warning of rising tensions troubled him. Eisenhower was deeply disturbed that the racial progress achieved during his presidency had not led to more goodwill from African Americans. Ironically, he posited, further gains might yield more anger. Eisenhower was also “puzzled” as to why more African Americans did not vote Republican, given that he had done more for civil rights than either Roosevelt or Truman had. Attorney General Rogers credited Eisenhower for inspiring hope among blacks and pointed out that some would always be disappointed with the pace of change.41 Afterward, White House officials tried to get the civil rights leaders to rewrite their statement to the press so that it expressed warmer approval of the president’s record. They refused. “This meeting was an unqualified success,” one aide assured Eisenhower. Most of the black participants disagreed. One commented that Eisenhower “just doesn’t have a grasp of the [race] problem.” Similarly, Granger told the Urban League that Eisenhower was not as well informed about civil rights as Roosevelt or Truman had been. “I don’t think [Eisenhower] feels like being a crusader for integration,” King observed.42 African Americans were increasingly upset with both parties as they headed to the polls that November. There had been no additional civil rights legislation, and, more important, a severe recession had hit African Americans especially hard. The RNC dispatched Morrow to campaign in black areas, but this effort came late in the election cycle and had little success. As they had before, Republicans emphasized that voting Democratic meant southern domination of congressional committees. A postelection RNC report showed that African American support for the GOP increased slightly in some areas, remained the same in others, and declined elsewhere. Democrats enjoyed a banner year, gaining thirteen Senate seats and forty-eight House seats.43 The RNC Research Division found these results troubling. The GOP, it declared, needed to be more inclusive with regard to patronage and had to understand that African Americans were worried about many issues, not just civil rights. The division concluded that although the GOP could not win a majority of the African American vote, it could boost its totals, and given the Electoral College power of the northern states, it needed to do so.44

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 111

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 111 ]

Morrow gave several speeches the following spring admonishing the GOP. He placed most of the blame on state and local officials, who, he claimed, had failed to follow through on the president’s civil rights policies. “The party must awake to the fact that Negroes all over the land are alert and aware and militant over the issue of first-class citizenship,” he told the Republican Women’s Convention. “The usual lip service” would not do; Republicans could not continue to tout the record of Abraham Lincoln and deny African Americans leadership positions. Some prominent Republicans branded Morrow a traitor, and one member of the RNC demanded his resignation. “How dare him?” an irate Republican official asked. “He should be thankful with a $14,200-a-year job.” Others approached White House aides to insist that Morrow revise his statements. He refused to back down, and black Republicans applauded his bluntness.45 Jacob Javits was also worried about the future of the GOP. The Republican Party, he wrote to an administration official, was in “grave danger” and might “lose all potency as the other major party” if it failed to support civil rights. He defined a strong federal role in racial matters as one of the “two essential postulates” of modern Republicanism, a term Eisenhower had coined to describe the post–New Deal GOP.46 The New York senator feared that the GOP would fall out of step with the nation as it made substantial racial progress. Prejudice against blacks, Jews, and Catholics had a long history but was now a “serious political liability,” Javits wrote in a December 1958 article in Esquire. He pointed to his own ascent from a humble Jewish family in New York City, as well as the rise of other Jewish politicians. He postulated that the surging black populations in big cities of the North would lead to the election of African American mayors. And it was “quite possible that a member of the Negro race will be appointed to a top cabinet post or elected to the Presidency or Vice Presidency by the year 2000.” Javits was also optimistic about Dixie. “By 1965,” he forecast, “we should see school integration completed throughout the South,” and two decades hence, black children across the nation “will be able to compete as equals with their fellow Americans.” Recent gains would “accelerate the move to more progress.” But blacks’ advances would not come at the expense of whites. Javits emphasized that “in no case are we talking about more

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 112

[ 112 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

than a fair share based on merit and equal opportunity for 10 percent of the population.”47

The 1960 Civil Rights Act In the short term, civil rights activists were not so sanguine. When the new Congress convened in 1959, Lyndon Johnson’s proposal for cloture by two-thirds of those present and voting was approved in the Senate, with overwhelming Republican support. Roy Wilkins and Richard Russell did not agree on much, but they concurred that this change did nothing to undermine the filibuster.48 Lawmakers in both parties put forward a variety of proposals, but the GOP heavily influenced the terms of debate. The administration seemed to be ready to include Title III in a broader civil rights program but pulled back when Republican congressional leaders objected. Charles Halleck told the president that Title III was too divisive, and he thought federal authorities might use it to intervene in labor disputes, presumably to aid unions. Other Republicans cautioned the administration not to give Nixon’s contracts committee statutory authority—a move the vice president believed would boost its effectiveness. Doing so, GOP lawmakers warned, would jeopardize cooperation with southern Democrats on budget matters. That February Eisenhower announced a civil rights package that would extend the Civil Rights Commission, provide school districts with technical and financial assistance for desegregation, enable the federal government to prosecute individuals who interfered with school desegregation or crossed state lines to avoid prosecution for bombing churches and schools, grant statutory authority to Nixon’s committee, and require communities to preserve voting records for three years.49 Civil rights leaders found this proposal too timid. Wilkins lobbied Nixon to rally the GOP behind Title III and other measures. The vice president had no love for the NAACP chief, a frequent critic of the administration. Nixon instructed an aide to send a telegram to the organization, which was marking its fiftieth anniversary, stressing how happy it must be with the nation’s racial progress. “Don’t give them credit for the work—just say it has progressed,” the vice president ordered.50

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 113

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 113 ]

Nixon was not the only prominent Republican who was annoyed with black leaders. The NAACP’s apparent lack of gratitude for his efforts led Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen to reject Clarence Mitchell’s request that any civil rights bill passed by the House be placed directly on the Senate calendar rather than sent to the Judiciary Committee. Bypassing that committee, chaired by James Eastland, had helped move the 1957 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.51 Congress showed little interest in reform. A House subcommittee added Title III to a civil rights bill in June, but southern Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee stripped it, along with other provisions, a month later. King described the vote as a prime example of “the hypocrisy of the Republican Party” and added, “At least you know where the Dixiecrats stand.” With the end of the session near, lawmakers in both parties prioritized other matters. Hoping to divide the Democrats in an election year, some Republicans favored postponing civil rights until 1960, although Congress did extend the life of the Civil Rights Commission for two years.52 By the spring of 1960, two voting rights proposals stood at the center of the debate. One had originated in the fall of 1959 as part of the Civil Rights Commission’s first report, which provided a wealth of information about how blacks had been locked out of the electoral process across the South. The commission proposed a system of registrars, appointed by the president, to sign up voters. This was an administrative approach that located enforcement primarily in the executive branch; liberals in both parties favored it as a way to minimize the role of the judiciary, which they saw as cumbersome and often hostile. Javits and several other senators lobbied Eisenhower to back the registrar plan, but the president feared it might overwhelm the executive branch with complaints and take power from state authorities. Eisenhower was also uncertain about its constitutionality. When the president called for further analysis, Clarence Mitchell replied that African Americans were tired of being studied.53 The White House offered an alternative plan. After several individuals in an area filed suit under the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the attorney general would ask a judge to rule that a pattern or practice of discrimination existed there. If the court decided affirmatively, those seeking to register to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 114

[ 114 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

vote would petition the court, or referees appointed by the court, to determine their eligibility. Referees would also monitor polling places to ensure that ballots were cast and properly counted. The administration contended that the referee approach was more enforceable than the registrar plan because a judge would issue a court order, as opposed to a bureaucrat making a ruling. Since the New Deal, Republicans had been troubled by the administrative enforcement of federal regulations. Liberals from both parties objected that Eisenhower’s bill would result in unacceptable delays.54 Johnson and Dirksen brought the president’s proposals before the Senate in February. When southern Democrats launched a filibuster, the two leaders ordered round-the-clock sessions, but the southerners held the upper hand; each had to speak for just four hours every three days to prolong the filibuster. Southerners also made frequent quorum calls, which allowed them to rest while a quorum assembled. Quorum calls came at all hours and took a heavy physical toll on lawmakers. Whereas the southerners were united, the rest of the Senate was plagued by sharp disagreements. Dirksen told the White House in early March that the filibuster would continue unless the provisions giving Nixon’s committee statutory authority and providing aid to desegregating districts were removed. The former proposal, Dirksen indicated, struck some legislators as an “incipient FEPC.” Voting rights also proved divisive: some preferred the referee plan, while others favored the registrar approach.55 By early March, the filibuster had surpassed all previous records. Little other business was being conducted. Concerned about the health of aging senators and not interested in fighting a losing battle, Eisenhower informed GOP lawmakers that the school desegregation and contracts committee items were not essential; voting reforms were more important. Nevertheless, the bipartisan group of liberals attempted cloture on a voting rights bill that included the contracts committee and desegregation provisions. They lost, 53–42. Twelve Republicans, most of them from the Northeast, favored cloture, and twenty opposed. When the Senate voted on a motion to add Title III, fifteen fewer Republicans supported it than had in 1957. Southern Democrats, with considerable assistance from the GOP, had again fended off the policies civil rights activists most desired.56

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 115

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 115 ]

The House took up civil rights in mid-March. Recalling strong Republican support for the 1957 Civil Rights Act, William Colmer (DMiss.) rhetorically asked if the GOP had done well with black voters a year later. “No!” shouted a Republican from across the aisle. “And you’re not going to get it this time,” Colmer replied. An Idaho Republican tried to weaken the referee plan by offering an amendment whereby it would apply to federal but not state or local elections. Civil rights activists had long insisted on federal oversight of all three. About half the Republicans present voted with southern Democrats in support of the amendment, which was defeated by just three votes. On March 24 the House passed the civil rights bill 295–124, with 123 Republicans voting for it and 24 against. The Senate approved it by a vote of 71–18 two weeks later. Twenty-nine Republicans supported the bill, which also included minor provisions intended to protect civil rights activists, and none opposed it. Thirty-one Republicans did not vote.57 Some Republicans were relieved to put the debate behind them and move on to matters they deemed more important. The GOP, Congressional Quarterly observed, was eager to trade votes on the civil rights bill for southern Democrats’ support on budgetary items. Southern Democrats and civil rights activists agreed that the new law would change little in Dixie, and the latter blamed Eisenhower for not fighting harder for a stronger bill. Thurgood Marshall chastised the president for “sunning himself and golfing in Georgia” during the debate.58

Conclusion Marshall’s complaint reflected the sizable gap that existed between African Americans and Dwight Eisenhower throughout the 1950s. Few blacks felt a strong bond with the president. When Eisenhower died in 1969, a crowd of 100,000 people lined the streets of Washington, D.C., to watch his funeral procession. “There were more blacks in the honor guard than along the streets on which the caisson traveled,” quipped one analyst. This stood in sharp contrast to the enormous African American turnout for John F. Kennedy’s funeral six years earlier.59 Some of that difference had to do with Kennedy himself and with his violent death. But other factors were also at work. By the 1950s, most

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 116

[ 116 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

African Americans had been Democrats for nearly two decades. Republicans paid little attention to outreach efforts in black neighborhoods and felt little urgency to do so; the 1952 and 1956 elections demonstrated that a Republican could easily win the White House without strong black support. Few Republicans regarded the black vote as essential to regaining control of Congress; they had achieved majority status in 1952 without a sizable black vote. When the GOP tried to woo black voters, its appeals were often unimaginative and irrelevant invocations of Lincoln or other events from the distant past. Although Eisenhower had a strong sense of fairness and decency, he downplayed race and was puzzled by black leaders’ focus on it. Trained in the military to think about the well-being of the group, he urged African Americans to think more broadly. In an interview with Simeon Booker after he left office, Eisenhower said, “Negroes should be taught to vote on the basis of a party’s record and its complete platform.” African Americans, however, saw race as central to their daily lives.60 Part of Eisenhower’s inability to rally black support was a result of his leadership style. He believed deeds mattered more than words. When Booker was preparing to leave the interview, Eisenhower commented, “Tell me. You’ve been here 45 minutes and all you’ve asked me are questions about civil rights. Is that all you’re interested in?” That comment was revealing, but so was Booker’s reply. “Well, Mr. President, you spoke out on other issues while you were president, but no one knew how you really felt about major civil rights issues,” the reporter said. Eisenhower regarded high-profile speeches and public conferences as empty gestures that would create modest goodwill in the short term, at best, or stir false expectations, at worst. They would not bring any real or lasting improvements. He preferred a quiet approach, and he often delegated responsibilities for civil rights to Nixon, Brownell, and others. This combination of traits often kept him out of the spotlight. Though Eisenhower’s words occasionally put him squarely on the side of civil rights activists, he often remained silent or offered only generalities on issues of great importance to African Americans. At other times, Eisenhower expressed sympathy for white southerners and echoed arguments long invoked by southern Democrats, such as the need for gradual change. Blacks rejected these messages. “No prayer-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 117

re pub l i cans and civil rights legislation [ 117 ]

ful nostrums of ‘time and moderation’ will substitute satisfactorily,” wrote reporter Carl Rowan in 1957. “We need leadership, and most of all at the federal level.”61 Some civil rights activists went further, arguing that Eisenhower’s rhetorical style exacerbated racial problems across the South. In a 1959 address to the National Bar Association, King leveled a particularly damning indictment. “Much of the terror and confusion that we are now facing . . . might have been avoided if the office of the president had just given an occasional word counseling the nation on the moral aspects of integration and the need for complying with the law,” he alleged. The nation “was temporarily held back” by a president too reluctant to speak forcefully and frequently about the immorality of racial oppression. Many historians have echoed these criticisms, but such complaints reflect wishful thinking. Evidence that a president’s rhetoric persuades opponents is thin. Speeches do not change people’s minds about deeply held values. In addition, King’s argument that Eisenhower could have emboldened progressive forces in the South exaggerated the degree of liberalism present in the region.62 Eisenhower’s belief in the limits of federal authority reflected the abiding strength of nineteenth-century racial attitudes. “Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts,” the Supreme Court had declared in Plessy v. Ferguson. To African Americans, a half century of that approach had left them in the hands of employers who discriminated, state and local officials who sought to keep them out of the voting booth and in segregated schools and neighborhoods, and vigilantes eager to use violence to maintain white social, economic, and political supremacy.63 Civil rights leaders tended to focus their criticism on the president, but the center of Republican opposition to reform lay at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Congressional Republicans ignored civil rights legislation for most of Eisenhower’s first term, and when the president put forward proposals in his second term, Republican lawmakers were instrumental in removing core provisions (Title III) and keeping other items (an FEPC) off the legislative agenda. Eisenhower sometimes agreed with the congressional GOP, but in other cases, most notably the jury trial fight in 1957, legislators rebuffed him. Here, too, scholars and pundits have overstated Eisenhower’s influence. Overall, conditions im-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 118

[ 118 ] ch ap t e r f o ur

proved for relatively few African Americans during the 1950s. Voting reforms did little to expand the franchise across the South, and by the time Eisenhower left office, there had been little school desegregation in the region. Likewise, the GOP had little to offer blacks outside of Dixie. Nixon’s contracts committee opened few jobs, and Republicans opposed any type of FEPC. A similar pattern developed with regard to segregated housing, which, by the late 1950s, was becoming a more prominent concern thanks to efforts by activists in the North and the Civil Rights Commission. Eisenhower resisted several appeals to issue an executive order to eliminate discrimination in housing subsidized by the federal government. The administration consistently called on private developers to police themselves, but few did so. Black protest against job and housing discrimination and police brutality outside the South was localized and largely peaceful. It did not resonate with federal lawmakers or influence policy.64 By the spring of 1960, the political landscape appeared to be on the verge of change. Eisenhower was in the final year of his presidency. Southern African Americans’ dissatisfaction with the slow pace of change had escalated. As both parties headed to their political conventions that summer, it remained to be seen how a new GOP standardbearer would respond to this environment.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 119

The GOP, Direct Action, and Racial Policy, 1960–1963

5

When John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election, African Americans thought an era of complacency had finally ended. The president-elect, however, was not enthusiastic about civil rights or other domestic reforms. He had received no mandate from voters, and he was not eager to poison congressional relations over an issue he considered less important than many others. A month after the election, Kennedy backtracked from his campaign rhetoric by announcing he would seek civil rights progress through executive action rather than legislation.1 Liberal Republicans saw an opening and pounced. Three days before the inauguration, Javits and Keating asserted that executive action was welcome but insufficient. The two New Yorkers joined with a handful of other Republicans and Democrats to sponsor several stalled bills, aimed almost entirely at the South: Title III, federal aid to desegregating school districts, voting rights reforms, and creation of a body with statutory authority to ensure equal job opportunities in firms with government contracts, among others. The legislation went nowhere.2 This scenario occurred regularly over the next two years. African Americans continued to lobby and engage in direct action, hoping to force national leaders to act. Republicans in Congress remained unmoved. This pattern shifted dramatically during the summer of 1963, however. Beginning in the South, an enormous wave of protest—sometimes violent—spread across the nation. Whites grew more fearful, and Republicans took notice. By the time Kennedy was assassinated that [ 119 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 120

[ 120 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

November, Republicans had already put their stamp on legislation making its way through Congress.

The 1960 Campaign A substantial majority of African Americans detested Richard Nixon during his presidency, but that was not the case in 1960. Nixon’s work with the government contracts committee, along with his trip to Africa, public advocacy for civil rights legislation, numerous speeches on the need for racial equality, and willingness to socialize with blacks at his Washington, D.C., home (for which he earned the enmity of some white supremacist groups in the South) had resulted in extensive favorable press coverage and a strong measure of goodwill. Jackie Robinson informed readers of his New York Post column that he “liked what [he’d] seen and heard” from Nixon on civil rights. Even though Martin Luther King Jr. had been deeply troubled by Nixon’s voting record in Congress, their 1957 meeting had convinced him that the vice president grasped the international implications of racism and would have done more for racial justice than Eisenhower, had he been president. “When you are close to Nixon he almost disarms you with his apparent sincerity,” King stated. “If Richard Nixon is not sincere, he is the most dangerous man in America.” RNC polls in the spring of 1960 indicated Nixon would garner a larger share of the black vote than Eisenhower had four years earlier if he faced Kennedy, whom many blacks distrusted due to the senator’s lukewarm support for civil rights legislation and close ties to southern leaders.3 Nixon’s views on race mirrored Eisenhower’s. He denounced discrimination but was skeptical of the efficacy of laws to change attitudes. Progress required transforming the “hearts of men,” he said, and that meant both considerable education and “moderate and constructive action by people of both races.” If laws moved too far ahead of public opinion, racial tensions would worsen. Nixon lauded Eisenhower for adopting a “proper policy” on school integration in the South. He believed that sit-ins and other direct action protests should be used only as a last resort.4 Nixon resembled Eisenhower in another respect: he too was interested in Republican prospects in the South. “The South is the wave of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 4:14 PM Page 121

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 121 ]

your future,” Birmingham-based columnist John Temple Graves II wrote to him. According to Graves, Nixon grasped that “the answer to the race question for honest men who want to hold the nation together is State’s Rights, and that the political answer for Republicans is to cater no longer to a labor and Negro vote they can’t get but to a southern one they can get—if they have the courage and we have the courage.”5 The vice president was “more than a little intrigued” by the columnist’s “most provocative” analysis. Yet Nixon also confessed to being “necessarily guarded” about the possibility of large numbers of southern Democrats voting Republican in 1960. Nixon’s path to the White House was far from clear. The GOP was still a minority party nationwide, and although the vice president had a strong reservoir of goodwill among Republicans, many Americans despised him. He was no Dwight Eisenhower.6 Nixon’s chief rival for the nomination was Nelson Rockefeller, the grandson of business tycoon John D. Rockefeller. He had won a landslide victory in the 1958 New York gubernatorial contest, and his name, fortune, and electoral success in the Empire State—the center of the news media—gave him high visibility on the national stage. As antiNixon feelings swelled among some Republicans in the spring of 1960, Rockefeller, who wanted very much to be president, indicated his availability if the party wanted him. Thomas Dewey and several other prominent Republicans believed Rockefeller could win by carrying New York and other industrial states.7 Though Nixon remained the overwhelming favorite to head the GOP ticket, Rockefeller was determined to be a force. On June 8 the governor issued a “call for plain talk” and identified nine areas, including civil rights, in which the Republican Party needed reform. Rockefeller found the slow pace of school integration unacceptable. Declaring that moral suasion and education were insufficient, he favored “firm and dedicated use of the tools of law.” Rockefeller urged Republicans to support an executive order to end discrimination in federally supported housing, as well as several civil rights bills (including Title III) long favored by liberals. He vaguely endorsed an initiative to encourage states to voluntarily adopt equal employment laws. Rockefeller’s emphasis on law and federal power, as well as his sense of urgency, placed him to the left of most Republicans.8

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 122

[ 122 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

Rockefeller’s views had deep roots. His great-grandparents had worked in the Underground Railroad to assist freed slaves, and his grandfather had donated large sums to black educational institutions in the South after the Civil War. His family also played a central role in establishing Spelman College, an Atlanta school for African American women that was named for his grandmother. Race was part of his consciousness in a way that was rare for a politician in either party.9 Nixon also had to pay attention to developments on his right. Conservatives were a growing force in the GOP. Many of them were business leaders angry about government regulation, taxation, and labor unions; others worried the United States had become soft on communism; still others saw the intellectual and moral transformations since the early twentieth century, in areas such as gender roles and religion, as harmful. Some subscribed to more than one of these lines of thought, but whatever their dominant concern, conservatives shared a deep animosity toward the Democratic Party and the New Deal. Hailing largely from the West and the South, they believed eastern liberals had been too accommodating toward the New Deal and wielded too much power in the GOP. The path back to electoral majority involved a sharp move to the right, they contended.10 Conservatives had their champion—Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. A fervent libertarian who had been elected to the Senate in 1953, he had risen to national prominence by fighting labor unions, denouncing federal spending, and calling for a more confrontational approach toward the Soviet Union. Goldwater traversed the country in 1959 and the spring of 1960, campaigning for Republican candidates. He inspired conservatives with his popular book The Conscience of a Conservative. Goldwater had long believed that most white southerners agreed with conservative Republicans on the issues, and he hoped to grow the GOP in the South.11 On race, Goldwater often sounded and voted like a southern Democrat. “I am firmly convinced—not only that integrated schools are not required—but that the Constitution does not permit any interference whatsoever by the federal government in the field of education,” he wrote. Arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to apply to education, Goldwater dismissed Brown as the misguided action

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 123

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 123 ]

of an overzealous Supreme Court. The senator opposed efforts to liberalize the filibuster rule, and although he had voted for the 1957 Civil Rights Act, he had sided with southern Democrats against Title III and in favor of the jury trial amendment. He had announced his support for the 1960 law but also voted with southern Democrats on two-thirds of the nineteen amendments to that bill. Goldwater regularly joined other Republicans in backing antisegregation amendments as a means to kill social welfare spending proposals. He frequently invoked the phrase “states’ rights” when arguing for limited federal power with regard to nonracial issues.12 Goldwater was not a bigot. Part Jewish, he had been the target of prejudice as a youth. He hired African Americans on his Washington staff long before most senators did, and his family’s department store in Phoenix was one of the earliest such establishments to employ blacks (though not as sales clerks, except during the busy Christmas season). He regularly touted his efforts to desegregate the Phoenix public schools and the Arizona National Guard, where he had served in the late 1940s; civil rights activists accused him of inflating his role in these affairs. “I believe that it is both wise and just for negro children to attend the same schools as whites, and that to deny them this opportunity carries with it strong implications of inferiority,” he observed. “I am not prepared, however, to impose that judgment of mine on the people of Mississippi or South Carolina. . . . That is their business, not mine.” To white southerners eager to retain local control of their schools, Goldwater’s promise to restrain federal authority was far more important than his belief that integration was desirable.13 Southern Republicans hoped John F. Kennedy would win the Democratic nomination because they regarded the Massachusetts senator as too liberal on race and other matters. I. Lee Potter, chair of the RNC’s southern outreach initiative, knew of six southern Republican candidates who believed their prospects for victory would improve considerably if Kennedy headed the Democratic ticket rather than Lyndon Johnson. A Republican Senate candidate in Alabama similarly predicted good fortune for his party across Dixie if the Democrats embraced civil rights “and the Republicans keep their mouths shut.”14 Black leaders cheered when the Democrats adopted their most liberal

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 124

[ 124 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

civil rights plank in more than a decade. Kennedy won the nomination and then selected Johnson as his running mate. “The Democrats gave the Republicans a Christmas gift when they named Senator Johnson to run as vice president,” Clarence Mitchell told Republicans. “Now if you want to shoot Santa Claus, come out with a program of generalities.”15 In late July several black leaders lobbied the GOP to endorse a vigorous federal role in racial matters. Noting that the federal government had long provided financial and other assistance to corporations, Roy Wilkins sternly rejected notions that self-help was sufficient to overcome poverty. “Only the Negro American [had] been required to try to shape his destiny with his bare hands,” he asserted.16 The activists were fighting uphill. Party rules, which gave each state two representatives on the platform committee, guaranteed a strong conservative presence. Led by John Tower, who was running for Johnson’s Senate seat in Texas, southern members of the civil rights subcommittee objected when liberals’ wanted to specifically endorse the sit-ins and a federal FEPC. “We are the party of Lincoln,” Javits countered, “and we cannot afford to be lukewarm on civil rights.” With just three days before the party’s Chicago convention opened, the subcommittee was deadlocked.17 Voter apathy constituted a second hurdle for civil rights leaders. That May, a nationwide poll showed African Americans’ strong indifference toward both parties. Eighteen percent of those surveyed believed that neither Republicans nor Democrats had done much to advance racial justice, and another 29 percent expressed no opinion. When asked which party had a better civil rights record, 28 percent identified the GOP and 25 percent chose the Democrats. There is no evidence the poll influenced GOP leaders in Chicago, but it suggests Republicans had no compelling reason to think there was a large black vote ripe for the harvest.18 Nixon closely followed developments in the Windy City. Seeing Rockefeller as a bigger threat than Goldwater, Nixon visited the governor’s Manhattan apartment on the evening of July 22. The vice president agreed to accept Rockefeller’s platform language on race and several other topics. The new civil rights wording specifically endorsed the sitins and more aggressive federal efforts in other matters. Nixon viewed this “Compact on Fifth Avenue” as a small price to pay to ensure his

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 125

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 125 ]

nomination. Conservatives were outraged. Convinced that Nixon could not compete with Kennedy in the North, Goldwater and southern Republicans believed the vice president had closed the door on the South— his only path to victory.19 Civil rights activists, meanwhile, marched in the streets of Chicago. Led by King, Wilkins, and Randolph, several thousand demonstrators chanted “Jim Crow must go” and demanded the creation of an FEPC and an end to school segregation. The protest halted traffic and did not dissipate until a party official announced there would be a floor discussion of civil rights. Rockefeller and several other liberal Republicans addressed the crowd; Nixon did not attend. King told the media that Nixon and Rockefeller had drafted “something very significant and important.”20 The rally had minimal influence. The driving force behind events proved to be Nixon, who, soon after arriving in the Windy City, mobilized support behind a liberal civil rights plank. Proclaiming “more progress has been made during the past eight years than in the preceding 80 years,” the GOP endorsed a broad range of federal initiatives on voting, school desegregation, employment, and housing. Republicans tried to placate the South by affirming “the right to peaceable assembly to protest discrimination” in lieu of a more specific defense of the sit-ins. The platform committee did not endorse an FEPC. Nevertheless, the GOP spoke in expansive language that differed sharply from past statements. “Equality under the law promises more than the equal right to vote and transcends mere relief from discrimination by government,” the party insisted. “It becomes a reality only when all persons have equal opportunity . . . to acquire the essentials of life—housing, education, and employment.” Civil rights leaders, who had said many of the same things, were pleased, although King expressed skepticism that either party could translate its promises into policy.21 Nixon chose Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his running mate. As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Lodge had seen firsthand how discrimination hurt the nation’s standing in the world. Like Rockefeller, Lodge came from a family with a long history of support for African Americans. In 1890 his grandfather, a member of the House of Representatives, had introduced the Force Bill to provide federal protection to black vot-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 126

[ 126 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

ers in the South. Lodge himself had compiled a solid civil rights record as a senator from Massachusetts in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Liberal Republicans were convinced he would help the GOP among African Americans in the Northeast.22 Conservatives were unhappy, and they made their presence known to a degree unseen in at least a generation. When Goldwater addressed the delegates and a national television audience, some of his supporters paraded around the hall to the sounds of “Dixie.” Not all conservatives were segregationists, but segregationists constituted an important part of the Goldwater constituency. As the convention ended, Goldwater instructed his followers to close ranks behind Nixon and then “get to work” to “take this party back.” It was a battle cry they would readily heed.23 Nixon hit the campaign trail in August. Making an early stop in Hawaii, the vice president touted the state as a model of interracial harmony and stressed that “prejudice and inequality at home” hurt the nation abroad. He then traveled to the South for rallies in Greensboro, Birmingham, and Atlanta. In each city his reception committees were integrated. Blacks constituted a quarter of the 150,000 people who turned out in Atlanta, which had a robust black Republican tradition. Pleasantly surprised, Nixon called James Byrnes to discuss another trip to the region. When Byrnes inquired about Nixon’s stand on an FEPC, the vice president stressed that the issue was “very sensitive” and tried to assuage Byrnes by pointing out that his contracts committee had “never denied a contract and never revoked a contract.” Nixon then alleged that the Democrats favored compulsory hiring, whereas he and the Republicans backed moral suasion. Satisfied that Nixon would not pose a threat to southern labor relations, Byrnes endorsed the vice president. Nixon toured the South again in late September and early October. By Election Day, he had campaigned in every southern state. Nixon’s southern efforts received some quiet help from Eisenhower, who agreed with RNC chair Thruston Morton that the Justice Department could wait until after the election to enforce civil rights laws.24 Insisting that the GOP was in sync with the South’s traditions and values, Nixon urged voters there to “get beneath the label.” The Democrats, he maintained, had taken the South for granted since the 1930s; they had jettisoned their traditional support for local autonomy in favor of cen-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 127

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 127 ]

tralized authority in Washington, where politicians and bureaucrats spent “your money,” Nixon alleged. Nixon also tapped into white southerners’ complaints, common since the New Deal, that northeastern, Ivy League elites now controlled the Democratic Party. Andrew Jackson, he declared, “would turn over in his grave if he thought that this party of [Arthur] Schlesinger, [Chester] Bowles, and John Kenneth [Galbraith] was the Democratic Party of which he was proud to be a member.”25 Nixon walked a careful line on race. He affirmed his support for equal opportunity, acknowledged differences with southern whites, and tied racial progress to fighting communism abroad. Yet he also emphasized that other regions needed to address their own racial problems before advising the South—an opinion long espoused by white southerners. Nixon was also vague about solutions. When a reporter in Greensboro asked about the sit-ins, the vice president affirmed his belief in equal service, emphasized that the courts had to sort out the specific matters involved, and cited meetings between the attorney general and the owners of several chain stores as proof that voluntary action could achieve substantial progress. Legislation, he acknowledged, was needed in some cases, although he did not specify which ones. Similarly, the vice president pledged to “carry forward the Supreme Court decision” on school integration but offered no specifics on how he would do so. Lest anyone think Nixon was too eager for racial change, his aides sent a letter to some southern voters assuring them that there were no ties between the candidate and the NAACP. This may have been in response to the Democrats’ flyer showing Nixon with prominent civil rights leaders and implying he had long been a member of the organization.26 Nixon did not attempt to stir up racial hatred. A white supremacist who opposed any change in the racial status quo would find no comfort in Nixon’s civil rights positions. Nevertheless, those who favored incremental reforms drawn out over many years had little reason to think that a Nixon administration would move quickly or forcefully. The vice president took a similar approach in the North. He stuck to generalities about equal opportunity and the power of moral suasion. When asked by the editor of Ebony what he would do about civil rights, Nixon replied that he would work to get the GOP’s civil rights plank

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 128

[ 128 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

through Congress. Similarly, he told Carl Rowan, “I am convinced that the future of the Republican Party today lies in pressing forward on civil rights.” Nixon made these points subtly and to largely African American audiences. Like those in the South, northern whites had little reason to believe the vice president would make racial equality a high priority.27 Kennedy gave no such impression either, although he made a more concerted effort to get northern black support. The senator endorsed a federal FEPC and Title III; highlighted racial disparities in areas such as educational achievement, home ownership, and employment; and blasted the Eisenhower administration over enforcement of Brown. When Kennedy accused Nixon of weak leadership of the contracts committee, the vice president countered that Democrats in Congress had blocked efforts to give it statutory authority. Nixon thought Kennedy was simply using the Democrats’ customary practice of stirring unrealistic expectations.28 Race became a more visible issue late in the campaign. Lodge told a Harlem audience on October 12 that Nixon would appoint an African American to his cabinet. The statement infuriated Nixon, who immediately proclaimed that he would make appointments based on merit, not race. Lodge quickly backtracked. Polls had shown Nixon running well in the South, but his support now dropped considerably. “Whoever recommended that Harlem speech should have been thrown out of an airplane at 25,000 feet,” a Virginia Republican groused. King told an interviewer several days before the election that the GOP’s response to Lodge’s remarks had hurt the party among African Americans. Democrats tried to exploit the matter; Johnson’s organization spread word of Lodge’s statement across Dixie, and Kennedy charged the Nixon campaign with “racism in reverse.”29 A more prominent development occurred later that month. On October 19 King was arrested while participating in a civil rights demonstration at an Atlanta department store. Citing King’s arrest earlier that year on a traffic violation, the judge ruled that the minister had violated his parole and sentenced him to four months’ hard labor. King’s wife, Coretta, who was five months pregnant, feared for his safety.30 Civil rights organizations appealed to both Nixon and Kennedy for help. Kennedy initially worried that any show of support for the civil

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 129

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 129 ]

rights leader would cost him white votes in the South, but he followed the advice of some of his aides and telephoned Coretta on October 26 to express his sympathy and indicate his willingness to assist the family. Coretta publicly acknowledged that the conversation comforted her. The Kennedy campaign staff then worked with state Democrats to arrange for King’s release.31 Attorney General William Rogers, E. Frederic Morrow, and Nelson Rockefeller lobbied the vice president to speak out against King’s harsh sentence. “[Nixon] has to call Martin right now, today,” Jackie Robinson told speechwriter William Safire. “I have the number of the jail.” Robinson, who had campaigned for the vice president, made his case to Nixon personally. But Nixon, who was genuinely troubled by the sentence, rebuffed him, claiming that any involvement on his part would be seen as “grandstanding.” Several advisers drafted statements in which Nixon affirmed his support for King, but, viewing the matter as “too hot for us to handle,” the vice president demurred. Nixon was most likely concerned about losing white southern support, and an aide reportedly declared there would be “no comment” from the Nixon campaign. The White House also remained silent. When asked whether she had heard from the vice president, Coretta King replied, “He’s been very quiet.” Rockefeller, however, denounced the arrest from the pulpit of an African American church in Brooklyn.32 Nixon’s response disillusioned several African American leaders. “Nixon doesn’t deserve to win,” Robinson tearfully told Safire. The baseball legend felt so strongly that he almost renounced his support for the vice president. Eminent sociologist Kenneth Clark, whose work on segregation’s psychological toll on black youth had been central to the NAACP’s brief in Brown, shifted his support to Kennedy. So did King’s father, the head of a large church in Atlanta. King himself declined to endorse Kennedy but said he was “deeply grateful” to the senator for exhibiting “moral courage of the highest order.” Years later he would denounce Nixon as a “moral coward” for his silence. The Kennedy campaign tried to use the senator’s call to Coretta to rally black voters and played up the incident in the black media. It also published a pamphlet, “‘No Comment’ Nixon versus a Candidate with a Heart, Senator Kennedy,” and distributed it in African American communities.33

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 130

[ 130 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

With the contest extremely tight, Nixon sought support wherever he could find it. He appeared with Javits on a New York City television program the day after King’s arrest and talked of hosting a White House conference on civil rights; he also boasted that having Lodge as president of the Senate would thwart southern Democrats’ influence and announced, “We can have civil rights legislation.” On the eve of the election, he participated in a four-hour program, televised nationally, in which he answered viewers’ questions. Nixon took a firm stand against discriminatory service in public accommodations and reiterated his belief that moral suasion would lead to change across the South. He also touted Eisenhower’s record, the GOP’s plank, and the strong commitment he and Lodge had to racial equality. “The other ticket cannot say that,” he charged.34 Nixon stopped in Columbia, South Carolina, four days before the election. Eisenhower had narrowly lost the state in 1952, and Goldwater was immensely popular there. Appearing beneath a banner that read “Dixie Is No Longer in the Bag,” the vice president joined Billy Graham and James Byrnes before a large and enthusiastic crowd (estimated to be three times larger than the audience that had turned out for Kennedy a month earlier). Nixon offered his standard allegation that Democrats had become too liberal. He cited Eisenhower’s economic and foreign policy records, as well as the virtues of local autonomy. Nixon also blasted Kennedy’s stand on textiles, an important industry in the state. There was nothing overtly racial about Nixon’s appeal, although segregationists could have taken comfort from his criticism of the Democrats’ liberal platform and affirmation of states’ rights.35 Kennedy won the popular vote by less than 0.1 percentage point, but his Electoral College margin was more comfortable. Gallup reported that Nixon received approximately 32 percent of African American ballots nationwide, although RNC research indicated that figure was too high. What is clear is that black voters in the North overwhelmingly backed Kennedy and were crucial to his victories in Illinois and Michigan. Had those two states gone for Nixon, the vice president would have triumphed. Estimates showed that in Chicago, Nixon ran 14 percentage points behind Eisenhower’s black vote in 1956. Results from other large cities were much the same. Southern black support for the Republican

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 131

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 131 ]

candidate declined substantially compared with 1956. The black vote was essential to putting South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas into Kennedy’s column. Had those states gone for Nixon, he would have won the election. The “balance of power” argument rang true in 1960.36 Contemporary observers credited Kennedy’s call to Coretta King and his campaign’s subsequent publicity blitz for rallying blacks to him. Two generations of historians and pundits have echoed this claim. Although the incident surely influenced some voters, Kennedy’s success with African Americans stemmed primarily from other factors.37 First, the Kennedy team’s organizational effort among black voters was far superior to Nixon’s. It created a Civil Rights Section that spent substantial sums in the black media. This publicity helped establish a civil rights reputation for Kennedy that would survive long after his death. The Kennedy campaign also moved more swiftly than the Nixon camp to offer money to the African-American Students Fund, an effort to bring approximately 260 African students to the United States to study. The Kennedy team effectively highlighted this support in its outreach to black voters, many of whom took great interest in African nations’ struggle to break free from European colonial domination. Nixon acknowledged these problems in a 1962 interview for Ebony. “Because we were so weak at the local level,” he said, “our own eight years of racial progress was erased from the minds of many voters.” Nixon shied away from black neighborhoods partly out of fear of drawing only small crowds; he rejected Eisenhower’s advice to campaign in Harlem. Black Republicans reiterated their long-standing complaint that the GOP did not give sufficient attention to African American voters.38 Hard economic times also hurt Nixon and the Republicans. Unemployment was rising in black working-class neighborhoods in the North in the late 1950s, as automation and the migration of jobs to the suburbs and the Sun Belt intensified. Beneath the veneer of a prosperous nation lay urban cores suffering the early stages of economic retrenchment. As had long been the case, blacks concluded that the Democrats would better serve their financial interests. Kennedy favored an increase in the minimum wage. Organized labor and urban political machines in the North conducted a strong get-out-the-vote-for-Kennedy drive among African Americans.39

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 132

[ 132 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

Nixon’s southern efforts yielded mixed results. He won just three states (Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida) and received a smaller percentage of the overall southern vote than Eisenhower had four years earlier. Nixon, however, outperformed Eisenhower’s 1956 totals in four states, and he lost South Carolina by just 10,000 votes. Like Eisenhower, Nixon ran best in the region’s fast-growing cities and suburbs; he narrowly defeated Kennedy in the metropolitan South. These results indicated an expanding reservoir of Republicanism, at the presidential level, that transcended Eisenhower’s personal strengths.40 Other results in the South were similarly ambiguous. There were still no Republican senators or governors in the region, and the party held just 60 of approximately 1,800 seats in state legislatures. However, Republican gubernatorial candidates fared better than they had in 1956. On the federal level, the GOP Senate candidate in North Carolina received more than 40 percent of the vote, and although John Tower lost his Senate bid in Texas, he did well enough to position himself for victory a year later. The returns convinced the RNC that further efforts in Dixie were “clearly justified.”41 Several other aspects of the 1960 election are notable. Survey data showed that voters essentially saw no difference between Kennedy and Nixon, or their respective parties, in terms of civil rights policy. Results would differ sharply in years to come. Even allowing for some error in the tallies, Nixon’s winning of approximately 30 percent of the African American vote is still the high-water mark for any Republican presidential candidate since Eisenhower.42 Nixon also set a pattern that future Republican standard-bearers would emulate. Some historians have contended that 1960 represented the last gasp of civil rights liberalism at the presidential level in the GOP before Goldwater’s nomination four years later. This view overstates the extent of liberalism in the party prior to 1964 and exaggerates Goldwater’s long-term impact. Nixon was no segregationist, and he did not stoke the fires of white prejudice that burned in both the North and the South. Instead, he affirmed the principle of racial equality and talked of progress in an abstract way. On the few occasions he specifically discussed how to advance integration or promote greater economic opportunities for African Americans, he emphasized voluntary action and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 133

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 133 ]

gradual progress. Nixon opposed Title III and a compulsory FEPC, the two items liberals most wanted.43 In late December several prominent Republicans huddled with Eisenhower to lick their wounds. The president touted the civil rights gains under his administration and then lamented that black support for the GOP had decreased since 1956. According to Eisenhower, African Americans “just [did] not give a damn.” Nixon commented that Lodge’s statement about an African American cabinet member “killed us in the South.” Echoing GOP language from the 1930s, Nixon charged that the black vote was “a bought vote.” RNC chief Thruston Morton’s attitude toward blacks was “to hell with them.” The party had put forward a pro–civil rights candidate, they believed, and had little to show for it. Over the next four years, conservatives would point to Nixon’s loss as all the more reason to focus less on blacks and the urban areas of the Northeast. The future of the GOP, they contended, lay in the suburbs, which remained nearly all white, and in the South and West.44 The 1960 election put a Democrat in the White House just as direct action protest and media attention on racial matters, especially in the South, intensified greatly. As president, Kennedy had the power to address racial problems, if he chose to use it. He also commanded media and public attention in a way that no Republican member of Congress or governor could. At times, Kennedy faced strong criticism from civil rights leaders for being too timid, but African American voters considered the young president their ally.

Direct Action and the GOP, 1961–1962 Kennedy’s victory did not mean improved prospects for civil rights legislation. With Democrats still holding large majorities in both houses of Congress, southerners retained control of important committees, and Republicans continued to seek southern cooperation on several nonracial issues. In the Senate a slim majority of Republicans helped southerners defeat efforts to modify the filibuster rule. Kennedy stayed out of that tussle, but he did help liberals enlarge the House Rules Committee, which had long blocked civil rights measures. The three new Republican members named by Minority Leader Charles Halleck, however, had a

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 134

[ 134 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

long history of voting with southern Democrats. With civil rights legislation stuck in various committees throughout the spring of 1961, Javits, Keating, and other liberal Republicans regularly jabbed the president for staying above the fray. Kennedy refused to budge.45 Civil rights activists hoped to break this stalemate. In early May the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), formed in the 1940s to protest discrimination in the North, announced a Freedom Ride. Two busloads of activists would travel from Washington, D.C., through the Deep South to showcase whites’ defiance of a recent Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in interstate bus terminals. The deeper purpose, according to director James Farmer, was “to create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to act.”46 Farmer got his wish, at least in part. In Anniston, Alabama, a mob set fire to one of the buses and beat the activists as they fled. In Birmingham public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor informed the Ku Klux Klan that it could have its way with the riders for ten minutes before his officers moved to restore order. Another mob attacked a different group of riders in Montgomery. King arrived on May 21 and held a rally at a church. Several thousand angry whites assembled outside; many shouted racial epithets and hurled assorted objects. Kennedy, who had remained aloof throughout the early stages of the rides, sent federal marshals, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd. The rides ended when Attorney General Robert Kennedy worked out a deal with James Eastland. The activists would receive protection on their journey from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, but would be arrested once they arrived there. The administration acceded to the arrests, which were illegal, to keep the peace. Kennedy nevertheless retained his high popularity among black voters.47 The violence in Alabama made the front page of the New York Times and was covered in media around the world, but the Freedom Rides drew little public response from Republicans. Javits allied with Democrats Paul Douglas (Ill.) and Joseph Clark (Pa.) to cosponsor a resolution of support for the use of federal marshals, but the threat of a filibuster and lack of White House support prevented it from coming to a vote. The New York Republican stoutly defended the riders against southerners’ claims that they had invited violence by their mere presence. “All the talk about

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 135

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 135 ]

provocation omits the cardinal fact that the people allegedly provoking violence are engaged in perfectly legal acts, while they who react with violence are engaged in entirely illegal acts,” he stated. Several Republicans expressed concern over the nation’s image abroad, but they were a minority. Lawmakers who sat on the sidelines had little to fear politically. Seventy percent of the country believed Kennedy had done the right thing in sending the marshals, but of those who had heard or read about the riders, 64 percent disapproved of their actions. The public liked neither those who challenged the status quo nor segregationists’ violent ways.48 Amid the turmoil in Alabama, Republicans used race to defeat federal spending they disliked. The Senate voted 61–25 to set aside an antisegregation amendment (supported by the NAACP) that Prescott Bush had attempted to attach to a school aid bill. As in the 1950s, several liberals in both parties worried that such a modification would torpedo the legislation and thus hurt needy students. Twenty-one Republicans voted to retain the amendment, but more than a dozen of them voted against the bill itself. Even Bush admitted he would oppose the legislation if his amendment were approved. Similar developments occurred in the House over a housing bill. Congress managed to pass a two-year extension of the Civil Rights Commission, yet even that proved to be a tough sell as lawmakers, including a majority of Republicans, rejected efforts to make it permanent or extend it for four years.49 A year later the president endorsed a voting rights bill, applicable only to federal elections, that would make completion of the sixth grade proof of literacy. The discriminatory administration of ostensibly race-neutral literacy tests remained a prime cause of massive disfranchisement of blacks in the South. The Civil Rights Commission pointed out that there were thirteen counties in Mississippi with no black voters, while in forty-two others, less than 10 percent of age-eligible African Americans were registered. Local registrars, the commission reported, often asked irrelevant and even absurd questions, including, “When God made you and Eisenhower did he make both of you the same?” Liberals in both parties blasted Kennedy’s bill as too timid and pressed for legislation to prod defiant school districts to submit desegregation plans, create an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, promote equal housing opportunity, and protect activists in the South.50

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 136

[ 136 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

These proposals went nowhere, as Senate leaders emphasized the voting bill and southern Democrats filibustered. Dirksen pointed out that a team of eight Justice Department officials in one Alabama county had needed three months to investigate the registrations of 36,000 voters and take testimony from 160 witnesses. “How much progress can be expected under circumstances like that?” he asked. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana rebuffed appeals for round-the-clock sessions, and the White House exerted minimal effort on behalf of its own proposal. Two cloture attempts failed, with Republicans voting roughly two-to-one against in each case. Three months later, fifteen Republicans who had twice opposed cloture on Kennedy’s voting measure supported cloture on a bill to provide federal funding for AT&T to launch a satellite; only two Republicans voted against. This was the first time cloture had succeeded in thirty-five years. Civil rights leaders regarded this as proof that Republicans were not principled defenders of free discussion (as they had claimed in debate over the voting rights bill) but rather were indifferent or hostile toward racial reforms.51 Republicans also allied with southern Democrats to defeat Kennedy’s plan to create a Department of Urban Affairs. It was widely known that the president planned to appoint Robert Weaver, an African American, to head the new agency. As the first black cabinet official, Weaver would be an important symbol of progress.52 Once again, the GOP and civil rights groups stood on opposite sides. The latter saw the new cabinet department as a way to reduce urban poverty. Although strong economic growth since World War II had boosted the incomes of many African Americans, a large number of blacks, especially those in northeastern and midwestern cities, still faced economic challenges. Compared with whites, African Americans had substantially less wealth; they also experienced higher unemployment rates, lower labor force participation rates, and longer periods of joblessness. The contrast between rotting urban cores and prosperous suburbs was striking, but blacks remained locked out of suburban housing due to costs as well as discrimination. In Chicago just 22 of 253 suburban areas had more than 100 black residents.53 The policy battles during Kennedy’s first two years were notable for their outcomes, but also because they revealed important continuities in

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 137

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 137 ]

Republican thinking about race. GOP lawmakers regularly affirmed the racial innocence of their states and districts. During the 1961 Senate debate over extending the Civil Rights Commission, Gordon Allott (Colo.) charged that Paul Douglas made an “unfair comparison” when he claimed that Latinos in the Southwest, like blacks in the North and the South, experienced discrimination. Allott insisted that voting discrimination did not exist in his region and that educational disparities, which he did acknowledge, resulted not from segregation but from “the problem of remoteness, the problem of money, that sort of thing.”54 Liberals had their own versions of exceptionalism. During the summer of 1962 Javits cited a New York State report on segregation in upstate districts as evidence that, unlike southerners, northerners did not hide or deny their racial problems. “New York leads the nation in measures taken to fight against second class status of many of our fellow Americans,” Keating similarly boasted that fall. “If every state enacted similar laws, there would be little need for Federal legislation in the field of civil rights. . . . The Federal government would do well to follow the example of New York in this field.” Northern Democrats made similar claims about steady progress outside of the South.55 Congressman William Ayres showcased some other long-standing Republican attitudes toward race. Representing a rural district in northeastern Ohio, Ayres said he could not fathom how opposing a Department of Urban Affairs could be seen as a sign of hostility to African Americans’ concerns. He offered a perfunctory acknowledgment that discrimination existed but then proceeded to dismiss the need for any discussion of race. “I believe that it is high time that the administration and the Congress stop talking about hyphenated Americans,” he declared. “I do not believe we gain anything for America by discussing the voting power, the likes and dislikes, and the political potentials of Negro Americans, Jewish Americans, Polish Americans, Latin Americans. All of these are just plain Americans.”56 Ayres may have developed his belief in a harmonious, color-blind nation while serving in the military during World War II. “On the bloody beachheads of World War II and in the freezing misery of the Korean conflict,” he continued, “no one stopped to ask whether or not our GI’s were hyphenated Americans—they were there, they fought, they were

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 138

[ 138 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

wounded, and many died, for the simple purpose of defending what America means—freedom.” Like Republicans who had opposed a compulsory FEPC in the 1940s, he saw Kennedy’s proposal in light of the New Deal. Ayres confidently predicted that any new agency would come to resemble the Agriculture Department, where, he claimed, 100,000 employees wastefully paid farmers not to farm. Federal assistance was simply not needed, the Ohioan insisted; blacks would make gains when they exercised some personal initiative.57 Ayres also offered a nakedly political rationale. Worried that some legislators would support the proposal out of concern for their reelection that November, he compiled a table showing that there were few congressional districts outside the South where African Americans exceeded 10 percent of the population. Only 8 Republicans in the House represented these districts, whereas 50 of the 160 Democrats from outside the South did so. The long-trumpeted power of black voters to sway elections was, Ayres proclaimed, “an inflated myth.” Lawmakers could “disregard the false arguments” appearing in their mail and in the press about blacks’ political might and instead vote their conscience. Upon hearing that Weaver would head the proposed agency, one anonymous Republican similarly commented, “Name me six Republicans elected with Negro votes.”58 Civil rights activists remained committed to direct action. Several organizations focused on Albany, Georgia, during the summer of 1962. In late July police officers brutally attacked a pregnant Marion King, one of the most respected women in the city’s African American community. Tensions between local officials and demonstrators quickly escalated; some African American protesters threw rocks and bottles at the police. City leaders refused to negotiate. King and others were arrested, a move that brought national attention. So, too, did front-page stories about police officers barging into black churches and the sheriff clubbing an activist over the head. As with the Freedom Rides, only a few Republicans responded publicly. Javits condemned the jailing and, at the request of Martin Luther King Jr. and other SCLC leaders, urged the Justice Department to file suit to enjoin the arrests. Southern Democrats accused the New Yorker of hypocritically ignoring “unsafe” conditions in Central Park, and the Mobile Register denounced him as the “no. 1 racial ag-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 139

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 139 ]

itator in Congress today.” The activists were soon released, but two more churches were burned that fall, and the city remained deeply segregated. Direct action had failed locally as well as nationally.59 The epicenter of protest quickly shifted to Oxford, Mississippi. On September 10 the Supreme Court ordered that James Meredith, an air force veteran, be enrolled as the first black student at the state university. Three days later Governor Ross Barnett, a Democrat, gave a fiery speech asserting that the Tenth Amendment protected the state’s control over education. Mississippi would not, he vowed, surrender “to the evil and illegal forces of tyranny.” A mob of roughly 2,000 whites greeted Meredith with chants of “Go home nigger” when he arrived at the university on September 20. The Kennedy administration tried to negotiate with Barnett, who would not yield. The White House backed down several times as television cameras captured scenes of southern resistance. A federal court then ordered the governor to enroll Meredith no later than 11:00 a.m. on October 2. The president and Barnett worked out a deal on September 29, but the governor reneged. Federal marshals arrived late the following afternoon, and Meredith appeared with additional federal protection a few hours later. A mob attacked the poorly prepared and outnumbered federal forces with eggs, rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire, taunting them with cries of “Get a rope” and “Nigger fuckers.”60 Kennedy addressed a national television audience on September 30. Later that night he ordered federal soldiers to Oxford. Meredith was registered at the university, but at a terrible cost: two people died, and more than 200 marshals and soldiers were injured. Troops remained on campus to protect Meredith, who suffered ongoing harassment and threats but graduated the following August. The president won strong approval from African American voters, southern leaders who felt Barnett had gone too far, and, more broadly, northern and western voters, who condemned the segregationists’ violence and challenge to federal authority.61 Republicans backed the president to varying degrees. The few who had defended the Freedom Riders and the protesters at Albany strongly supported Meredith and the rule of the federal courts. “We feel we are fighting Sumter all over again,” Javits lamented. Eisenhower commented that defiance of federal authority threatened the country’s very founda-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 140

[ 140 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

tions. Goldwater was more ambivalent. Although the senator acknowledged that the use of federal troops was “probably” warranted, he reiterated that racial tensions would improve only when individuals took “responsibility from within.” Barnett, he claimed, was “morally wrong” but had a constitutional right to uphold segregation.62 Civil rights activists felt pessimistic as they looked back on the first two years of the Kennedy administration. The NAACP’s journal The Crisis glumly observed, “The solutions so nobly conceived, so hopefully nurtured, have . . . produced nothing more than the proverbial mouse.” The president had used executive action to facilitate progress in some areas, and he remained popular among blacks, but direct action protests had failed to alter the policy agenda in Washington. Though Congress had extended the Civil Rights Commission for two years and passed a constitutional amendment to ban the poll tax, civil rights groups wanted much more, and there was no evidence that the legislative situation would shift anytime soon. Plenty of blame could be laid at the Democrats’ door, but most Republicans still thought there was nothing to be gained politically from supporting civil rights; to the extent they thought about race at all, they continued to believe that change would come primarily through education, not federal law.63

The Crisis of 1963 Civil rights advocates tried and failed to reform the filibuster in January 1963. Particularly noteworthy was Dirksen’s rebuff of NAACP lobbyist Clarence Mitchell’s request for help. The senator was upset that so few African Americans had supported him the previous November and that blacks in Chicago had criticized him, despite his defense of Kennedy’s voting legislation.64 A small but vocal group of Republicans in both the House and the Senate soon tried to outflank Kennedy. They were driven by concerns that their party was cozying up to segregationists in the South, as well as by the deteriorating racial conditions there. Forty House Republicans led by William McCulloch (Ohio), Charles McC. Mathias (Md.), and John Lindsay (N.Y.) sponsored a package of bills that had been considered before, including Title III, financial aid for desegregating districts,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 141

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 141 ]

and a new federal body to enforce equal employment in firms with government contracts. Their plan did not include an FEPC. Kennedy responded a month later with a proposal to provide federal financial and technical assistance for school desegregation and to protect voting rights; it did not contain Title III, and its only economic provision centered on discrimination by unions. King criticized Kennedy for teasing blacks with piecemeal offerings while working to retain the support of southern whites. Eight Senate Republicans upped the ante at the end of March with a package of reforms that included measures to speed up school integration and address economic concerns in the North. The NAACP described it as “excellent . . . worthy of support.”65 Five weeks later media attention shifted to a far larger story in Birmingham, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists had gone to the city, one of the most racially oppressive in the nation, to launch a direct action campaign that they hoped would lead to increased black employment, desegregation of public accommodations, and other reforms; they also wanted to prod federal officials. King was arrested in April, and during his confinement he wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he expressed his profound disappointment with whites who proclaimed support for racial equality but then told blacks to be patient and accept modest progress. The jailing, and the letter, were largely ignored in Washington and across the nation.66 Concerned that the protests were failing, black leaders took the controversial step of involving schoolchildren, some as young as six years old. Tensions escalated dramatically on May 3, when police turned highpressure water hoses on the nonviolent marchers, some of whom responded by throwing rocks and other debris at the officers. More than 1,000 youths went to jail over a two-day period. Photographers captured numerous images of police violence against the activists, including a German shepherd biting a fifteen-year-old African American youth in the abdomen and a small girl being blasted down the street by a water hose. Birmingham was suddenly international news.67 The protests continued, resulting in the arrest of more than 1,000 additional activists on May 6. Police again used hoses, and some protesters hurled assorted objects at them. Five days later two bombs exploded at the home of minister A. D. King (Martin’s brother), and one detonated

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 142

[ 142 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

at the hotel where Martin had been staying. Late that night police brutally attacked the demonstrators, leading some African Americans to riot. As state troopers arrived to restore order, some of the rioters yelled, “Kill ’em. Kill ’em.”68 Racial protests soon engulfed the nation. Many of them began as a show of solidarity with the marchers in Birmingham but quickly became statements against police brutality, job discrimination, and other local grievances. According to the Justice Department, by May 25, racial disturbances had occurred in forty-three cities, ten of them in the North. King declared that African Americans were “through with tokenism and gradualism and see-how-far-you’ve-comism.” The largest civil rights demonstration up to that point occurred on June 23 in Detroit, where a nearly all-black crowd of between 125,000 and 200,000 marched against housing discrimination and other racial inequalities. An NAACP official warned that “major explosions” would occur unless substantial progress was made to improve blacks’ education in the North.69 The possibility of further disorder outside the South worried Republicans. When one Republican senator traveled to New York City in early June to meet with a Wall Street law firm about economic policy, he was stunned when the entire two-hour meeting focused on race. “All they wanted to know was what we were going to do to head off a real blowup in New York, or Detroit or Chicago,” he commented. Noting that racial violence had occurred in Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania congressman observed, “Let us no longer twiddle our thumbs while Rome burns.” Javits forecast that the demonstrations in Birmingham and elsewhere would spur senators from midwestern and western states with small black populations to oppose a filibuster and back strong legal reforms. “The alternative is now so clearly disorder and possibly serious violence, not only in the South but in other places where these racial tensions exist,” he asserted.70 Such optimism was premature. Many Republicans were biding their time to see how events unfolded; some were worried about losing support among southern whites. When one Republican senator was asked why his party had failed to trumpet the fact that Birmingham police chief Bull Connor was a member of the Democratic National Committee, he replied, “Yes, I know that’s true but you see a lot of our people down

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 143

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 143 ]

there feel the same way about the race question.” The party’s hesitancy was evident when Senate Republicans convened on June 5. Some resented any attempt by Kennedy to take credit for what they saw as their issue. Others regarded support for civil rights reforms as bailing out the president and thought it better to simply let the Democrats take fire from black protesters and fight among themselves. The five-hour meeting resulted in a vague statement in which the Republican Party asserted that it had upheld civil rights since the days of Lincoln, insisted that the president enforce the law, and pledged support for “appropriate” legislation.71 Racial violence, or the threat of violence, remained prevalent throughout the South into June. When a federal court ruled that two African American students be admitted to the University of Alabama, Governor George Wallace pledged resistance, and the White House prepared for a violent confrontation. The Democratic governor backed down on June 11, soon after the president federalized the Alabama National Guard. That night, Kennedy spoke eloquently on national television about the continued plight of many African Americans, especially the poor. “The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand,” he observed. “Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.” Few presidents had so clearly sided with the African American freedom struggle.72 A few hours later a white man murdered Medgar Evers, a D-day veteran and the NAACP’s chief organizer in Mississippi. This brutal act inspired protests, some of which turned violent, in dozens of southern cities. One African American minister warned that demonstrators would paralyze transportation by lying on runways, roads, and train tracks. That never happened, but the statement signaled escalating tension and racial uncertainty. That African Americans were being galvanized was evident when 25,000 people came to view Evers’s body at a church in Washington, D.C.; he had spoken at the same venue a year before to fewer than 400 people.73 Kennedy submitted a civil rights bill to Congress on June 19. The legislation consisted of his February proposals, which focused on voting rights, as well as some significant additions. It now included strong lan-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 144

[ 144 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

guage outlawing segregation in public accommodations (Title II) and enabling federal authorities to withhold funds from state programs that discriminated (Title VI). The bill also contained a narrower version of Title III than civil rights groups would have liked, and it would establish a federal Community Relations Service to mediate local conflicts. When civil rights and union activists demanded a compulsory FEPC, the White House, loath to stir GOP opposition, put forward a much more modest proposal to establish a new commission to promote equal employment in businesses and unions with government contracts. Kennedy called on Congress to pass an FEPC as a separate measure. The White House believed it had to maintain a coalition of liberal activists and Republicans to overcome southern resistance.74 The GOP’s response was lukewarm. Dirksen announced he would back everything in Kennedy’s bill except Title II, which he contended was an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of property owners. Here again, GOP lawmakers echoed claims made by southern Democrats. Republicans were also troubled by the use of federal authority to regulate interstate commerce as the legal basis for Title II; since the New Deal, the GOP had fought a mostly futile battle against liberals’ broad interpretation of the commerce clause to increase federal oversight of businesses. Dirksen floated a vague idea about voluntary compliance with Title II, while George Aiken (Vt.) raised the possibility of forcing large establishments to desegregate but exempting smaller businesses.75 Skepticism was also abundant when Senate Republicans met on June 19. A majority favored an alternative bill, sponsored by Dirksen and Mansfield, that contained all the provisions in the administration’s legislation except Title II. But even that proved a hard sell. Some Republicans were concerned about empowering the attorney general to initiate lawsuits, while others insisted that laws could not solve racial problems. Karl Mundt (N.D.) contended that acting in such an emotionally charged climate would only worsen race relations, while Wallace Bennett (Utah) urged his colleagues not to let threats of further demonstrations influence their actions. “Republicans have conferred inconclusively, talked endlessly, and some have played partisan politics with a great national tragedy,” lamented the New York Herald Tribune, a bastion of northeastern liberal Republicanism.76

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 145

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 145 ]

With the 1964 election sixteen months away, Republicans faced an uncertain political situation. Weakening or defeating the president’s bill might help the party across the South, where, according to a June poll, 62 percent of whites thought Kennedy was pushing integration too fast. It could also pay dividends in the North. After George Wallace’s face-off with Kennedy, half of the 100,000 letters of support he received came from outside Dixie. Liberal Republicans argued that supporting a strong civil rights measure was politically wise. Public opinion was with the nonviolent demonstrators, and the nation’s image was being tarnished abroad. The votes of Goldwater and Javits were easy to predict; which way the party would turn depended on the large number of Republicans for whom civil rights was not a burning issue but who had traditionally opposed civil rights legislation or, as in 1957 and 1960, voted for modest reforms.77 The White House aimed to build momentum against a Senate filibuster by first passing a bill in the House. Hoping to overcome southern Democrats’ influence on the Rules Committee and elsewhere, the president successfully courted William McCulloch, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. The Ohio congressman, who had voted for the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts, insisted that Kennedy not let the Senate gut any bill passed in the House and that he share credit with the GOP.78 Civil rights activists thought Kennedy’s bill was too weak and demanded a compulsory FEPC, a stronger Title III, protections against police brutality, and broader coverage for Title II. Several Republicans voiced similar concerns and offered amendments in these areas. Javits viewed this as a defining moment for his party, much like the Civil War and Reconstruction had been. “We were on the right side of history one hundred years ago,” he wrote. “To remain as the other of the two great political parties, we must be on the right side of history today.”79 Racial politics remained fluid throughout the summer. Several Republicans, including some who supported and some who opposed the president’s bill, publicly speculated that white racial animosity in the North would benefit the GOP. A Gallup poll in August found that 50 percent of those surveyed thought the president was pushing integration “too fast”—a rise of fourteen points since May.80

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 146

[ 146 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

Whites were undoubtedly responding to the wave of demonstrations that had begun in May and continued throughout the summer. Black protest outside the South was not new; what was different in 1963 was its scale and tone. By August, more than 1,300 protests had occurred in thirty-six states. Northern blacks were particularly upset over jobs, as the black unemployment rate was double that of whites. An Urban League official in Chicago starkly observed that union racism was so pervasive that “discrimination would be a step forward. What we have here is exclusion.” In August more than 500 activists were arrested in New York City during protests against the construction trades. Violence broke out in Philadelphia, Harlem, and elsewhere at similar demonstrations.81 These conflicts brought to the fore an issue that had long been part of the debate over jobs: whether race should be a conscious factor in employment decisions. By the early 1960s, some civil rights activists had begun to insist that fair employment should be measured by results, such as income and the number of blacks in particular positions, rather than procedures. They argued that certain practices among white corporate managers (such as recruiting at largely white schools), inadequate job training and skills among poor blacks, and other obstacles meant that a colorblind approach to employment—one that focused on individual “merit” and whether a firm or a union intended to discriminate—would never lead to substantial economic gains for most African Americans. In the spring of 1963 Urban League executive director Whitney Young Jr. endorsed a “Marshall Plan for the Negro,” which called for new federal spending in areas such as job training and education and “preferential” treatment for blacks in hiring to compensate for three centuries of discrimination. Young drew sharp criticism from NAACP leaders and other civil rights reformers, who saw his strategy as morally unjust, feared it would put a ceiling on black hiring and advancement, and worried it would alienate whites. This was not simply a theoretical debate; some of the boycotts of the early 1960s ended only after employers or public officials pledged to hire more African Americans.82 Employment was not the only source of black anger. In Chicago, Boston, and other northern cities, African Americans protested inferior segregated schools, police brutality, and slum housing. Northern direct

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 147

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 147 ]

action efforts often frightened whites and defied their norms of civility. This was evident in both rhetoric and tactics, such as when CORE dumped more than half a ton of waste, including dead rats, from ghetto basements onto Philadelphia streets. One black leader there warned that “300,000 lower class guys . . . are ready to mob, rob, steal and kill.” Many white political leaders prepared law enforcement personnel for further violence. The protests also signaled many lower-class blacks’ frustration with the nonviolent, legalistic tactics and integrationist goals of the largely middle-class NAACP. “No one can stop the demonstrations,” James Farmer observed. “The question is: Can we keep them nonviolent?”83 Leaders from the NAACP, CORE, and other organizations tried to rally attention to racial inequality and cement their positions at the head of the movement by holding a “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” on August 28. More than 200,000 people, including several Republican lawmakers, attended. Americans would fondly remember the event, which included Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring “I Have a Dream” speech, but at the time, it was a risky move. Kennedy and other political leaders feared violence, and Gallup reported in mid-August that 63 percent of those who had heard of the event viewed it unfavorably. The organizers pressed on and demanded federal action in a wide range of areas, including voting, education, housing, and the desegregation of public accommodations. They called for a compulsory FEPC, substantial increases in job training and placement programs, broadening of the Fair Labor Standards Act to cover more African American workers, and a near doubling of the minimum wage. An ebullient Kenneth Keating speculated that the march might “have its effect on the waverers” in Congress.84 Many legislators from both parties were still hesitant. “The majority of lawmakers have no strong Negro vote in their areas and can’t be pressured except by labor and church people,” one astute observer noted. Prior to the march, Dirsken made a vague statement to Wilkins that he needed to maintain his “constitutional responsibilities.” This was hardly a ringing endorsement of the Kennedy plan, given that southern Democrats and conservative Republicans such as Goldwater had denounced the bill as unconstitutional. Kennedy tried to dampen efforts to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 148

[ 148 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

strengthen the legislation; he told civil rights activists that, according to McCulloch, adding an FEPC would ensure defeat in the House.85 House Judiciary Subcommittee Number 5, which was dominated by liberal Democrats, soon did just that and more. It approved several amendments the activists wanted, such as adding a compulsory FEPC (Title VII), bolstering the attorney general’s power to combat segregation, extending the bill’s provisions to both federal and state elections, and expanding Title II. Seven of nine southern Democrats voted for the tougher provisions, hoping they would eventually sink the bill. An irate McCulloch thought Kennedy was trying to appease the activists in the short run but would eventually cut a deal with southern Democrats. Conservative Republicans complained the revised bill gave too much authority to the federal government. Kennedy was upset as well and sought assistance from Eisenhower, who agreed to talk to GOP congressional leaders. The president’s chief concern was losing McCulloch’s support, which he still regarded as key to getting sixty or so Republican votes. The president was worried the GOP would draw things out until 1964 and then exploit the crisis to win white votes in the South.86 Kennedy kept McCulloch on board by agreeing to scale back federal authority in several key areas. This was the first critical juncture where Republicans shaped the legislation. The compulsory FEPC was replaced by a voluntary committee that would have the authority to investigate, make recommendations, and file lawsuits, but enforcement would occur through the courts. A small group of House Republicans, led by Robert Griffin of Michigan, had advocated this approach months earlier. Echoing arguments Republicans had been raising since the 1940s, Griffin cited the NLRB as an example of overbearing federal authority that undermined the rights of business.87 Yet the inclusion of any type of employment provision was a sign that policy had moved in a more liberal direction. Congress had rejected or ignored demands for a voluntary FEPC since the 1940s. McCulloch proved instrumental; another Republican in his shoes might have demanded that Kennedy drop all fair employment provisions, but the Ohioan sincerely believed that the compromise was both a step forward and politically salable to the GOP. He apparently helped persuade Halleck to move the bill along.88

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 149

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 149 ]

The compromise also limited federal authority with regard to voting rights, shrank the scope of the public accommodations section, and restricted the attorney general’s involvement in lawsuits against segregation. Rather than being allowed to initiate lawsuits, the Justice Department could only intervene in cases filed by others or when an individual affirmed that he or she was unable to pursue a lawsuit due to poverty or fear of retaliation. The new plan also circumscribed federal agencies’ ability to cut off funds where segregation was practiced.89 McCulloch led a successful fight to restrict federal authority in one other crucial area—education. His plan to delete the words “and racial imbalance” from Title III won near unanimous approval from nonsoutherners in both parties. Lawmakers wanted to preempt any push for federal involvement in schools outside Dixie. By the fall of 1963, civil rights activists were arguing that school segregation in urban areas of the North and West was not simply the result of a race-neutral market or the free choice of white and black residents. Activists noted that public officials in the North, similar to their southern counterparts, had gerrymandered school and district boundaries, tracked black students into remedial classes (which then limited their employment prospects), or taken other steps to keep blacks and whites separate. Schools attended by African Americans were often dilapidated and had more limited course offerings and extracurricular activities than white schools. Blacks outside the South applied the Supreme Court’s language—that segregated schools were “inherently unequal”—to their own communities. When local and state policy makers did nothing or offered only token changes, parents filed lawsuits. By the end of 1962, there were more pending school desegregation cases in New York than in any other state.90 The courts were beginning to act. In January 1961 a federal court had ruled that the New Rochelle, New York, school district violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights of African American children by creating and sustaining segregated schools. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, but the Supreme Court refused to review the case. The New Rochelle matter sparked black protest in dozens of northern and western cities.91 Although Kennedy and McCulloch had found common ground, civil

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 150

[ 150 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

rights leaders remained unhappy. Dismissing the compromise measure as “not acceptable,” Farmer advised 140 chapters of CORE to be ready to launch another wave of demonstrations in Washington and around the nation. Simeon Booker bluntly informed Jet readers, “We’re losing the fight on Capitol Hill.” Whitney Young Jr. worried that Title VII was too weak. “The Negro may wind up with a mouthful of civil rights but an empty stomach and living in a hovel,” he announced. NAACP leaders called on local branches to boost voter registration efforts in 1964 to target lawmakers who would not stand behind a strong bill.92 The broader political context remained largely unchanged that fall. Polls still showed solid national support for outlawing segregation in public accommodations. Violence in the South, which now included a September bombing in Birmingham that had killed four African American girls attending a Sunday school class, upset many whites. Yet backing Kennedy also carried risks for the GOP. A higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats thought the president was pushing integration too fast. Four thousand whites marched in Chicago in September to protest a new open housing law, and whites in Boston and other northern cities were growing more vocal in their opposition to school integration. Politicians in both parties received numerous complaints from whites that Kennedy was doing too much for blacks.93 The House Judiciary Committee approved the compromise bill, which was still broader than Kennedy’s June proposal, on November 20. Several frustrated members who had tried to weaken the bill in committee supported it, in the hope that the full House would succeed where they had failed. Seventy Republicans met and expressed anger at McCulloch and Halleck for working with the White House.94 Kennedy was assassinated three days later. Large numbers of African Americans braved frigid temperatures to view his body and take part in other memorial activities in Washington. Simeon Booker labeled Kennedy “the second Abraham Lincoln” and penned a heartfelt column in Jet chronicling his interactions with the president. The magazine, which was widely read by the black middle class, published an extensive and effusive memorial to the slain president in December. King credited Kennedy with having “the courage to be a friend of civil rights.” Common black citizens had a similar reaction. “The feeling here,” noted a

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 151

t h e go p , di re ct action, and racial policy [ 151 ]

Harlem resident, “is that we have lost the best friend we ever had in the executive branch of government.” “I didn’t know I could love a white man that much,” said a New York City cab driver.95 Kennedy immediately became the standard by which African Americans would judge future presidents. That comparison began with Lyndon Johnson. Civil rights leaders initially feared he would trade away core components of the bill just to get something passed. The new president, however, concluded that a strong measure would cement his standing among liberals in the Democratic Party and establish his credibility nationwide. Addressing a joint session of Congress on November 27, he urged lawmakers to pass the legislation as a memorial to the slain president. Johnson followed up by lobbying civil rights leaders, Democrats, and Republicans to support a discharge petition to free the bill from the House Rules Committee. Administration officials calculated they needed the support of sixty to seventy Republicans, about half the GOP caucus. Johnson instructed aides to go to Republicans and say, “Now you’re either the party of Lincoln or you ain’t. And let’s, by God, put up or shut up.” He told fellow Texan Robert Anderson, who had served in Eisenhower’s cabinet, that if the GOP did not get on board, it would be standing with the segregationists. In that case, Johnson added, “I believe we can dramatize it enough and wreck them.” Republicans on the Rules Committee worked with Democrats to bring pressure on chairman Howard Smith. The Virginia Democrat agreed to hearings, and the committee moved the bill to the full House by the end of January.96

Conclusion Even though the measure about to be debated in the House originated in the Kennedy administration, Republicans molded it to a considerable extent. Long-standing GOP objections to federal oversight of labor relations led to softening of the equal employment language. Republicans also helped ensure that federal powers related to school integration would apply only to the South. Republicans, like many northern Democrats, continued to believe that race was a southern problem. The route thus far was by no means straightforward or inevitable.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 152

[ 152 ] ch ap t e r f i v e

Congress had passed two civil rights bills during the Eisenhower presidency, but civil rights activists felt no sense of inexorable momentum during the early days of the Kennedy administration. Despite direct action efforts across the South in 1961 and 1962, mounting efforts in communities across the North and West, and lobbying for an FEPC and numerous other legal reforms, Congress had done little. Kennedy was no civil rights crusader, but the vast majority of Republicans showed scant enthusiasm either. That began to change in 1963, as violence and other racial tensions escalated. Republican lawmakers were paying more attention, but in the early months of 1964, passage of the administration’s bill was far from assured.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 153

The 1964 Civil Rights Act

6

When Congress reconvened in January 1964, Republicans held the balance of power: no civil rights bill could pass without their support. The law they eventually voted for made American society more just, but Republicans demanded and won important concessions on federal authority, especially in the North and West, as the price for their support.

The House House Republicans were not willing to just fall in line behind the Judiciary Committee’s measure. Thomas Pelley of Washington observed that his state’s representatives were “receiving considerable mail from their constituents expressing concern with the far-reaching effects of the civil rights bill,” particularly with regard to stronger federal regulation of employment.1 Conservatives still claimed that a federal fair employment law would be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. A New Hampshire Republican pointed out that there were several African American members of the House, two of whom chaired committees. “So,” he proclaimed, “it can scarcely be urged that . . . this is not the land of opportunity or that such opportunity is not open to all citizens regardless of race or color or religious preference.” Bruce Alger of Texas revived arguments from the 1940s, charging that Title VII would “bring about discrimination in reverse by establishing the principle of special privilege for some Negroes at the expense of the rights of the overwhelming majority of our citizens of all races.” It would “force employ[ 153 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 154

[ 154 ] ch ap t e r s i x

ers to hire workers on the basis of color rather than ability.” Arguing that “a job . . . a decent home . . . [and] extra luxuries in life must be earned,” Alger maintained that limited government and a strong private sector would “mean a better living for all those who want it and are willing to do what it takes to achieve success.” Conservatives alleged that “preferential treatment” was already happening. August Johansen of Michigan claimed that the federal government had pressured the Dallas post office to hire blacks who were low on seniority lists. Some corporations appeared to be embracing a color-conscious approach independent of federal action; in December, manufacturer Pitney-Bowes had announced it would “find and employ more Negroes” by lowering examination and experience criteria for African American applicants.2 McCulloch and the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee expressed concerns about the reach of federal authority in the workplace. The FEPC created under Title VII (now called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC]) “must confine its activities to correcting abuse, not promoting equality with mathematical certainty,” they wrote in their minority report. Businesses and unions were “to be left undisturbed to the greatest extent possible.” Emphasizing that “nothing in the title permits a person to demand employment,” they threatened to terminate a body that had yet to be created. “The Commission will only jeopardize its continued existence,” they warned, “if it seeks to impose forced racial balance on employers or labor unions.”3 McCulloch and others tried to rally GOP support by stressing that federal oversight of employment would be minimal and would apply largely to the South. The Ohioan assured one concerned lawmaker from Washington State that the “drafters of the bill have sought to surround the extension of authority with sufficient judicial and administrative safeguards.” Similarly, Charles Goodell of New York boasted that the EEOC’s limited powers meant that it would be “unlike most of the commissions about which we complain and about which our constituents complain.” Employers or unions accused of discrimination could not be forced to change their behavior until there had been litigation in court. Charges of job discrimination had to be filed within six months of the alleged incident, and the federal government carried the burden of proof. Noting that Washington was one of thirty-two states with a public ac-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 155

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 155 ]

commodations law and one of twenty-five with a fair employment practices statute, McCulloch happily pointed out that the bill required federal officials to defer to state authorities. “Thus in your state, as with many other states with effective legislation, there will be no cause for the Federal Government to intrude in these areas at all,” he wrote. “The civil rights bill is primarily aimed at correcting abuses in those areas of the country where local authority fails to take effective action.”4 Yet McCulloch and his Republican allies also rejected core aspects of conservatives’ arguments about work and the rewards of the market. They upheld a better economic life as a fundamental element of a racially just society. “The right to vote . . . does not have much meaning on an empty stomach,” they asserted. Whereas Alger saw poverty as evidence of personal shortcomings, McCulloch and his allies considered it proof of discrimination. They expressed alarm that the unemployment rate for nonwhites was double that for whites and concern that African Americans were concentrated in low-wage, low-skill positions. Automation, they added, had already eliminated many of these jobs and would continue to do so. African Americans paid a high price for these trends, but so did society in terms of lost productivity, decreased purchasing power, and higher “unemployment compensation, relief, disease, and crime.” The nation, these Republicans argued, needed skilled labor to foster economic growth.5 Civil rights activists had long made the same points, but McCulloch and like-minded Republicans parted ways with them over remedies. Republicans, as well as many pro-reform Democrats, cited the dozens of state FEPCs established since World War II across the North and the West as proof that the voluntary approach worked. Civil rights activists countered that high black unemployment and racial disparities in the occupational structure offered powerful evidence that the state bodies had failed. The NAACP’s Herbert Hill, a dogged and vocal critic of voluntary FEPCs, contended that a fair employment board needed enforcement powers as well as leaders willing to use that authority. At the state level, Hill maintained, FEPC personnel were too timid to confront business and union leaders and too eager to mistake token steps for substantial progress. There is no evidence that McCulloch and his allies wrestled with these or other criticisms. For them, the North and West had found

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 156

[ 156 ] ch ap t e r s i x

ways to improve the employment status of African Americans, but the South had not.6 Southern exceptionalism was also evident in how McCulloch and his fellow Republicans on the Judiciary Committee approached education. Their minority report included numerous anecdotes of southern intransigence and charts detailing the region’s minuscule compliance with Brown. They acknowledged the existence of “racial imbalance” in communities outside Dixie but then noted briefly, and without any sense of irony, that the committee chose not to deal with this issue because it could not reach a satisfactory definition of the problem and any attempt to address it “would lead to a forcible disruption of neighborhood patterns, might entail inordinate financial and human cost, and create more friction than it could possibly resolve.”7 Republican William Cramer of Florida wanted extra assurances. He was especially worried about a January 24, 1964, federal court ruling that the school board in Manhasset, New York, was guilty of “maintaining and perpetuating a segregated school system”; the judge had ordered remedies to begin in September. The decision was a notable affirmation of the NAACP’s argument that segregated schools, regardless of their origin or location, violated black students’ rights. Cramer was convinced that the ruling, which came after the Judiciary Committee’s approval of the civil rights bill, would lead to the busing of white and black students to integrate schools. Cramer demanded the inclusion of specific language to the effect that Congress did not intend the education provisions of the bill to apply to racial imbalance or de facto segregation. The House approved his proposal on February 6 by a voice vote.8 The House passed the civil rights bill, by a vote of 290–130, four days later. Nearly 80 percent of Republicans (138) voted for it, while only 34, including all 12 southern Republicans, opposed it. Its chief provisions outlawed segregation in public accommodations, established a voluntary fair employment committee, permitted the cutting of federal funds to programs that discriminated, boosted protections for voting rights, and empowered the attorney general to intervene in certain civil rights suits. Roy Wilkins credited Republicans with “delivering the votes which were needed for victory” and posited that they had “helped sketch a new image of their party for Negro and liberal voters.” Strong lobbying efforts

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 157

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 157 ]

by a broad coalition of religious groups likely helped sway Republicans from districts with few African Americans. Noting that the nation had not faced such a severe threat to the social order since the Civil War, an Iowa Republican predicted the new law would “open the door of orderly change.”9

The Senate Senate proponents focused on cloture. Only five of twenty-eight cloture attempts had succeeded since the filibuster rule’s adoption in 1917; cloture had failed each of the eleven times it had been attempted on a civil rights bill. Southern Democrats had several means to keep a filibuster going. One was a quorum call, which required that fifty-one senators be present. Failure to produce a quorum meant the Senate adjourned (as opposed to recessed). Adjournment led to a new legislative day and the reading of the journal, which took hours and could be avoided only by a unanimous vote.10 Sixty-seven votes were needed to shut off a filibuster, and reaching that total required the support of twenty of the thirty-three Republicans. That meant wooing midwesterners with a bill that was not too strong. Yet the White House and its congressional allies could not alienate liberals in both parties. Republican Clifford Case indicated he would prefer “no bill at all than a weak one.”11 Democratic leaders believed that bringing Dirksen on board was the way to win over the midwesterners. The Illinois senator had long-standing personal ties with them and, as minority leader, controlled their committee assignments and the scheduling of their bills. Dirksen was conflicted, however. On the one hand, he worried that opposing the legislation would lead Democrats to charge that the GOP was racist, and public support for ending Jim Crow laws in the South remained high. Weakening the bill would divide the GOP by angering McCulloch and the House Republicans. On the other hand, Dirksen still objected to the public accommodations section, and he doubted that restraints on the attorney general’s ability to act against school segregation outside the South were sufficient.12 The fair employment section especially troubled Dirksen, who be-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 158

[ 158 ] ch ap t e r s i x

lieved that Title VII failed to protect employers sufficiently. He fretted about the record-keeping burdens placed on employers and that federal examiners might harass businesses with “fishing expeditions.” Businesses in the North and West could face investigations from both state FEPCs and the EEOC. And because state and federal employment policies sometimes appeared contradictory, obeying one might mean breaking the other. “Shall we draw and quarter the victim?” he asked. Dirksen was upset that union seniority systems would be eroded and that businesses, not union leaders, would face punishment if they hired from union halls that sent only white male candidates for jobs. He also questioned whether the antidiscrimination protections should apply in industries that might employ workers only a few weeks or months per year, such as orchard workers hired to harvest fruit. Dirksen feared that allowing organizations to file lawsuits on behalf of individuals would increase litigation. The minority leader believed that many of these issues could be ironed out if the Senate took its time. “How unworthy can we be as a deliberative body,” he asked, “if threats of demonstrations and taking to the streets moves us to hurried and careless craftsmanship?”13 Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Californian Thomas Kuchel, the Republican whip, served as floor managers for the bill. Appointed to the Senate in 1952 to finish Richard Nixon’s term, Kuchel followed in the progressive civil rights footsteps of other California Republicans such as Earl Warren. The northeastern thrust of the GOP leadership was evident; other Republicans who played prominent roles included Keating, Javits, Case, John Sherman Cooper (Ky.), and Hugh Scott (Pa.). These senators teamed with Democrats to make the case for the measure itself as well as to avoid procedural traps laid by southerners. Civil rights reformers had never been this tightly organized. Strong Republican support for the unusual procedural steps that moved the legislation to the Senate floor likewise signaled that this debate was different. As expected, southern Democrats promptly filibustered.14 By late March, the bipartisan team worried that it was losing the public relations war. Several Republicans reported being deluged with mail from constituents opposed to the legislation. McCulloch speculated that if the House vote were taken again, support would drop by 25 percent. Several factors were likely at work, including a massive public relations

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 159

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 159 ]

campaign by the Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms. Heavily bankrolled by the state of Mississippi, the committee’s goal was to rally white northerners against the legislation. It took out hundreds of newspaper ads and distributed pamphlets in New York and elsewhere, charging that the bill would make the attorney general a “dictator” and would lead to the end of union seniority systems, the institution of hiring quotas that were unfair to white workers, busing to promote school integration, and restrictions on housing sales. Returning to Ohio in early April, McCulloch grew troubled over the committee’s impact. Wilkins urged NAACP members to contact lawmakers.15 The bill’s floor managers worked to bring Republicans on board without alienating civil rights activists. Humphrey focused on courting Dirksen. The Minnesotan appeared on the popular news program Meet the Press in late February and effusively praised the Illinois senator. Humphrey bluntly informed Clarence Mitchell, “Dirksen doesn’t want somebody picketing him.” Chicago activists had staged several protests against the minority leader in the fall of 1963; on one occasion, 2,000 demonstrators had gathered outside Dirksen’s office. Activists nevertheless resolved to maintain pressure on lawmakers. King told the media in late March that if the filibuster lasted more than a month, he would lead direct action campaigns in Washington and around the nation. More worrisome to Humphrey and Kuchel were reports in early April that the Brooklyn chapter of CORE pledged to hold a “stall-in” at the upcoming New York World’s Fair; rumored tactics included abandoning vehicles on roadways leading to the site and paying the $2 admission fee with pennies. The two senators quickly issued a statement asserting that “unruly demonstrations and protests” were undermining reformers in Congress. The stall-in failed badly.16 Southern Democrats continued to denounce the legislation as an unconstitutional and hypocritical attack on their region. Quoting the Supreme Court’s claim in Brown that segregated schools caused longterm, possibly irreversible, damage to black students, James Eastland challenged lawmakers from outside the South about racial conditions in their own states and predicted the bill would lead to busing. Eugene Talmadge noted that New York City was rife with racial conflict. Segregated schools there had triggered two boycotts by black and Puerto

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 160

[ 160 ] ch ap t e r s i x

Rican students in March; one involved nearly 465,000 students, the other roughly 267,000. An integration plan that involved transferring students away from their neighborhood schools led to angry protests from whites and a few African Americans.17 Republicans moved quickly to contrast their home states with Dixie. Fearful that public support would erode if white northerners were convinced the bill would lead to changes in their children’s education, Keating, Javits, and others emphasized that the House legislation flatly prohibited busing. Javits said that anyone who sued to stop a government order to achieve racial balance in the schools “would have an open and shut case.” He often pointed out that there were no all-black or allwhite schools in New York City. The senator expressed support for small-scale busing plans where schools were primarily of one race or another, but he and other Republicans asserted that addressing racial imbalance was best left to state and local officials. New York City was already striving to eliminate “both whatever imbalance exists and the housing patterns which created it,” Javits affirmed.18 Brown, civil rights proponents claimed, was never intended to apply to the North. In his verbal jousting with Eastland, Javits repeatedly asserted, “This is a very different situation from what exists in Mississippi.” Javits and other proponents maintained that Brown did not require integration; it simply prohibited the segregation of students by race. Many southern officials had been using this argument to avoid or delay integration for nearly a decade.19 Employment issues proved even more contentious. Barry Goldwater and John Tower were the chief Republican critics of Title VII. The EEOC, the Arizonan claimed, would continue the expansive, and mistaken, reading of the commerce clause embodied in the Wagner Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act from the 1930s. He wanted to return to a pre–New Deal legal framework for labor relations. Tower raised the oftcited example of Prohibition as proof that “attempts to legislate morality breed contempt for the law.”20 More worrisome to the bill’s proponents were Goldwater’s claims that Title VII would result in “discrimination in reverse” and “preferential treatment” that helped blacks at whites’ expense. Race relations would deteriorate badly, the senator insisted. Echoing charges raised by Taft

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 161

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 161 ]

twenty years earlier, Goldwater predicted employers would seek to insulate themselves from lawsuits by hiring a quota of African Americans. Goldwater also criticized the EEOC as impractical; record keeping would be burdensome and imprecise because, he acknowledged, “intangible factors . . . enter into many personnel decisions.” “Who is to say what percent of minority group employment constitutes nondiscrimination?” Tower asked. “Is it 3, 5, 10, or 50 percent?“ The Texan invoked freedom of association and freedom of contract as precious constitutional rights that would vanish. Employment, he added, was not a right.21 Developments that spring gave these critics ammunition. In March the Pittsburgh school board announced a policy of “conscious preferment” that favored the hiring of African Americans when white and black candidates were equally qualified. A hearing examiner of the Illinois fair employment commission ordered the Motorola Corporation to hire Leon Myart, an African American who had claimed racial discrimination when the company denied him employment. The directive itself was important, but so was the justification. The examiner declared that the employment test Motorola gave to potential employees was obsolete and discriminatory. It had been developed in the 1940s, he noted, and its norms for success and failure had been derived from “standardization on advantaged groups,” meaning that poor and uneducated applicants were less likely to pass. The examiner directed the company to stop using the test or to replace it with one that would “reflect and equate inequalities and environmental factors among disadvantaged and culturally deprived groups.” He also indicated that employers might have to modify their “selection techniques” and institute special training programs for the underprivileged “that will enable them to achieve job success.” The examiner arrived at his decision in part by statistical measurements; he pointed out that all twenty-five workers in the job category for which Myart had applied were white. Opponents of the civil rights bill highlighted this ruling as proof that the government was already favoring less qualified applicants. A federal law, they added, would further undermine employers’ freedom by leading to the elimination of all employment testing.22 These were serious charges, and civil rights proponents feared they might turn nonsouthern public opinion against the bill. Case and Demo-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 162

[ 162 ] ch ap t e r s i x

crat Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania led the fight to defend Title VII. Case tried to downplay the significance of the Motorola decision and, more important, denied its relevance. Unlike the Illinois commission, the EEOC would not have cease-and-desist powers. Case insisted that the Illinois ruling contradicted Title VII. “Even a federal court,” Case argued, “could not order an employer to lower or change job qualifications simply because fewer Negroes meet them.” He added, “The very purpose of Title VII is to promote hiring on the basis of job qualifications, rather than on the basis of race or color.” The legislation, Case affirmed, “does not require anybody to hire a particular individual.”23 By early April, Dirksen had moved forward with his amendments. The minority leader was most interested in limiting the impact of Title VII on employers. He proposed that an individual claiming discrimination be required to file a lawsuit, as opposed to an organization or the EEOC acting on the individual’s behalf. He wanted to ensure that Title VII applied only to intentional discrimination, not to statistical employment patterns. He also wanted to give state or local FEPCs six months to solve a case before the EEOC became involved, and once that happened, the federal body would have up to six months to seek voluntary compliance before the individual could file suit. In other words, a person charging discrimination might have to wait a year before entering the court system. Dirksen, moreover, sought to eliminate language granting the EEOC subpoena power.24 Title VII troubled the Illinois senator, but he was also working to craft a bill that would win Republican support. At one point in the spring, he joined the president on a cruise down the Potomac River. “Everett, goddammit, we’ve got to pass the civil rights bill,” Johnson barked. “We know how many we’ve got—how many will we get from your side?” Dirksen replied, “Well, that’s damn difficult. I have a hell of a problem with my side. But I think it will work out.”25 Republicans’ response to the amendments varied. McCulloch informed Dirksen that he could accept the revisions. Some lawmakers were opposed; others were simply frustrated. Pete Dominick of Colorado thought Title VII had aroused such intense emotion that it needed to be eliminated. One midwestern Republican remarked, “Many of my people think the Negroes want to take over the country.”26

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 163

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 163 ]

Civil rights activists worried that the amendments would, in the words of the LCCR, “make Title VII meaningless.” They placed too much burden on individuals who had been discriminated against and allowed southern states to set up dummy FEPCs. Deference to local committees and subsequent court procedures would take too much time and impose financial burdens that the vast majority of black plaintiffs could not afford. James Farmer predicted there would be “serious trouble” that summer if the legislation were weakened. King similarly forecast “demonstrations on a level and size we’ve never seen before” and announced he would rather have no bill than a feeble one.27 Democratic leaders still believed the only way to pass a bill was to negotiate with Dirksen. Noting that there were insufficient votes for cloture, Humphrey and Kuchel talked the LCCR out of a public attack against the Illinois Republican. The Minnesotan also continued his efforts to put Dirksen in the spotlight. Dirksen, Humphrey, Kuchel, other Senate leaders, and Justice Department officials reached a deal on May 13.28 Here again, Republicans shaped the bill. Although Dirksen gave some ground, the final agreement included his plan to strip the EEOC of authority to file lawsuits on behalf of individuals; the Justice Department would be allowed to file suits, but only where a “pattern or practice” of discrimination existed, and only after an individual had exhausted all state and local avenues. Union seniority systems were protected as well, thus locking into place benefits enjoyed by many white workers. These two provisions limited federal power outside the South. Dirksen also succeeded in exempting employers whose employees worked less than twenty-eight weeks per year; this applied mostly to agricultural employers. Firms and unions with fewer than twenty-five employees, educational institutions, and several other employment situations would not fall under Title VII either. More important, the bill expressly prohibited “preferential treatment” in employment decisions to remedy a racial “imbalance” in the workforce. Proof of discrimination required a clear intent to do so. Inadvertent discrimination, such as recruiting only at white schools, would not fall under Title VII, and the racial composition of a firm’s overall workforce, or at a particular job level, would not prove discrimination. Critics feared that these changes established a nearly impossible burden of proof.29

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 164

[ 164 ] ch ap t e r s i x

Dirksen won further restrictions on federal authority. Title II was amended to allow the Justice Department to intervene in public accommodations lawsuits only after local remedies had been pursued, and only when a widespread “pattern or practice” of discrimination existed. Title IV specifically excluded school segregation in the North, while Title VI would enable the federal government to cut off funds for only a specific program in which discrimination existed, not the larger institution or group.30 Prospects for cloture remained uncertain. Several Republicans believed Dirksen’s amendments were too timid. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned every senator that Title VII “could be seriously harmful to the conduct of American business.” Eisenhower tried to rally the GOP with a column in the New York Herald Tribune. Invoking Lincoln, he argued the party had “a particular obligation to be vigorous in defense of civil rights.”31 Presidential politics also caught lawmakers’ attention. George Wallace had entered three Democratic presidential primaries in the North that spring. Warning that the legislation would lead to job quotas, loss of union seniority rights, integrated neighborhoods, and busing, Wallace had drawn large, enthusiastic crowds and surprised many pundits with his vote totals. Russell hoped Wallace’s success would spur Republicans to oppose the bill, while Johnson fretted over that possibility. “Wallace won’t affect the final vote on this bill,” Dirksen vowed.32 Southern Democrats continued to appeal to the GOP for help. They often patted Goldwater on the back, saying, “You keep winning those elections—it’s helping.” The Arizona senator, who had triumphed in several presidential primaries, was the leading contender for the Republican nomination. Russell tried to tempt Republicans by predicting they would destroy their party’s chances for further growth in the South if they backed the civil rights bill. The speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives told Dirksen, “You help us kill the civil rights legislation in Congress, and we will kill any legislation which would destroy the Republican Party in Mississippi.” Dirksen wanted none of it; at one point, he noted that the “future of the Republican Party does not lie in Georgia or the Deep South.”33 Mansfield and Dirksen announced on June 1 that a cloture vote would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 165

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 165 ]

occur the following week. Russell was not giving up, however; he privately encouraged some of his constituents to write to several Republicans and urge them to oppose the measure. The pro–civil rights forces gained ground when Jack Miller (R-Iowa), who had been heavily lobbied by religious groups, announced he would support cloture. But their elation was temporary, for the very next day, Dirksen informed Humphrey that GOP support for cloture was softening. Led by Bourke Hickenlooper (R-Iowa), several Republicans demanded a vote on three amendments, the most important of which would limit the application of Title VII to firms with more than 100 employees. The Republican sponsor of that plan, Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, complained that civil rights proponents wanted “to put their finger on every small business in the country they can reach.” Wilkins warned Humphrey that passing the Hickenlooper amendments “might easily mean bad trouble,” while Javits urged his colleagues to approve the legislation quickly “because as the summer wears on the danger of incidents of violence grows all the greater.” Fearing Republican desertion on cloture if the amendments were ignored, the bipartisan team agreed to bring them up for a vote. A majority of Republicans sided with the Democrats to defeat Cotton’s proposal. They also defeated Hickenlooper’s amendment to eliminate funding to train local officials responsible for overseeing school segregation. The Iowan’s jury trial amendment, which the Justice Department deemed harmless, passed.34 All 100 senators assembled on June 10 for the cloture vote. Dirksen ended the debate by insisting that Republican support for the bill was morally just and politically wise. He fired back at critics who alleged he was hurting the GOP politically, citing Herbert Hoover’s statement that the Whig Party “deserved to disappear” in the nineteenth century because it had compromised on black freedom. The roll call took just seventeen minutes, with John Williams (R-Del.) providing the sixty-seventh vote that ensured victory to the bill’s proponents. Clarence Mitchell dried his eyes with a handkerchief as he watched from the gallery. The longest filibuster in Senate history was over. The final tally was 71–29, with 27 Republicans voting in favor and just 6 against. African American leaders praised Dirksen for his leadership, and the Chicago Defender, which had sharply criticized the senator in April, said he had “come

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 166

[ 166 ] ch ap t e r s i x

through with flying colors.” Wilkins also acknowledged the minority leader’s “decisive role” and confessed that his earlier criticisms had been premature.35 Republicans then overwhelmingly lined up with liberal Democrats to defeat more than 100 amendments from southern Democrats. Two votes were particularly illuminating. Just one Republican out of thirty voted for Russell’s proposal to remove language that prohibited busing and affirmed that the bill could not be used to address racial imbalance. Likewise, the GOP’s lukewarm attitude toward Title VII was evident when twelve Republicans supported Sam Ervin’s amendment to delete it. But that was the highest level of GOP support for any of the southerners’ several attempts to remove entire sections of the bill.36 The final vote occurred on June 19. Dirksen directly rebuked Goldwater, who had spoken against the bill the previous day, by citing numerous examples of social welfare legislation, including the Pure Food and Drug Act, Social Security, and the eight-hour workday, that had been branded unconstitutional by contemporary critics but then became overwhelmingly popular. “There is an inexorable moral force that moves us forward,” Dirksen proclaimed. “No matter what the resistance of people who do not fully understand, it will not be denied. Utter all the extreme opinion that you will,” he said; then, extending his right arm toward Goldwater, added, “it will not be denied.” The bill passed 73–27. Twenty-seven Republicans voted for it, with just six opposed. The House easily approved the Senate measure on July 2. Johnson signed it into law that night in a televised ceremony at the White House.37 Civil rights leaders were elated. Farmer declared that the legislation “may well be the single most important act of our Congress in several decades.” Wilkins described it as “a giant step forward,” while King predicted it would “bring a cool and serene breeze to an already hot summer.”38

Conclusion The 1964 Civil Rights Act constituted an important milestone in the African American freedom struggle. Legally enforced segregation of public accommodations in the South crumbled quickly. The demise of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 167

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 167 ]

Jim Crow represented much more than blacks and whites being able to sit in the same section of a restaurant; it marked the collapse of one of the psychological foundations of southern race relations. As King had stated in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” blacks were “humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored.’” Change was not an inevitable result of industrialization, urbanization, or other abstract social forces; it required firm steps by federal authorities.39 Title VII, which forbade employment discrimination based on race, color, gender, national origin, and religion, was another turning point. Some economists have argued that Title VII’s effect on those it was intended to help has been minimal; according to others, it has been counterproductive. There is some truth in both these claims. Yet its impact has been far more beneficial than critics acknowledge. Its mere presence helped trigger changes in hiring practices, as many corporations undertook various fair employment initiatives on their own to avoid federal scrutiny. The principle of nondiscrimination became a norm that, though not always followed, changed the way society approached employment.40 The law produced other seminal transformations. Federal officials’ ability to file lawsuits, cut off funds, and gather data helped integrate southern schools and led to dramatic policy initiatives in other areas of education, such as schooling for girls and for the handicapped, as well as bilingual education. The threat of the loss of funds had effects well beyond education; federal aid to state and local governments, as well as private organizations, has mushroomed since the 1960s.41 Since 1964, Republicans have proudly highlighted the GOP’s crucial role in passing this legislation as proof of the party’s commitment to racial equality. Such characterizations are not wrong, but they are incomplete. Republicans supported the bill, but they also limited the reach of federal authority. This was most evident with regard to Title VII. Republican-led changes left many workers outside the bounds of federal protection against discrimination, made suing employers more difficult, and restricted federal authority in labor relations by deferring to state and local fair employment bodies. Republicans also helped ensure that several provisions of the bill, most notably those involving public accommodations and education, ap-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 168

[ 168 ] ch ap t e r s i x

plied almost exclusively to the South. “The new law will redeem the South and will enable it to go forward arm in arm with the rest of the nation, not only in physical progress, but also in moral and in intellectual progress,” Javits affirmed. “It has been too little emphasized in this debate how far behind that section of the country is in regard to certain elementary rights.”42 The 1964 Civil Rights Act also marked a watershed for the GOP in terms of its identity. The racial context had changed, and the party changed too. By 1964, few Americans, especially outside the South, agreed that business owners should have the right to discriminate against peaceful customers. Few thought that employers should have the right to deny jobs or promotions on the basis of race, a common practice throughout much of the nation’s history. As conflicts flared in subsequent years over the role of federal authority, especially regarding employment and education, Republicans cast themselves as defenders of the 1964 law and the color-blind society they believed it had established. It became their reference point. Few of them would call for a rollback of Titles II, VI, and VII, and talk about a pre–New Deal regulatory order receded.43 For most of the post–World War II era, congressional Republicans had not made civil rights a high priority, and they had even voted against various civil rights bills. Why did their attitude change now? The size, frequency, and national scope of activism caught the GOP’s attention and created a crisis of legitimacy for federal authority. Most Republicans could ignore the Freedom Rides because they had little impact on their home states, but they could not turn away from the events of 1963 and 1964. As Congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts observed, “A new impatience swept through the land [in 1963], and the Birmingham dogs who were let loose upon citizens who did nothing more than assemble in the street gave new impetus to a situation which—from that day forward—would never be the same again.” Republicans feared that the chaotic summer of 1963 was a prelude to something far worse. Violence was not an abstraction; it was happening. Kennedy’s death also weighed heavily on some. Linking the tragic events in Dallas with the African American freedom struggle, several GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee affirmed, “Congress can do much to conquer the forces

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 169

t he 1964 civil rights act [ 169 ]

of hatred and intolerance which have been unleashed in our land.”44 In addition, midwestern Republicans discovered that sizable numbers of their white constituents cared about civil rights legislation. This, too, was a notable departure from the past. Mobilizing on an unprecedented scale, religious organizations targeted these Republicans with a powerful moral appeal that required them to choose reform or the southern status quo. Some Republicans may have followed the polls, which showed solid support for a public accommodations bill. “Were there no general public interest in this legislation, we would have long ago rejected this proposal in favor of other legislative matters,” declared one Iowa Republican. Eight of the twelve GOP congressmen from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota voted for the bill. Midwestern senators backed cloture and the legislation itself.45 Forces outside Washington drove events, but so did political elites. There were several points at which the bill might have been weakened further or even fallen apart completely. Kennedy, Johnson, and other Democrats showed a determination that had been absent in previous fights. They, along with civil rights lobbyists, defined a policy agenda that forced Republicans to take a stand. A New Hampshire Republican who opposed the legislation noted, “It is common knowledge that if a secret ballot could be taken on this bill in its present form it would not get 50 votes.” This was probably an exaggeration, but it suggests that Johnson was correct in his belief that bringing the measure to a vote would force some legislators, who had been indifferent or working behind the scenes to kill or weaken the bill, to change sides. Cooperation between McCulloch, Halleck, Democratic leaders, and civil rights groups in the House and Humphrey, Kuchel, Dirksen, and others in the Senate kept proponents energized to defeat bill-weakening amendments. This was no small matter. Moral outrage and good intentions were insufficient to defeat the well-organized and highly motivated southern Democrats. Though Republicans such as McCulloch and Dirksen shrank the legislation’s scope in significant ways, other GOP lawmakers in their positions might have demanded additional compromises. Southern Democrats’ refusal to compromise helped cement the alliance between the GOP and nonsouthern Democrats.46 Throughout the year, pundits and lawmakers alike had speculated

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 170

[ 170 ] ch ap t e r s i x

about the political consequences of civil rights reform. As Senate discussions wound down, Nixon cautioned Republicans that opposing the bill might yield short-term electoral victories in the South but “would be disastrous to the party in the long run.” Developments over the next four years would show that the former vice president was more closely in line with public opinion than Goldwater was.47

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 171

Race and Republican Politics, 1961–1964

7

On June 18, 1964, Barry Goldwater stood on the floor of the Senate and denounced the civil rights bill. He warned it would produce a “federal police force of mammoth proportions.” Federal regulations against segregation in public accommodations and employment discrimination, he contended, were unconstitutional assaults on business owners’ freedom. “It is the general welfare that must be considered now, not just the special appeals for special welfare,” the senator declared. Well aware that some voters would see him as racist because he sounded like and voted with southern Democrats, Goldwater insisted he opposed discrimination and affirmed that racial progress would come from “the human heart.” “If my vote is misconstrued, let it be, and let me suffer the consequences,” he stated. Jacob Javits walked over to him afterward and said, “Barry, this is a dreadful mistake. It’s tragic. I’m just sick about it, Barry. I can’t tell you how distressed I am.” Goldwater shrugged his shoulders and curtly responded, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Jack.”1 This exchange was another moment in the debate Republicans had been having since World War II about race, region, and party identity. That conversation took on heightened fervor in the early 1960s. The GOP was still a minority party. Goldwater and his allies argued that the way back to majority status lay in moving to the right and focusing on the South and the West. Conservatives would triumph over Javits and other liberals in 1964, but that victory would prove temporary.

[ 171 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 172

[ 172 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Republican Politics, 1961–1963 In January 1961 RNC head Thruston Morton established a fourteenmember committee, headed by Ohio GOP leader Ray Bliss, to determine how the party could improve its performance in metropolitan areas. When the committee reported to the RNC a year later, it told a sobering tale. The GOP’s poor showing in urban areas in several northern states had propelled Kennedy to victory and hurt the party in congressional and state contests as well. The future looked bleak, as metropolitan regions would continue to grow, while traditionally Republican small towns and rural areas would shrink. According to the committee, the GOP had to broaden its appeal among business leaders; white working-class “ethnic” voters of eastern and southern European ancestry, who tended to be union members; and African Americans. The committee included two white “ethnics” but no African American.2 Bliss thought that electoral success resulted primarily from strong parties, not ideology. “The regular Republican organization in predominantly Negro wards in our big cities frequently is woefully weak and just as frequently non-existent,” the committee lamented. “Certainly our Party’s splendid record in the field of civil rights merits greater recognition and response than it has received.” Believing that the problem was marketing rather than the message, the committee suggested expanding public relations efforts, putting organizers into black neighborhoods, and featuring African Americans in more visible roles.3 Some Republicans were already thinking along these lines. “We should cultivate the Negro vote assiduously,” Morton said in March 1961. George W. Lee, a prominent black Republican from Memphis, advised party leaders to boost the RNC’s Minorities Division and appoint an African American as party vice chairman. A black Republican from Baltimore urged an updated, more relevant pitch. “Republicans have to learn that the image of Abraham Lincoln is dead,” he commented.4 The urban strategy drew fire from Goldwater, who immediately became a prominent contender for the 1964 nomination. “We ought to forget the big cities,” he candidly declared at a meeting of southern Republicans in Atlanta in November 1961. “We can’t outpromise the Democrats, and that’s what it takes when you appeal to people as

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 173

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 173 ]

groups.” He wanted the GOP to approach the electorate “as Americans, not hyphenated Americans.” The party could win “with strong support from the hinterland,” which meant concentrating on the plains states, the West, and the South.5 It also meant distancing the GOP from the civil rights movement. “I wouldn’t like to see my party assume that it is the role of the federal government to enforce integration of the schools,” Goldwater proclaimed. “I would like to see our party back up on school integration.” He added that he would “bend every muscle to see that the South has a voice on everything that affects . . . the South” at the 1964 GOP convention. Goldwater tried to ingratiate himself at the Atlanta gathering by making small talk about Arizona as “Confederate” territory and urging his party to seek white southern votes. “We’re not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964 and 1968, so we ought to go hunting where the ducks are,” he told the press.6 Southern Republican leaders disagreed over Goldwater’s strategy. The chair of the North Carolina GOP observed, “We are saying publicly that the Negro vote in North Carolina and the Democratic Party are synonymous.” Tar Heel State Republicans considered African Americans a political liability. Conversely, the RNC representative from Georgia saw blacks as central to the party’s future. “Sooner or later there are going to be two million Negro voters in Georgia and a majority of them will vote Republican,” he predicted.7 Black Republicans were distraught over the idea of a Goldwater nomination. George Lee called it “a time for tears.” Jackie Robinson told Nixon that a Goldwater-led GOP would simply confirm blacks’ perception that Republicans did not care about them. Nixon, who had blasted his party for being “just stupid” about racial issues soon after his loss in 1960, agreed. “If Goldwater wins his fight, our party would eventually become the first major all-white political party,” he told Ebony in April 1962. “And that isn’t good. That would be a violation of GOP principles.” Acknowledging that the GOP was “almost non-existent among Negroes,” Nixon urged his party to “go after” black votes by building stronger organizations. Policy mattered too. “We’ve got to convince Negroes they’re better off economically under a GOP president,” he stressed.8 Goldwater’s prescription was rooted in faith, not experience. The

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 174

[ 174 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

South was undergoing enormous changes that, in theory, augured well for the GOP. Its farm economy was being replaced by industry and white-collar services. Cities and suburbs were growing rapidly due to an influx of northerners and native southerners fleeing rural poverty. Income and wealth were rising. And the GOP had some successes in Dixie. Conservatives celebrated John Tower’s victory in May 1961 in a special election to replace Lyndon Johnson in the Senate. A former Democrat, Tower was the first Republican senator elected from a Confederate state in the twentieth century.9 Even so, the Republican Party remained in dismal shape across the region. White voters supported incumbent Democrats, who defended white supremacy and directed enormous sums of federal money home. A 1961 survey showed that white southerners, especially those in the Deep South, still had a negative view of the GOP and blamed the party for Reconstruction and the Great Depression. Southern Republicans won just 34 of 530 House contests between 1952 and 1960—the vast majority of these victories occurring in areas that had been strong for the GOP since the nineteenth century. In many cases the GOP did not even field a candidate or offered only token opposition.10 Republicans had been working to reverse this dreadful situation. Hoping to capitalize on Eisenhower’s success in the region, the RNC launched Operation Dixie in 1957. I. Lee Potter, the RNC representative from Virginia, headed the undertaking to bring young, well-educated professionals, who were often shut out of Democratic organizations, into the GOP. Potter emphasized good government, fiscal conservatism, education, and economic development. By the early 1960s, Operation Dixie had boosted the GOP’s presence in many parts of the South. Significantly, there were no African Americans among Operation Dixie’s leadership, and there were few stories about black Republicans in its monthly newsletter. Potter had no desire to whip up a segregationist frenzy, but he was no liberal. During the 1957 Little Rock crisis, he had distanced himself from Herbert Brownell and noted that the Virginia GOP did indeed favor segregation. His desire to leave racial decisions to local leaders indicated an ideological flexibility that would take into account varying situations.11 Local officials were usually not interested in black voters. The Missis-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 175

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 175 ]

sippi Republican Party, for example, featured the Confederate battle flag on its letterhead. Whether the motive was racial malice or regional pride was irrelevant; no African Americans were going to support such a party. As increasing numbers of segregationists joined the GOP, those African Americans who had long been a part of southern Republican organizations felt marginalized or excluded altogether. “We can’t build a Republican Party with rejects from the Democratic Party,” one black Republican lamented. “We don’t need these reactionaries. We need young southerners who are facing up to the real problems of desegregation, housing, schools, parks.” RNC head Meade Alcorn, who had launched Operation Dixie, later complained that the original intent of giving scant attention to race had been corrupted by local leaders.12 National leaders exhibited little interest in racial issues either. In the summer of 1961, 6,000 people attended a dinner in Washington; not one of the featured speakers was African American, and no speaker even mentioned civil rights. A year later, when Eisenhower gathered party leaders at his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the former president said he was “proud” to identify the GOP as “the party of business.” Nixon said the GOP had to demonstrate that it taxed less, spent less, and “allow[ed] and encourage[d] people to do for themselves.” There were no African American speakers at the event, and only one African American attended. Some participants highlighted the need to boost the party’s stature among minority voters, but racial issues received scant attention. Eisenhower caused a stir when he told the crowd, “I’ve talked to a Negro today, and what he told me would be of interest to all of us. We must hold more meetings and hear this story.” What Eisenhower heard is unknown, but the crowd reportedly reacted with surprise and resentment, suggesting the individual had criticized the GOP’s approach to race.13 William Miller’s three-year tenure as head of the RNC reinforced these trends. A conservative congressman from the Buffalo, New York, area, Miller believed that challenging the Democrats in northern urban areas would be suicidal. Soon after taking control in 1961, he brought several individuals with similar views into the RNC’s leadership ranks. Republicans who favored more outreach to blacks thus lacked the power to implement their plan. From 1958 to 1963, Operation Dixie spent at least $600,000, while the Minorities Division spent less than $200,000.14

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 176

[ 176 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Miller and other party officials ignored or rebuffed appeals to be more aggressive in courting African Americans and to place more blacks in leadership roles. One survey of twenty-five prominent black leaders in the South found that only one had even heard of the Minorities Division. In contrast, all of them received a weekly Democratic newsletter. Miller shelved plans for a similar Republican publication and criticized Grant Reynolds, an African American who had joined the RNC in 1961, for publicly complaining about the lack of black involvement in both Operation Dixie and the RNC. By late 1962, Miller and other RNC officials had reduced the Minorities Division to a skeleton operation.15 Republicans’ focus on the South finally bore fruit in 1962. The GOP gained four House seats and lost seven other races by less than 10,000 votes each. All incumbent House Republicans were reelected; the twelve Republicans from Dixie constituted the largest total since Reconstruction. The party enjoyed its greatest success in urban areas in the peripheral South, including Houston, Atlanta, and Miami. Republican House candidates captured 31 percent of the total vote in the eleven ex-Confederate states, up from 16.3 percent four years earlier. Those candidates received about 1.5 million more votes than in 1958, while the Democrats’ total vote dropped by nearly 2 million. Republican candidates also came surprisingly close to knocking out Democratic senators in Alabama and South Carolina. “Republicans in the South are no longer made to feel like skunks at a church social,” Goldwater crowed.16 Liberals feared the party was basing its growth on whites’ racism. Keating predicted the GOP would be “forever a minority party” if segregationists became too prominent. “It’s a matter of clear mathematics; the majority of the more populous states just do not favor that view,” he declared. The New Yorker and other liberals feared harmful political repercussions outside the South, yet a broader vision of Republican identity also shaped their response. They posited a southern GOP comprising African Americans and a new generation of whites who were more liberal on race.17 Conservatives interpreted the results as a blueprint for 1964. Noting that Nelson Rockefeller received fewer votes in 1962 than he had four years earlier, despite heavily outspending a weak opponent, National Review columnist William Rusher maintained that Kennedy would easily

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 177

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 177 ]

beat the New York governor or another liberal in the industrial states and California. Victory required winning the South, and Goldwater was the only Republican who could do so. Rusher described a region undergoing deep economic changes that were causing relatively well-off white southerners to think and vote like their northern counterparts. Racist politics remained most salient in Democratic rural areas, he asserted. Columnist James Kilpatrick, an avowed segregationist, echoed this view. “What counts these days in Dixie,” Kilpatrick concluded, “is that Kennedy is a Kennedy, and Rockefeller is a Kennedy, but Goldwater, praise be, is not.” Southern Republican leaders salivated over the prospect of a Goldwater nomination; the head of the Texas GOP warned that Rockefeller would “destroy” the party in the Lone Star State, while the chair of the Alabama Republican Party boasted that having a true conservative at the top of the ticket would “be the easiest campaign I ever ran.”18 Republican leaders took umbrage at allegations that progress in the South was rooted in racism. When the New York Times accused the GOP of seeking segregationist support, Potter wrote to the paper, “The issue of civil rights—a moot question, now—has nothing to do with our gains.” He predicted that Republican growth would expand opportunities for African Americans by breaking up the power structures that had long excluded and oppressed them. Potter also rejected the idea that winning the South would mean sacrificing the North. He pointed out that Kennedy and other Democrats had long wooed segregationists as well as northern liberals, and their commitment to racial equality was not questioned. Why couldn’t Republicans do so as well? Similarly, Miller told the RNC that the party should not feel guilty for seeking votes in the South.19 Goldwater bristled at accusations of racism. “No analysis could be more absurd on its face,” he declared. “Republican influence in the South,” the senator asserted, “is growing in direct proportion to the South’s moderation on the race issue.” Recalling that a Mississippi senator had tried to link the James Meredith affair to Eisenhower, Goldwater accused Democrats of exacerbating racial tensions for partisan gain. “Vast changes” were occurring in the region, Goldwater observed, including “heaver emphasis on commercial attitudes.”20

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 178

[ 178 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

This explanation was too facile. Many factors influenced electoral outcomes across the South in 1962, but contests often had strong racial elements. In several southern cities, African American support for the Republican Party dropped compared to 1960 and 1958. Thruston Morton earned a solid 46 percent of the black vote in his Senate victory in Kentucky, but journalist William Workman Jr., the Republican Senate candidate in South Carolina, proudly opposed the civil rights movement. Workman had written a book, The Case for the South, defending segregation. He was against a federal FEPC and Kennedy’s executive order combating discrimination by government contractors. In his keynote address to the Republican state convention, Workman indicted the Democratic Party for efforts to outlaw the poll tax and prohibit literacy tests. He also warned that Democrats in Washington might file lawsuits to end segregation. Workman reviled Kennedy’s push for integration at Ole Miss, which occurred at the height of the campaign, as “a cold-blooded, premeditated effort to crush the sovereign state of Mississippi into submission.”21 Race was central to several elections in Alabama. One candidate for the House accused the Kennedy administration of “getting ready to register the monkeys to vote.” Such naked racism was atypical; more representative was James Martin’s Senate campaign. Martin tried to tie incumbent Lister Hill to Kennedy and the president to the Freedom Riders and integration at the University of Mississippi. A former Democrat, he called for “a return to the Spirit of ’61—1861, when our fathers formed a new nation” to defend their principles. “God willing,” Martin added, “we will not again be forced to take up rifle and bayonet to preserve these principles.” At other times, Martin expressed his desire to preserve the racial status quo more bluntly; he urged “vigorous action . . . to forestall collusion between the government and the NAACP to integrate schools, unions, and neighborhoods.” An oil products distributor, Martin also emphasized economic conservatism. Goldwater and other nonsoutherners may have sincerely believed that race was not central to the GOP’s growth, but for white Alabamians, talk of limited government and local control was not simply about economic regulation—it also meant preserving racial hierarchy. Martin lost by just 6,800 votes.22 Black voters remained a secondary concern at best for party leaders. No African Americans attended the RNC’s meeting in June 1963. The

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 179

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 179 ]

committee issued a tepid criticism of Kennedy’s approach to civil rights, but there was little discussion of race, despite the intense conflict occurring in the aftermath of Birmingham. At one luncheon, two southern chairmen openly talked about “niggers” and “nigger lovers” while being served by African American hotel staff. When one attendee worried that the GOP was becoming a white supremacist party, another replied, “You have to remember that this isn’t South Africa. The whites outnumber the Negroes 9 to 1.” The black vote, in other words, was irrelevant. Two months later a reporter asked Miller if a GOP drive for urban votes would include African Americans. “It will depend somewhat upon the Negro vote, but not all, not basically, or not principally,” he replied. Miller instead highlighted the need to boost the GOP among white ethnics and labor union members. Grant Reynolds, an adviser to Miller on racial affairs, lamented, “Civil rights is just not a major issue at the RNC.”23 Modest RNC efforts to court blacks in the North flopped badly. Party leaders failed to grasp that many African Americans interpreted a popular GOP message, “Ban the Brothers,” as antiblack. But the slogan, which appeared on posters and other literature, actually referred to John and Robert Kennedy. Miller met with a handful of black Republicans in the fall of 1963 to discuss how the GOP might improve its standing with blacks, but they bluntly informed him that the party had “an uphill fight.” Republican leaders had neglected racial issues for so long that wary African Americans were bound to see new attempts as insincere, they noted. The GOP’s image could not be transformed quickly or easily, especially given its leaders’ avowed commitment to supporting segregationist candidates in the South.24 It was little wonder, then, that a poll published in Newsweek in the summer of 1963 revealed that African Americans held an overwhelmingly negative view of the Republican Party. Only 11 percent considered themselves Republican. Roughly 90 percent would vote for Kennedy in 1964, whether his opponent were Goldwater or Rockefeller. In the opinion of African Americans, Kennedy ranked just below the NAACP and King in terms of who was doing the most to advance racial justice. Blacks saw Kennedy as the most pro–civil rights president since Roosevelt; they thought little of Eisenhower. Just 4 percent believed a Re-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 180

[ 180 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

publican would do more for African Americans over the next four years than a Democrat would. “In short, the debate inside the GOP over how strong a stand to take on civil rights is almost academic to the Negro,” pollster Lou Harris concluded. “In his view, the Republican Party already has become virtually a white man’s party. . . . For 1964, it will take nothing less than a miracle to change the Republican Party’s image among Negroes.”25 Blacks fundamentally disagreed with several core values routinely touted by Republicans. African Americans harbored a deep wariness toward private enterprise; just 33 percent believed they would receive equal pay for equal work. They strongly distrusted businesses’ hiring and promotion practices; only 10 percent held unions responsible for workplace inequities. “Republicans are for power and money,” claimed one black woman. “The Republican Party lowers wages,” said another. African Americans blamed real estate agents for housing discrimination and high rents, and they cast a skeptical eye toward state and local governments. When Republicans talked about upward mobility resulting from hard work, minimal federal oversight of businesses, and local autonomy, these messages were deeply incongruous with African Americans’ experience.26

Goldwater versus Rockefeller Conservative activists, meanwhile, continued their drive to make Barry Goldwater the Republican presidential nominee. Southerners occupied key leadership roles in that effort, and the South and West formed the core of the senator’s support. Well aware that the majority of convention delegates would be selected by party officials rather than voters, the Goldwater forces mobilized nationwide to take control of state organizations. By late 1963, the senator had become the clear favorite.27 Nelson Rockefeller was determined to thwart Goldwater. Calling himself an “economic conservative and a human rights liberal,” Rockefeller made race central to his strategy. He had identified closely with the civil rights movement for the past five years, publicly expressing support for the Freedom Riders and other activists in the South and providing fi-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 181

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 181 ]

nancial support to rebuild black churches burned during the protests in Albany, Georgia. In the fall of 1962 he appeared at a Lincoln Memorial rally to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation; Rockefeller brought the original document, which his family owned. The governor also enjoyed a close relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. He had financed the widespread distribution of some of King’s speeches, paid the minister’s hospital bill after an African American woman stabbed him in 1958, lobbied Robert Kennedy to ensure King’s safety following his arrest in Albany, and provided bail for those jailed in Birmingham. As governor of New York, he had facilitated reforms to reduce discrimination in housing, expanded the state’s prohibition against discrimination in public accommodations, and strengthened laws against job discrimination. Racial justice, he informed the New York chapter of the NAACP, required “affirmative action on all fronts.” Rockefeller did not spell out exactly what that involved, but it meant more than simply asserting the principle of equal opportunity. Jackie Robinson joined the Rockefeller campaign. Roy Wilkins expressed hope that a Rockefellerled GOP might appeal to African Americans and thus free blacks from their dependence on the Democrats.28 Rockefeller’s boldest move came on July 14, 1963, when he offered a scathing attack on Goldwater for writing off the black vote in favor of the South and the West: The transparent purpose behind this plan is to erect political power on the outlawed and immoral base of segregation and to transform the Republican Party from a national party of all the people to a sectional party for some of the people. No such plan has, or ever will, succeed. . . . It will be rejected out of hand by the Republican Party. It will be rejected by the Nation. It will be rejected by the South. . . . A program based on racism or sectionalism would in and of itself not only defeat the Republican Party in 1964, but would destroy it altogether. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. It was founded to make men free and equal in opportunity. . . . For that Party to turn its back on its heritage and its birthright would be an act of political immorality rarely equaled in human history.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 182

[ 182 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Rockefeller’s denunciation flopped badly. Conservatives saw it as divisive, and only a few Republican lawmakers expressed support.29 Still, the governor pressed forward. That fall he urged Congress to strengthen Kennedy’s civil rights bill and blasted Goldwater for intimating that people who were unemployed or on welfare were lazy. “What Senator Goldwater doesn’t understand,” Rockefeller asserted, “is that a lot of people without jobs are not stupid or indolent but have been denied economic and educational opportunities.” The issue had several racial dimensions. More whites than blacks received public assistance, although the percentage of African Americans on welfare was greater. Many whites had long believed that blacks were the undeserving beneficiaries of government largesse.30 Whites’ views of race came to the fore in a Harris survey published in October, offering an omen to liberals in both parties. To be sure, racial attitudes had grown more egalitarian since World War II. Whites believed that African Americans had suffered because of discrimination, and outside the South, they largely supported Kennedy’s civil rights bill. Nevertheless, white fair-mindedness had its limits. Whites had little objection to working with an African American or sitting next to a black person on a bus, but they strongly opposed having black neighbors, having their daughters date African American men, or trying on the same clothes in a department store. By a two-to-one margin, whites believed African Americans were moving “too fast” in their quest for racial change. Whites favored demonstrations against racial injustice in the abstract but opposed sit-ins, boycotts, and other specific tactics. Although the president was likely to win reelection, Harris speculated that an escalation of racial conflict could cost Kennedy a second term.31 The poll indicated that Kennedy was decidedly unpopular in Dixie. There were several reasons, but race was unquestionably a driving force. Goldwater was the beneficiary; southern whites viewed Rockefeller as a carbon copy of the president. In the eleven states of the ex-Confederacy, Goldwater led Kennedy by three percentage points. Of those southern whites who believed they understood the senator’s stand on civil rights, two-thirds saw him as supporting the status quo. “He will look out for the white man,” one voter proclaimed.32

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 183

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 183 ]

Southern leaders from both parties acknowledged that race was playing a central role in politics across Dixie. When asked if Goldwater’s appeal was rooted in whites’ perception that he was a segregationist, Carl Sanders, the Democratic governor of Georgia, replied, “To a large extent, yes.” The head of Tennessee’s Republican Party declared, “The racial issue had disaffected more Democrats than any other thing.” Similarly, the head of Georgia’s Republican Party noted growing resentment toward both John and Robert Kennedy. “The problem of civil rights,” he posited, “is basic in this.”33 Kennedy’s political misfortunes were particularly evident in Mississippi. The state’s small but growing Republican Party cast itself as a firm defender of segregation and other aspects of white supremacy. Following the integration crisis at Ole Miss, Wirt Yerger Jr., head of the state’s GOP, called for Kennedy’s impeachment. A few months later Yerger accused the president of actually causing racial violence to help his reelection. In 1963 Mississippi Republicans fielded a gubernatorial candidate, Rubel Phillips, for only the third time since Reconstruction. The campaign, which took place while civil rights activists were pushing for voter registration and school desegregation, was essentially a contest to show which candidate would keep federal authority at bay. A former Democrat, Phillips trumpeted his support for segregation and tried to make the election about the president, using slogans such as “Mississippi Yes! Kennedy No!” One Phillips ad labeled his opponent, Paul Johnson Jr., “AN INTEGRATIONIST AND A DOUBLE CROSSER!” Phillips lost but polled a respectable 38 percent of the vote.34 A gathering of southern Republican leaders in Charleston, South Carolina, later that month vividly showcased trends across Dixie. Enthusiasm for Goldwater was so strong that Miller had to remind the crowd that the event was not a campaign rally. The Rockefeller personnel who were present drew little attention. J. Drake Edens Jr., chair of the South Carolina GOP, invoked the name of Robert E. Lee and introduced the playing of “Dixie” by saying, “A gentleman just suggested we stand for the Confederate national anthem.” The ebullient crowd engaged in some “rebel yells” as the song ended; Dixiecrats had behaved similarly at their 1948 convention. A stunned Rockefeller supporter asked the person next

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 184

[ 184 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

to her, “Do they always do that down here?” A party worker who had moved from Maine commented that his job to build the South Carolina GOP included “letting them think I’m a segregationist.”35 Miller unapologetically conceded that the GOP’s growth in the South was rooted in white rebellion against the civil rights movement. “Why shouldn’t we take advantage of it?” he asked a reporter. “The Democrats have been getting away with it for years.” When questioned about the lack of black faces at the Charleston meeting, the RNC head brushed it off, noting there were no African Americans among top party officials in the South.36 Kennedy’s standing in the North was not as perilous, but Republican leaders there also believed that racial hostility worked to their benefit. One described it as “the silent issue.” “The key issue is white versus black, and it’s much deeper than people realize,” observed a Republican operative in Chicago. “The Republicans don’t have to do a damn thing. . . . We can just sit back and let the Republicans become the party of the white people.” The Goldwater campaign was well aware of the situation. F. Clifton White, one of the chief organizers of the Goldwater effort, ordered his own poll of northern cities shortly after the March on Washington. He too found that white anger was mounting. “We don’t like to talk about it but it’s working very strongly for Goldwater and will continue to do so,” another adviser commented. “It’s a very serious situation and there is nothing we can do about it,” Goldwater privately noted. “We can’t use it. It’s too dangerous. All we can do is watch.”37 The 1963 elections revealed the salience of race in northern politics. In Philadelphia, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, incumbent mayor James Tate won by just 61,000 votes. Numerous civil rights protests, including a sit-in at city hall and other demonstrations over discrimination in jobs, housing, education, and public accommodations, had occurred since summer. Some white Democratic neighborhoods largely defected to Tate’s Republican opponent, who had accused the mayor of fostering disorder and stressed the need to crack down on the activists. “The feeling around here was that the Democrats give the Negroes everything they want and that somebody ought to put a stop to it,” said one resident.38 Whites were concerned about much more than protests. “When the Democrats put pressure on the unions to let Negroes in, the Negroes fol-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 185

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 185 ]

low up with more pressure for a bigger share of the jobs,” one man noted. “It’s a matter of bread and butter to me. I don’t want to lose my job to a colored fellow who has more political influence than I have.” A housewife stated, “Jim Tate and the Kennedys want to flood the school in our neighborhood with Negro kids from across town.” Decrying the “liquored up” blacks who came into his store, one merchant explained, “I figured that a Republican mayor might at least not encourage Negroes to move in where they aren’t wanted.” To a considerable extent, Tate’s victory was attributable to overwhelming black support. One local Republican took heart in defeat: “What happened in Philadelphia proved that the Republicans have the issue to beat the Kennedys next year—people’s rights; not just civil rights, but the rights of people to live as they want to live, not as the Federal Government tells them they must live.” These were disturbing trends for the Democrats, but they had reason to take heart—most of their racially liberal candidates had triumphed in spite of whites’ resentment. The GOP was still a minority party.39

The Battle for the GOP Nomination The Republican presidential contest shifted into high gear during the early months of 1964. With Goldwater enjoying considerable support among state party leaders, Rockefeller’s only hope was to win the handful of primaries held that spring. Doing so might persuade state officials, who selected most of the convention delegates, that he would be a stronger candidate against Lyndon Johnson in November. That would not be easy. Conservatives had long resented New York’s influence on GOP politics. Many Republicans, not just conservatives, still saw the governor as too liberal and blamed him for Nixon’s loss in 1960. Rockefeller’s personal life was also an obstacle. He had been divorced in 1962 and then remarried in May 1963. His new wife, eighteen years his junior, had divorced her husband and surrendered custody of her four young children just a month before marrying Rockefeller. Many Americans found this situation morally offensive.40 Goldwater was slipping, however. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., then serving as ambassador to Vietnam, scored a surprising victory in the New Hampshire primary held in March. Goldwater’s conservative positions,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 186

[ 186 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

which included opposing the progressive income tax, making Social Security voluntary, and giving military commanders in Europe the authority to decide when to use nuclear weapons, were coming under closer media scrutiny. So too was the senator’s relationship with ultraconservative groups such as the John Birch Society. Founded in 1958, the society claimed that America was well on its way to communism and charged that communists were orchestrating civil rights demonstrations in the South. Although Goldwater did not embrace many of the society’s views, he welcomed support from its members.41 Race was not central in the early primaries, but it remained a point of contention. In March, Rockefeller held a fund-raiser for the Urban League at his home, and King was the guest speaker; he criticized Goldwater for emphasizing states’ rights and praised the governor for his long history of support for African Americans. Goldwater told New Hampshire voters that civil rights demonstrators “dishonor their cause, default their leadership, and defame this nation.” The senator also began to tie urban disorder in the North to civil rights laws. Whites, especially those in large urban areas of the North and West, had demonstrated heightened anxiety over crime since the late 1950s. There were elements of racial sensationalism in many news stories about crime, but in fact, violent crime rates had increased significantly in some African American neighborhoods. Sounding like Taft twenty years earlier, Goldwater linked civil rights laws to racial tensions. “I sadly remind you that we are seeing violence today in those very states which are proving that new laws alone are not the answer,” he proclaimed. “There are too many of the old laws which aren’t even working.” Calm would be restored when Republicans were elected, he asserted.42 The battle culminated that June in California. Rockefeller, whose triumph in Oregon a month earlier had knocked out Lodge, believed that victory there would give him the momentum he needed heading into the GOP convention. Race was a prominent issue. The California Real Estate Association had coordinated a grassroots effort to place Proposition 14 on the ballot in November. Proposition 14 would overturn a 1963 law banning discrimination in the sale of housing by guaranteeing a home owner’s right to sell to whomever he or she chose. Proponents often cast it in the race-neutral language of protecting individual freedom from an

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 187

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 187 ]

overbearing state, although naked bigotry was sometimes evident. Polls showed that Proposition 14 was immensely popular with voters in both parties and that 79 percent of whites believed blacks were “pushing too hard for integration.” Rockefeller appealed to African Americans to change their registration from Democrat to Republican to help him defeat Goldwater. Ignoring recommendations from his advisers, he regularly criticized Proposition 14. In contrast, Goldwater defended it, asserting that whites favored racial equality but “don’t want their property rights trampled with.” The senator had trailed for much of the contest, but a large outpouring of support in Orange County—a heavily suburbanized, strongly conservative, and overwhelmingly white region south of Los Angeles—carried him to victory.43 Pro-Goldwater forces, meanwhile, were taking over many state parties, especially in the South. This decimated the already thin ranks of black Republicans. Sometimes the Goldwaterites deliberately pushed blacks aside. At the Georgia GOP convention, the turnout was nearly four times normal; most of the excess attendees were Democrats angry over their party’s liberal stand on race and other matters. The new GOP head had excluded African Americans from the slate of officers and convention delegates; this was the first time in half a century that the Georgia delegation would be entirely white. The loss of African American support would, he confidently predicted, be offset by large increases among whites. Similar scenarios played out in Mississippi and Tennessee.44 In other cases, blacks left voluntarily. George Lee led a walkout of 200 African Americans from a Republican gathering in Memphis as they refused to fall in line behind a slate of Goldwater delegates. Charles Willis, the deputy attorney general of Indiana, compared Goldwater to Rutherford B. Hayes, who, in the disputed election of 1876, had agreed to avoid enforcing racial justice in the South in return for the southern support that gave him the White House. “The Senator would abandon us to the states—to our enemies in the South,” Willis lamented. Albertine Bowie, a black woman who had worked at the RNC for many years, shocked party leaders when she resigned her post over the party’s conservative turn.45 Goldwater’s rise caused grave concern among civil rights leaders. The

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 188

[ 188 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

senator, Wilkins contended, showed his ignorance when he stated that no law could force racial tolerance. The NAACP head stressed that civil rights legislation “seeks to secure the elementary rights to which every American citizen is entitled whether anyone loves him or not.” King appeared on television and told a national audience that the GOP might become the “white man’s party,” which would be “tragic” (Jackie Robinson had expressed similar fears in a 1963 article in the Saturday Evening Post entitled “The GOP: For White Men Only?”). The NAACP, which had long maintained a nonpartisan public stance, took the unprecedented step of asking the Republican convention to reject Goldwater.46 African Americans sometimes used humor to express their anxiety. Singer Lloyd Price told his nightclub audiences: Oh Lord, please let Senator Goldwater have a seven-car accident with a match wagon that’s been struck by a gasoline truck. Let him ram into a brick wall that houses nuclear warheads and TNT. May he blow himself to bits. If he survives this, Lord, let the ambulance that comes to pick him up have four flat tires. . . . And if he should survive all these things and once again become conscious, Oh Lord, let him be black. Black delegates to the GOP convention joked, “Barry has nothing against the Negro. He thinks everyone should own one.”47 Worried that Goldwater would spell disaster for the GOP in November, liberal Republicans turned to Pennsylvania governor William Scranton. Scranton, whose youth and good looks had invited comparisons to John F. Kennedy, would presumably run well in the Midwest and Northeast. When Scranton announced his candidacy on June 12, he insisted that the GOP had to “avoid at all costs falling into the trap of clasping to our bosom those who use the phrase ‘states’ rights’ only as a cloak to deny Negroes . . . their human and civil rights.” Scranton enjoyed the support of Rockefeller, Herbert Brownell Jr., and other eastern elites. One survey showed him leading Goldwater among the party’s rank and file by fourteen percentage points.48 Goldwater, meanwhile, continued to rack up endorsements. Dirksen announced his support in late June; Goldwater eased fears that he was no

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 189

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 189 ]

different from a southern segregationist by vowing to Illinois delegates to “uphold and enforce the civil rights law” should he become president. He also called segregation “foolishness . . . just as anti-Semitism or antiCatholicism are foolish.” The Ohio and New Jersey delegations similarly announced their support for Goldwater. Race was one factor in Ohio, where Governor James Rhodes had reversed his position on Goldwater’s nomination after deciding that whites’ resentment over civil rights could put the Buckeye State in the Republican column.49 Racial issues permeated the Republican convention in San Francisco that July. Only 14 of the 1,308 delegates were black—the lowest total ever; for the first time since the Civil War, there were no southern black delegates. The Goldwater forces won an important victory when the Rules Committee rejected a resolution—offered by the Scranton campaign in the hope of undermining the senator’s southern base—to bar delegates selected through discriminatory procedures. Civil War references were abundant; some southern Republicans named their hotel “Fort Sumter.” On the Friday before the convention opened, nearly 40,000 people attended a pro–civil rights march, carrying signs reading “Goldwater for Fuhrer” and “Defoliate Mississippi.” Javits, Keating, and Governor George Romney of Michigan joined the demonstration.50 Liberals clashed with the Goldwaterites over the civil rights plank. Calling this a battle for “the soul of the Republican Party,” Hugh Scott wanted the GOP to affirm the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act. The Platform Committee, which was stocked with conservatives, objected to this and other liberal demands. Just sixty-six words long, the plank promised to “assure equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution” and to combat discrimination in voting. The conservatives’ triumph was also evident in language denouncing “inverse discrimination” through “the shifting of jobs, or the abandonment of neighborhood schools, for reasons of race.” The committee rejected King’s appeal for “special measures,” comparable to the GI Bill, to alleviate the suffering of poor whites and blacks alike.51 Goldwater himself appeared before the Platform Committee, where he denounced segregation as “a moral evil.” But seventy-eight-year-old George Parker, a lifelong Republican and the only African American committee member, pressed him on enforcement of the Civil Rights Act.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 190

[ 190 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Feeling that his honor was being unfairly questioned, Goldwater was visibly miffed. “I am not questioning your integrity,” Parker responded. “I am questioning your frankness.” Goldwater supporters hissed him. This was not the first time Goldwater had reacted in such a manner. He noted he had quit the NAACP when they “began calling me an s.o.b.” He also expressed anger over criticism from civil rights leaders “representing the very people I have helped all through my life,” and he objected to how Dirksen had been “violently, viciously, and untruthfully attacked” by the NAACP and black newspapers during his reelection battle in 1962.52 Scranton, Rockefeller, and other liberals took their case to the delegates. Worried that the public would identify the GOP as a hate-filled party eager for war with the Soviet Union, they offered minority planks on nuclear weapons, extremism, and civil rights. The liberals endorsed “special efforts” to include African Americans in job training programs and stronger federal action regarding voting rights and school desegregation. “I can assure you,” Lodge declared, “that a Republican National Convention could never vote against a strong civil rights plank on a roll call vote, particularly not on national television.” Delegates overwhelmingly rejected the civil rights plank, 897–409, and defeated the other two minority planks by voice votes. When Rockefeller appealed to the convention to repudiate the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, and other groups, delegates and observers in the stands shouted him down.53 Black delegates and alternates debated what to do. Rejecting Jackie Robinson’s suggestion that they leave the convention in protest, they rallied behind Scranton and hatched plans for a “walk around” the hall during the roll call of states. Their effort failed miserably when the Goldwater campaign drew media attention by staging a much larger demonstration. One black alternate did walk out, with tears in his eyes, when a Goldwater supporter called him a “nigger.” He held a brief discussion with reporters before returning to the floor. White delegates dismissed the protests as publicity stunts. Jet reported that blacks suffered “offensive statements, rough conduct, and even bodily threats” during the three-day gathering. “The floor of this convention seems like downtown Birmingham,” one black delegate commented.54 Goldwater easily won the nomination. He received near-unanimous support from the ex-Confederate states, and in a fittingly symbolic mo-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 191

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 191 ]

ment, South Carolina cast the votes that put him over the top. Goldwater chose William Miller as his running mate. The senator offered no direct comments on civil rights during his acceptance speech, in which he denounced the expansion of federal authority and “the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders.” Toward the end of the speech, Goldwater uttered two sentences that roused conservatives: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he proclaimed. “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Conservatives had triumphed in their twenty-year struggle to unseat eastern liberals from control of the GOP.55

Aftermath of the Republican Convention Civil rights activists were horrified. King acknowledged that Goldwater was not a racist but accused him of articulating “a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the racist.” Randolph charged that Goldwater showed “utter contempt” for blacks. African Americans feared Republicans were reinforcing white stereotypes of blacks as violent criminals; Eisenhower’s address to the convention had included a call for a crackdown on criminals “roaming the street with the switchblade knife.” Wilkins rebuked those words as “cruelly anti-Negro.” (A few weeks later, the former president privately revealed that he thought switchblades were associated with Italian Americans, and he never meant any harm. He also acknowledged that he needed to be more sensitive in his choice of words.) African Americans likened the convention to Hitler’s Germany. Goldwater’s rhetoric, Jet observed in a special editorial, constituted “the most dangerous development in the history of American politics, for it lights the match that could ignite the fuse of this country’s dynamite-laden keg of extremism, causing an explosion that could destroy our democracy.” The traditionally nonpartisan magazine implored racial and religious minorities to “Register and Vote!” to prevent “a Fourth Reich here.” A Chicago Defender headline read, “GOP Convention, 1964, Recalls Germany, 1933.”56 Concerns over urban turmoil took on new urgency when a race riot broke out in Harlem two days after the convention. A week later vio-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 192

[ 192 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

lence erupted in Rochester, New York. President Johnson worried that if the violence grew, it might put the senator, who trailed badly in the polls, in the White House. Johnson thought Goldwater would encourage and exploit racial tensions because they were his only hope for victory. The day after the riot, however, the Republican nominee announced he would quit the race if he learned that any of his supporters had stirred up racial trouble to help his campaign. Goldwater was sincere; he wanted his opposition to the Civil Rights Act to be understood in legal terms. A week prior to the Republican convention, he had told reporters at a private meeting that he was “very worried” over the “very dangerous” racial situation and that he feared racial violence might break out at one of his rallies. “I think this is the most serious thing our nation has faced since the Civil War,” he said ominously.57 Goldwater and Johnson tried to defuse the situation by meeting at the White House on July 24. The senator had requested the summit in the hope of getting the president to agree not to make race a campaign issue. Johnson suspected that Goldwater was trying use the event to blunt charges of extremism. The two men talked for just sixteen minutes and then issued a brief joint statement expressing their desire “that racial tensions should be avoided” in the campaign.58 Civil rights leaders feared that white anger could propel Goldwater to victory. Polls showed that 81 percent of whites thought the demonstrations hurt African Americans more than they helped. Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, and John Lewis, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), convened on July 29 at Wilkins’s request. President Johnson had lobbied the NAACP leader to curb civil rights protests. The six men eventually agreed to a statement urging a “broad curtailment” of marches until after the election and calling on African Americans to register to vote. “We believe that racism has been injected into the campaign by the Goldwater forces,” they observed. The senator’s affirmation of states’ rights was “clear enough language for any Negro American.”59 Race was also very much on the minds of the prominent Republicans who convened in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on August 12 to unify the party. Goldwater came under heavy pressure to modify his stand and language on racial matters. Nixon appealed to the senator to focus on

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 193

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 193 ]

boosting black employment. “You can have something in civil rights that the other side can’t offer—jobs,” he asserted. “What the Negroes want above everything else is jobs. . . . They are not going to come from FEPC. That will help to an extent, but our line should not be that the answer to high Negro unemployment is to increase white unemployment, which is FEPC, in a sense.” Jobs, Nixon stressed, “come from the private sector.”60 Fearing that events in San Francisco spelled doom for the GOP in the North, liberals pushed Goldwater to reassure voters that his campaign was not based on racism. Charles Percy, who was running for governor of Illinois, insisted that the party not surrender black votes; his campaign was highlighting the failure of Chicago mayor Richard Daley to address school segregation and dilapidated housing in black neighborhoods. Pointing to editorials in New York papers condemning the GOP for accepting the support of the Ku Klux Klan, Rockefeller implored Goldwater to make a clear declaration for “fellows on the lower level” that the party opposed racism and supported equal opportunity for all.61 The most pointed exchange occurred between Goldwater and George Romney, who was seeking reelection as governor of Michigan. Romney stressed that although he did not believe Goldwater was a racist, “people [were] concerned about whether this is a racist campaign” and were abandoning the GOP. Michigan voters were baffled by the GOP’s southern focus, which undermined traditional Republican arguments that because of the Democrats’ sectional divisions, they could never deliver on their civil rights promises.62 Goldwater again felt that his integrity was being challenged unfairly. “All I can ask you to do is to believe that I am an honest man and I will put my record on civil rights against any man in the United States,” he replied. The senator insisted that southern Republicans were not racists. African Americans, Goldwater complained, focused on his vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and failed to appreciate his longer history of support for civil rights. He groused that blacks would not give him a chance to air his views—Wilkins had rebuffed his requests for a meeting three times in the past six years. Likewise, he alleged that the media was deliberately trying to stoke racial tensions and that the Democrats would lie about any Republican’s civil rights record to score political points. “I

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 194

[ 194 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

will promise you, with every degree of seriousness and strength that I have, that I will never talk about racism,” Goldwater said. “I don’t even intend to talk about civil rights. I think it’s such an explosive issue.” The senator described northern cities as “tinderboxes” and said he did not want “[his] grandchildren [to] accuse their grandfather of setting fire to it.” Romney pressed Goldwater for a more emphatic endorsement of federal authority, but the senator rebuffed him.63 Goldwater issued a statement pledging to uphold “any Federal responsibility” to protect civil rights, use the moral power of the presidency to promote racial understanding, and “deal effectively” with social disorder. The candidate also vowed that he would not seek the support of “extremists—of the left or of the right.” Eisenhower, Scranton, and others were satisfied, but that fall, Romney, Rockefeller, Javits, Keating, and several other prominent northern Republicans did something unheard of in presidential politics—they did not endorse their party’s nominee.64 Later that month, thirty-three black Republicans gathered in Philadelphia. Calling itself the National Negro Republican Assembly (NNRA), the group affirmed the constitutionality of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and urged the GOP to pledge enforcement of it. “We are here to defeat those who have infiltrated the party and are seeking to drive the Negro out,” declared George Fleming, a New Jersey insurance executive who became the organization’s leader. “We know our progress toward human dignity cannot be maintained or advanced if we permit any one party to put the Negro vote in its pocket.” Attributing conservatives’ successes in part to black Republicans’ failure to develop strong local organizations, Fleming advised attendees to register voters, raise funds, promote the party among black youth, and support liberals such as Javits and Rockefeller.65 The NNRA was fighting uphill. Several weeks after the convention, party officials ousted Grant Reynolds. Only one African American, Clay J. Claiborne, remained on the GOP’s national campaign staff. According to Dean Burch, the new head of the RNC, the party would not repudiate the Ku Klux Klan. “We’re not in the business of turning away votes,” he announced. J. Drake Edens Jr., chair of the South Carolina GOP, conceded that the party “won’t get a Negro vote . . . until we become economic liberals.” Republicans also continued to tie urban disorder to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 195

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 195 ]

blacks. One party leader in Washington, D.C., told an all-white audience that riot leaders were “well-dressed, responsible Negroes running wild like in the Congo.”66 Surveys of white working-class neighborhoods in the North found that although whites registered high support for abstract notions of equality and welcomed recent civil rights gains, there was deep resentment over jobs, crime, and housing. A Harris poll showed that 61 percent of “white minorities” in the North, meaning those of eastern European ancestry, thought blacks were getting special treatment that their fathers and grandfathers had never enjoyed. Fear of violence lay at the core of whites’ feelings about race. They supported the use of federal troops in the South to keep order if segregationists turned violent. At the same time, they objected to white college students going to Mississippi for Freedom Summer, out of concern that the students would provoke violence by local authorities. The poll also revealed that Goldwater’s supporters, most of whom resided outside the South, overwhelmingly disapproved of civil rights reforms. Seventy percent objected to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and many strongly believed that African Americans were advocating interracial marriage and sexual relations. Not every Goldwater supporter opposed civil rights reforms, but whites who did so were likely to back the senator.67 Other news stories that summer showed similar developments. One Milwaukee voter told a reporter, “Civil rights. They mean throwing bricks and stealing television sets.” A Baltimore resident confidently noted that Goldwater “would know how to handle this civil rights trouble.” A steelworker in Gary, Indiana, vowed he would sell his property “to whoever I damn please.” Gary’s Democratic mayor worried that racial hostility “could tear this city apart.” Racial issues sometimes became the means for lower-class whites to express feelings of invisibility and powerlessness. “They’re always doing something for the niggers,” a Chicago resident complained. “When are they going to do something for white people?” Conservative pundit Ralph de Toledano astutely pointed out that it did not matter what the 1964 Civil Rights Act said about employment or what its proponents intended; what mattered was workingclass whites’ perception that it allowed blacks to threaten their jobs. The

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 196

[ 196 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Democrats, he emphasized, were alienating two core constituencies— white southerners and white working-class northerners—and would become, at great political cost, more dependent on blacks.68 Yet Democrats could take heart. Viewing Goldwater as hostile to their economic interests, white union members backed Johnson despite the president’s stand on race. Labor leaders took nothing for granted, however. They developed educational materials to highlight the senator’s antilabor record and show that the Civil Rights Act would not take whites’ jobs away. Public opinion surveys had another morsel of good news: Johnson was gaining considerable support from Republican voters who feared that Goldwater was trigger-happy, too conservative on economic and other domestic policies, and unfit to be president. The president called this the “frontlash” and worked hard to cultivate it that fall to counter the much-hyped racial “backlash.”69 Several prominent southern politicians who had backed George Wallace earlier in the year now lined up behind Goldwater. The most significant endorsement occurred in September, when Strom Thurmond announced he was becoming a Republican. The Democratic Party had been hijacked by liberals who were “engaged in another Reconstruction,” the South Carolina senator proclaimed. The president of the Citizens Councils of America, a white supremacist group, later observed that Goldwater’s vote against the Civil Rights Act enabled segregationists to “use him as a symbol and build a protest around him.” Summer polls showed Goldwater ahead or nearly ahead in several southern states; according to one survey, only three were solid for Johnson.70

The Campaign and Election Goldwater toured nine southern states in mid-September. Rather than speak directly about race, he accused the federal government of trampling states’ authority and citizens’ liberties. The large and enthusiastic crowds were almost entirely white. One Goldwater rally in Montgomery, Alabama, featured white lilies and nearly 700 white girls in allwhite dresses. A columnist for the New Republic observed, “A foreigner traveling with Barry Goldwater in the South wouldn’t know there were any Negroes in it.” The civil rights issue, he added, “is everywhere, it in-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 197

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 197 ]

trudes on everybody’s thoughts, but it’s like sex—it isn’t mentioned.” When Goldwater spoke in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the grand dragon of the state’s Ku Klux Klan sat behind him on stage. The GOP also withdrew a pro–civil rights pamphlet intended to woo black voters in the District of Columbia after discovering that Democrats were using it to dissuade white southerners from defecting to Goldwater.71 Some state and local GOP leaders engaged in more naked racial appeals. John Grenier, head of the Alabama Republican Party, contended that voting Democratic would mean racial equality and job losses. Some border-state Republicans spread rumors that the Civil Rights Act would force companies to give 10 percent of their jobs to blacks. A Republican worker in Little Rock distributed flyers with pictures of Johnson and African American leaders; the GOP also sponsored a television show in which a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court praised Goldwater for opposing the “damnable” Civil Rights Act. In Louisville a Republican committeeman circulated flyers showing the popular entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. hugging a white woman and urging African Americans to vote for Johnson “for full integration, for preferential treatment in getting a job, for the right to live anywhere, for the right to marry anyone.” The city’s Republican mayor fired him for doing so. Goldwater, who had publicly condemned the Ku Klux Klan, was not responsible for these actions; it is doubtful he even knew about them. Nevertheless, southern Republicans were clearly not interested in the black vote.72 Racial tensions remained strong nationwide. That fall, a Harris poll showed that since August, the percentage of voters who believed changes were happening too quickly had risen by five percentage points, and concern over unsafe streets had climbed eight points, to 61 percent. In early September 275,000 white students and their parents held a one-day boycott of New York City schools to protest a desegregation plan involving the transfer of a small number of white and black students. One leader of the white resistance remarked that her “phone jumped from morning to night” when school officials announced the policy. “In thirty years of civic work in New York, I’d never seen anything like it,” she noted. Angry white parents proclaimed, “Our children also have civil rights.”73 Republicans spoke directly to these concerns. RNC chief Dean Burch acknowledged that the Goldwater campaign had used footage of the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 198

[ 198 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

Harlem riot in commercials, adding that “Negro riots” were one part of the larger question of law and order. William Miller blasted Johnson for sending FBI agents to investigate the murders of three civil rights activists in Mississippi that summer, while making no effort “to protect the property and civil rights of thousands of people in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” Miller also denied the occurrence of police brutality against blacks, a common complaint among African Americans.74 Goldwater weighed in as well. He reassured the white parents in New York City that he fully supported their “fundamental right . . . to determine the proper education of their children.” He described Washington, D.C., home to a large number of African Americans, as “a city embattled, plagued by lawlessness, haunted by fears.” One Goldwater brochure included pictures of a riot-torn street and two dark-skinned African Americans; its text affirmed that the senator would protect the average citizen and uphold the “general welfare” versus “the special appeals for special welfare.” Critics were upset that Goldwater did not denounce police brutality and southern whites’ violence against blacks and that he failed to note that the vast majority of blacks were law-abiding citizens. Nor did he acknowledge that several western cities that were heavily white, including Phoenix, had higher crime rates than Washington and several other racially diverse eastern metropolises.75 Goldwater chose to avoid aggravating racial tensions when he canceled the airing of a thirty-minute film titled Choice. Ostensibly developed by an independent group, the production was in fact crafted with the assistance of the Goldwater campaign. Choice highlighted many nonracial issues, such as the availability of sexually explicit literature, to tell a tale of moral degradation. But its raw, emotional narrative also included stark racial imagery, including scenes of interracial couples dancing suggestively and African Americans rioting while white police officers tried to keep order. Another scene showed peaceful middle-class whites attending church. Initial plans called for the depiction of a racially mixed group of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but the final version featured whites only. Goldwater staffers hoped the film, which was supposed to run on national television in late October, would provide a much-needed boost to the floundering campaign. The film never aired. One day before the scheduled broadcast, information about its contents

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 199

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 199 ]

leaked to the press. When Goldwater (who had given general approval for a film about moral decay but was not involved in the production process) watched the final version, he denounced it as “racist” and insisted it be pulled.76 Goldwater spoke openly about race in Chicago on October 16. Busing to achieve integration, he claimed, was wrong “because it re-introduces through the back door the very principle of allocation by race that makes compulsory segregation wrong and offensive to freedom.” He voiced strong opposition to “racial quotas as a substitute for the principle of equal opportunity in every aspect of social life.” Government, he added, should protect the freedom to associate but also the freedom not to associate. “Our aim . . . is neither to establish a segregated society nor to establish an integrated society,” the candidate proclaimed. “It is to preserve a free society.” Denouncing “some pre-determined bureaucratic schedule of equality,” Goldwater predicted that government efforts to force integration would “surely poison and embitter our relations with one another” and lead to “destruction.” Goldwater considered the speech a principled defense of freedom rather than an appeal to prejudice. Local members of the NAACP, meanwhile, charged that Illinois Republicans had printed millions of antibusing flyers.77 Goldwater stirred strong opposition among African Americans that fall. Several prominent black Republicans refused to work for him or publicly supported Johnson. Expressing alarm at the takeover of the GOP by “the counter forces to Negro liberation,” King endorsed Johnson—the first time he publicly favored any presidential candidate. “Your problem is to bury Goldwater,” Randolph told attendees at the SCLC’s annual convention. Civil rights groups mounted aggressive voter registration drives in African American neighborhoods, and during the final week of the campaign, King visited several large cities to encourage black turnout. Wilkins called for a polite tone; he advised NAACP branches to refrain from labeling Goldwater supporters as racists and Republicans as anti–civil rights. He and other black leaders urged African Americans to show loyalty to pro–civil rights Republicans.78 Some northern Republicans distanced themselves from Goldwater. Clifford Case described the Goldwater campaign as a “sordid” appeal to racial resentment. That September, fifty-four Republicans, including

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 200

[ 200 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

thirty-three former members of the Eisenhower administration, formed the Committee to Support Moderate Republicans. Charles Taft, son of William Howard Taft and brother of Robert Taft, headed the group. The nation was “in a state of political crisis,” Taft wrote, largely because “our kind of Republicans are in disarray.” The committee endorsed liberal and moderate candidates such as Scott, Keating, George H. W. Bush, who was seeking a Senate seat in Texas, and Winthrop Rockefeller, who was challenging Orval Faubus for the governorship of Arkansas.79 Charles Percy, running for governor of Illinois, was Taft’s kind of Republican. During his campaign, Percy published a full-page letter in the Chicago Defender urging African Americans to separate national and state races. He touted his equal employment policies as head of the Bell & Howell Corporation and pledged to expand job opportunities. Percy affirmed his belief in open housing, though not in open housing laws. He insisted that voting Republican was in blacks’ self-interest but added that African Americans were not “playing the game the smart way.” Democrats, he charged, “just string you along,” while Republicans fail to work for racial justice because there is no political payoff.80 Most GOP officials were far less keen to woo black voters. Clay Claiborne oversaw the RNC’s minority outreach largely by himself; in contrast, a staff of twenty ran the Democrats’ drive to get out the black vote. Republican efforts were often deceptive or outright dishonest. The RNC produced a pamphlet claiming that African Americans occupied influential positions in the party, but GOP leaders embellished the job descriptions of those profiled—many worked in the mailroom. As Election Day neared, Claiborne arranged to distribute approximately 1.5 million leaflets in several large northern cities urging African Americans to cast write-in votes for King. This effort, ostensibly led by an organization called Committee for Negroes in Government, also included radio ads. King, who was not a candidate for president, denounced it as “a cruel and vicious attempt to confuse Negro voters and to nullify their votes.” Claiborne was tried in 1966 for violating New Jersey election laws and was acquitted.81 Black leaders leveled similar accusations about the RNC’s Operation Eagle Eye, an anti–voter fraud effort announced in October. GOP officials believed the Democrats had stolen the 1960 election by engaging in

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 201

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 201 ]

unlawful activities in Illinois and elsewhere, and they wanted to prevent that from happening in 1964. Local party organizations sent mail (nearly 2 million pieces by late October) to addresses in precincts suspected of having high rates of fraud. Mail returned by the postal service as undeliverable led to investigations into the existence or eligibility of those addressees and the compilation of lists of individuals the Republicans would challenge as illegitimate voters. The RNC would then deploy local volunteers at polling sites—sometimes with cameras, radios, and other recording devices—to identify and challenge both illegal voters and illegal procedures. Deterrence was a deliberate part of the GOP strategy; the party worked to generate press coverage of Eagle Eye in late October to discourage some people from even trying to vote.82 Republicans maintained that they only wanted to ensure an honest election, but the party’s rhetoric and behavior suggested otherwise. The chair of the Washington, D.C., Republican Party explained that the GOP would challenge voters only when there was “reasonable cause,” but he then defined such a voter as “the kind of guy you can buy for a buck and a bottle of booze.” In Houston handbills appeared in black neighborhoods warning that individuals who had been arrested for traffic tickets or other petty crimes might be arrested if they voted; similar claims were made in black sections of Chicago. Goldwater volunteers in Alabama and Louisiana handed out literature to African Americans indicating that they had to report to the sheriff’s office to clear traffic violations or other legal matters before they could vote. Some California voters reported receiving phone calls instructing them to bring nonexistent registration stubs to the polls if they wanted to vote.83 It is doubtful that Eagle Eye had a negative effect on black voting. African American turnout was quite high, and challenges often failed. Nevertheless, Republican participants believed the effort had been worthwhile. One later observed, “The effectiveness of Operation Eagle Eye does point up how invaluable its deterrent action could be in an election where the margin of victory was not so great.” Republican leaders apparently agreed, for the party would engage in similar activities in subsequent decades and face ongoing accusations of trying to disfranchise African Americans and other minority voters.84 Republicans suffered a crushing defeat that November. Johnson won

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 202

[ 202 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

forty-four states and 61 percent of the vote, the largest total in the nation’s history. Goldwater’s only victories occurred in his home state of Arizona, which he barely won, and five states in the Deep South. Outside the South, Goldwater received at least 45 percent of the vote in just five states; he set a record by losing six states by more than a million votes. Only sixteen of the sixty congressional districts carried by Goldwater lay outside the South. The GOP also lost two Senate seats and thirty-eight House seats, giving the Democrats a more than two-to-one advantage in each house of Congress. The electorate did not simply reject Goldwater; it rejected the Republican Party.85 Johnson would have easily triumphed even if he had lost every African American vote. But he won 94 percent of the African American vote, and African Americans were crucial in delivering Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina to the president. The Republican candidate for governor of the Tar Heel State lamented that receiving only 5 percent of black ballots had cost him the election. The black vote also played a considerable role in Democratic victories in Senate races in Tennessee, Ohio, and Nevada, as well as several congressional contests.86 The much-discussed white “backlash” failed to appear in the North, but it was evident in California, where voters approved Proposition 14 by a two-to-one margin. Johnson, however, achieved extraordinary margins among both working-class whites and white suburbanites in the North and West. Although many whites had misgivings about Johnson’s civil rights policies, they deemed other issues and concerns more important. Similar trends were evident in congressional contests, where not a single member of the House who had voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act lost. King told the president the results in 1964 constituted a “great victory for the forces of progress, and a defeat for the forces of retrogress.” That year, however, marked the last time a Democratic candidate received a majority of the white vote.87 The lone bright spot for the GOP was the South. Goldwater easily triumphed in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. With the exception of Louisiana, this was the first time since Reconstruction that the GOP had won those states. The senator received a stunning 87 percent of the vote in Mississippi. Goldwater was the first Republican presidential candidate in the twentieth century to run better

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 203

race and re pub l i can politics, 1961–1964 [ 203 ]

in Dixie than in the North. White turnout in the Goldwater states rose substantially, and the monochrome nature of the Republican electorate was obvious. Goldwater won few black votes and a majority of white votes in every southern state except Texas. The GOP also made progress at the congressional level. It fielded candidates in substantially more contests than in the past, and victories in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi helped the party achieve a net gain of five southern seats in the House. Each of those new congressmen had been opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.88 Yet southern returns also revealed a resilient Democratic Party. Though Goldwater made a stronger play for the region than any Republican in history, he failed to win a majority of its states or its electoral votes. His electoral tally was lower than Eisenhower’s in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon’s in 1960. Rather than expanding the southern Republican electorate, Goldwater shifted its locus. Eisenhower and Nixon had done best in metropolitan areas, but Goldwater’s strength lay in the rural areas of the Black Belt, where the black population was high but few African Americans were registered to vote—locales that had provided the core support for Strom Thurmond’s 1948 campaign.89

Conclusion In the end, 1964 was notable not only for the Democratic landslide but also for an important shift in voters’ perception of the parties. The public now overwhelmingly saw the Democrats as pro–civil rights, whereas Republicans were seen as hostile or at best neutral. A National Election Study found that 61 percent of respondents believed the Democrats were more likely to help African Americans obtain fair treatment in jobs and housing; only 7 percent identified the Republicans as more likely to help blacks. Likewise, 56 percent judged the Democrats as more inclined to push for school integration, whereas 7 percent chose the Republicans. These patterns would remain deeply entrenched for decades to come.90 Six weeks after the election, a reporter asked Goldwater about the impact of race on the campaign. The senator replied that, according to civil rights leaders, the results among black voters would have been largely the same if Nixon, Rockefeller, or Scranton had headed the ticket. Gold-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 204

[ 204 ] ch ap t e r s e v e n

water’s comment indicates that 1964 was less of a turning point in the relationship between the GOP and African Americans than many pundits and historians have contended. Emotions were stronger in 1964, but the underlying beliefs of both the Republican Party and black voters were essentially unchanged. The GOP still gave scant attention to African Americans, and blacks continued to see little reason to vote Republican.91 A few African Americans believed the enormity of the GOP defeat would force the party to shift gears. “A revived and moderated Republican Party will likely try to correct the error of Goldwater’s ways and encourage Negroes to rejoin the grand old party,” Jet magazine forecast. “Few inducements will be left unpromised.” Developments over the next four years would show that such expectations were largely unfulfilled.92

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 205

African Americans have long viewed the federal government as a potential ally in their struggle for equality. Here, on August 26, 1952, NAACP representatives Roy Wilkins (left) and Theodore Spaulding (right) lobby Dwight Eisenhower to support legislation to establish a compulsory Fair Employment Practices Commission and other federal efforts to combat discrimination. (International News Service)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 206

Black leaders were routinely frustrated by Dwight Eisenhower’s belief that meetings, conferences, and speeches about civil rights would yield little change. Here, on January 13, 1954, NAACP representatives meet with Eisenhower at the White House. (National Park Service)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 207

Established by the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the United States Commission on Civil Rights investigated racial discrimination across the nation and made policy recommendations. Here, Dwight Eisenhower observes the swearing in of commission members on January 3, 1958. (National Park Service)

Dwight Eisenhower received several awards for his early civil rights initiatives. Here, on May 5, 1955, representatives from the Chicago Defender present him with the Robert Abbott Memorial Award, named for the paper’s founder. Noted civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall stands to Eisenhower’s left. (National Park Service)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 208

Baseball legend Jackie Robinson worked for Richard Nixon’s election in 1960 and campaigned for Nelson Rockefeller in 1964. However, he described the 1964 GOP convention, which nominated Arizona senator Barry Goldwater for president, as “one of the most . . . frightening experiences of my life.” Here, Robinson is shown meeting with Dwight Eisenhower and actor-comedian Joe E. Brown on May 14, 1957. (National Park Service)

Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president, courted white southerners in his bid to shift the GOP’s base to the South and the West. Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other federal racial initiatives helped inspire high black voter turnout for Democrat Lyndon Johnson in November. Here, Goldwater campaigns in Alabama. (Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona Collection, Arizona State University Libraries)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 209

Republicans were essential to passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Here, Republican senator Everett Dirksen (Ill.) is seated alongside Democratic senator Hubert Humphrey (Minn.) following the June 10, 1964, vote to end the filibuster by southern Democrats. They are surrounded by a bipartisan group of senators who voted for cloture. This was the first time the Senate had approved cloture on a civil rights measure. (Everett Dirksen Congressional Leadership Center)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 210

Republican support was crucial to enacting the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which established stronger federal oversight of elections and electoral procedures in several southern states. Republicans also supported its renewal in 1970. On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson was joined by a bipartisan group to celebrate the signing of the bill into law (left to right): Senator Jacob Javits (RN.Y.), Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.), President Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives John McCormack (D-Mass.), and an unidentified person. (Lyndon Baines Johnson Library)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 211

New York governor Nelson Rockefeller provided financial assistance to Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. Rockefeller also called on fellow Republicans to support federal initiatives regarding racial matters. In 1965 Rockefeller spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King was a minister. King is seated to Rockefeller’s right. (Rockefeller Center Archive)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 212

The first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote, Edward Brooke (Mass.) served two terms. He was a member of the President’s Commission on Civil Disorders, which investigated the urban riots of the mid-1960s, and he regularly urged fellow Republicans to support a stronger federal role in issues such as poverty, housing, and voting. (United States Senate Historical Office)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 213

Richard Nixon courted white southerners in 1968 by promising to limit federal efforts to promote school integration. Nixon’s strategy included gaining the support of Senator Strom Thurmond (S.C.). Thurmond, who had been a staunch opponent of federal civil rights efforts in the 1950s and 1960s, joined the GOP in 1964. Here, Nixon and Thurmond are shown during the 1968 campaign. (Strom Thurmond Institute)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 214

The NAACP routinely criticized Richard Nixon’s approach to racial politics and policy. Here, Nixon and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins are shown meeting at the White House on February 7, 1969. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 215

Richard Nixon was eager to make the South part of his drive for a Republican political majority. Harry Dent, who had worked for Strom Thurmond during the 1950s, served as Nixon’s chief political liaison to the South. Here, Dent is shown meeting with Nixon on February 21, 1973. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

Richard Nixon regularly clashed with civil rights leaders over the role of the federal government in furthering African Americans’ economic progress. Here, on January 31, 1969, Nixon is shown touring an African American section of Washington, D.C. Several black neighborhoods had suffered extensive damage during the riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 216

Richard Nixon also courted working-class whites in the North and West. Although many of them were Democrats, they opposed federal efforts to integrate schools and neighborhoods and federal spending on welfare and other antipoverty initiatives. Here, Nixon is shown with AFL-CIO president George Meany at a White House dinner for prominent labor leaders on September 7, 1970. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 217

Richard Nixon clashed with George Romney, who served as secretary of housing and urban development from 1969 to 1973, on neighborhood integration. Since entering politics in the early 1960s, Romney had been a prominent spokesman for a stronger federal role in racial issues. Here, Nixon and Romney are shown meeting at the White House on December 22, 1969. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

The Congressional Black Caucus tried, unsuccessfully, to prod Richard Nixon to boost the federal government’s efforts to combat poverty, promote integration, and alleviate other racial inequalities. Here, Nixon is shown meeting with the caucus on March 25, 1971. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 218

Sammy Davis Jr. endured strong criticism from African Americans for endorsing Richard Nixon in 1972. A year later, at Nixon’s invitation, Davis and his wife Altovise were the first African American guests to sleep at the White House. Davis later regretted his ties to Nixon and supported the Democratic Party. Here, on August 22, 1972, Davis and Nixon appear at a youth rally at the GOP convention in Miami. (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum)

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 219

Civil Rights Policy, 1965–1968

8

In January 1965 Lyndon Johnson was on top of the world. Having achieved an impressive set of legislative victories in 1964—civil rights, federal aid to education, and the most ambitious federal effort to combat poverty since the Great Depression—he intended to do more. Johnson labeled his agenda the Great Society. He embodied liberalism’s promise that the federal government could improve citizens’ lives. With just 140 Republicans in the House and 32 in the Senate, the GOP was in its weakest position since the early 1940s.1 This did not mean the Republican Party had no influence on policy. Between 1965 and 1968 lawmakers wrestled with questions of voting rights, housing, education, and poverty. They also confronted the most widespread and destructive racial violence in the nation’s history. Republicans again helped achieve notable reforms that aided blacks, yet they continued to limit federal power outside the South. At the same time, the GOP began to blur regional distinctions. Racial debates still often focused on the South, but they also became about mostly black cities and largely white suburbs. Republicans worked to keep federal authority at bay for suburban voters, whether they resided near Dallas or Chicago. The GOP assured these voters that they would not be taxed to pay for sharply increased antipoverty spending and that federal authorities would not shake up housing or schooling patterns.

[ 219 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 220

[ 220 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

The Voting Rights Act Civil rights activists regarded the 1964 election as a powerful reminder that freedom required full and equal participation in the political process. Disfranchisement was a greater problem in the Deep South than in the peripheral South. By 1964, 45 percent of age-eligible African Americans were registered to vote in Virginia, versus just 6.7 percent in Mississippi. Literacy tests—which white officials continued to argue were a raceneutral means of ensuring an informed electorate—remained the most common way to thwart black voting. Employers sometimes fired black workers who tried to register, while other whites used violence. Freedom Summer, which drew thousands of white college students to Mississippi in 1964, produced few voters but resulted in thirty-five shootings, the burning of at least sixty-five homes and churches, dozens of beatings, and six murders. The killing of three activists, two of whom were white, led to heightened media scrutiny of the oppressive conditions blacks endured. State and local officials did little or nothing to stop the violence; many tried to curb registration drives by arresting activists for minor infractions or bringing false charges against them.2 The SCLC commenced a voting rights campaign, led by Martin Luther King Jr., in Selma, Alabama, in January 1965. More than half the county’s voting-age population was African American, but only 335 were registered. The registration office was open just two days a week, and applicants were required to answer sixty-eight questions; read, write, and understand portions of the Constitution; and provide documentation from a registered voter affirming their “good moral character.” White registrars thus had numerous opportunities to deny black applications. The SCLC was again counting on local authorities to overreact, thereby prodding the White House and Congress to strengthen federal laws.3 By early February, 2,600 protesters, including some children, were in jail. Photographs depicting police violence against peaceful demonstrators appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the nation. Still, Alabama Republican congressman James D. Martin claimed that voter discrimination was “not an issue.” On February 18 a state trooper shot an unarmed African American, Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was trying to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 221

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 221 ]

protect his mother and grandfather from officers. Jackson died eight days later. The most dramatic development came on March 7, when police attacked roughly 600 nonviolent demonstrators with clubs, cattle prods, and tear gas. The crowd fled as the officers pursued them. That night, ABC interrupted a movie about Nazi Germany to show viewers almost fifteen minutes of footage of what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Marches over the next three weeks produced additional white violence that led to the deaths of two white demonstrators.4 The Johnson administration proposed voting rights legislation on March 17. Two days earlier, during a nationally televised address, the president had indicated where he stood—squarely on the side of the demonstrators—by declaring, “We shall overcome.” Johnson’s use of this phrase, from a famous civil rights anthem, brought tears to King’s eyes. The bill would greatly expand federal authority over southern electoral procedures. It contained an automatic trigger provision that would suspend literacy tests or similar devices in areas where less than half the voting-age population was registered or had voted. This included Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, thirtyfour counties in North Carolina, and a smattering of other locales around the nation. Under the direction of the attorney general, federal officials would be able to register voters in these locations. States covered by the trigger provision had to obtain federal court approval of any changes in their voting laws; this came to be known as “preclearance.”5 Administration officials focused on courting Dirksen, whom they saw as key to overcoming a filibuster. Dirksen welcomed reforms in the South, but he succeeded in securing provisions that allowed literacy tests outside Dixie to survive. Such tests had been in place for decades in the North, and in the early twentieth century, Republicans had considered them useful to limit voting by the lower classes, especially poorly educated immigrants.6 House Republicans supported an alternative bill crafted by William McCulloch and Gerald Ford of Michigan, their new leader. Their proposal would allow the attorney general to appoint a federal examiner whenever the Justice Department received twenty-five valid complaints of voting discrimination from a given area. Confirmation by the examiner that twenty-five or more people had been discriminated against

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 222

[ 222 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

would establish a pattern or practice, which would then allow the appointment of additional examiners, who could register voters. Ford and McCulloch touted their bill as superior to the president’s because it applied wherever discrimination existed, not to just a few states. The White House’s measure, they correctly noted, did nothing about Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and other southern states that did not have literacy tests. Dismissing the trigger provision as “an arbitrary percentage formula,” Ford and McCulloch worried that federal officials might charge localities with discrimination when none existed. Low rates of political participation might result from voters’ apathy or other factors unrelated to discrimination, they contended.7 The Ford-McCulloch bill expanded federal power compared with earlier voting laws, and it reflected substantial changes in the suffrage debate compared with previous decades, when Congress had refused to abolish the poll tax and ignored other forms of disfranchisement. New Yorker John Lindsay and other liberal Republicans were surprised at how much their colleagues were willing to boost federal authority. Even so, the Ford-McCulloch bill preserved more state autonomy than the White House legislation did, and it placed a greater burden on applicants. Two differences were especially significant. First, the Ford-McCulloch measure did not ban literacy tests, although it required any test to be applied fairly, and it deemed a sixth-grade education proof of literacy. Second, it did not require states to seek federal approval for changes in voting laws.8 Southern Republicans worked hard to defeat the White House’s proposal. Mississippi GOP leader Wirt Yerger Jr. lobbied Republicans across the nation to rally to the South’s defense. Johnson’s bill, he contended, “was conceived in an atmosphere of hysteria” following “one irresponsible act of brutality on the part of the few.” It would “throw open the gates of chaos.” Yerger resented the fact that New York would be able to prohibit an illiterate person from voting, but Mississippi would not. Southern Republicans “have been working to upgrade, rather than to downgrade the electorate,” he claimed. “Demagogues in the South will have a field day if large numbers of ignorant, illiterate persons are suddenly given the vote.” A Republican group in Louisiana wrote to Nixon, urging him to uphold black suffrage rights but also to push for the continuation of literacy tests. Taking that position, they posited, “would not

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 223

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 223 ]

cost us one single vote.” The organization maintained that local illiterates voted exactly as the Democrats instructed, and some sold their votes for a can of beer or $25. Senate Republicans’ support for the administration bill “stymied” efforts to “get those constitutionally minded people who have been voting with us through the years into their rightful home—the Republican Party. . . . Please help us,” they implored.9 The Republican Party in Charleston County, South Carolina, offered a similar complaint, alleging that the White House bill was political payback against states that had backed Goldwater. “To the extent that the national [Republican] party participates in this unmitigated assault on the state of South Carolina, our task of expanding the Republican Party and finding sound solutions to internal problems is made much more difficult, if not impossible,” they informed Ford.10 These southern Republicans were reacting in part to recent developments. Since the late nineteenth century, many Democrats had used stark racial imagery and a combative tone to appeal to whites’ fear of rule by poor, illiterate blacks. George Wallace and others now followed in their footsteps. Although the Alabama governor had many admirers across Dixie, others considered him an embarrassment who undermined white supremacy by drawing national attention to racial matters they preferred to keep local.11 Southern Republicans’ appeals also reflected beliefs about race and class that were deeply rooted in the region’s past. Since Reconstruction whites had equated black political participation with corruption. Southern elites justified literacy tests and other means of disfranchising blacks (and poor whites) by professing their desire for honest, effective government led, of course, by themselves. Despite such concerns about good government, corruption among whites was often ignored, and southern Democratic parties did have a long history of corruption. Sometimes Democrats paid the poll tax for black voters as a way to gain or hold power, while others paid black leaders to rally voters or paid voters directly. The extent of such efforts is difficult to measure, but they did occur.12 Politics, southern conservatives insisted, was the province of the white elite. Columnist James Kilpatrick indicated he was in favor of letting qualified blacks vote, but he believed “the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified.” Low rates of black registration,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 224

[ 224 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

he asserted, stemmed more from apathy than from the actions of white registrars. Kilpatrick considered mass black voting a threat to the very foundations of southern society. “Whatever social and political values have been created . . . the white property owner has created them,” he contended. In locales where blacks outnumbered whites, “it has been the white leadership that has kept the machinery going—paid the taxes, provided the capital, met the bills. To have yielded political control of these functions to a mass of relatively un-educated Negro voters, easily led, unequipped for public administration, would have meant total disintegration of the whole establishment.”13 These matters involved a complicated, vicious web. Some African Americans could not answer rudimentary literacy questions correctly, reflecting the poor education (or the total lack of education) they had received in school systems controlled by whites. White elites then took this failure as evidence of intellectual inferiority and proof that such individuals should not vote. Blacks locked out of the electoral process thought participating in politics offered little or no benefit and, given white violence, could be dangerous. As far back as the early twentieth century, African American leaders had to work hard to convince them that political participation was worthwhile. A 1945 editorial in one black Virginia newspaper, for example, chided African Americans who paid the $3 fee for a dog license but not the $1.50 poll tax. Roy Wilkins wrote in 1957 that southern blacks could not expect change unless they showed more interest in voting.14 Yerger and his allies were fighting a losing battle. Support for the administration’s legislation was especially strong in the Senate. A bipartisan group of liberals tried but failed to add a ban on the poll tax, which still existed in a handful of states. Dirksen agreed to drop language exempting states that had registered at least 60 percent of adult residents; civil rights groups feared southern states would simply register more whites to escape federal regulation. Former senator Goldwater warned that the president’s bill would “end the democratic process and the republican form of government we have so long enjoyed.” Senate Republicans ignored him and allied with liberal Democrats to defeat several amendments from southern Democrats, including attempts to eliminate the automatic trigger and preclearance sections. On May 25 Republicans backed cloture by

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 225

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 225 ]

a two-to-one ratio. The measure passed easily the next day, with thirty Republicans supporting it and only two (John Tower and Strom Thurmond) opposed.15 Initially, almost all the Republicans in the House lined up behind the Ford-McCulloch bill. Later, certain that the White House bill was going to pass, Republicans reversed course and supported it by a five-to-one ratio.16 Over the next five decades, Republicans would regularly point to the final tally as proof of their civil rights bona fides. This effort commenced just days after the roll call, when political barbs flew back and forth between the White House and Capitol Hill. The president accused House Republicans of trying to “dilute” the legislation. Republican Charles Goodell of New York responded by pointing out that a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats had voted for each of the four major civil rights bills enacted since 1957.17 Goodell’s claim was true but misleading. First, he failed to note that only one of the seventeen Republicans from ex-Confederate states supported the Voting Rights Act. Southern Republicans, in other words, voted like southern Democrats. The GOP was becoming more divided along regional lines as its southern wing expanded. Second, the vote on the Ford-McCulloch bill revealed more about House Republicans’ stand on the suffrage issue than did the final tally on the White House’s version. The Senate proved more eager than the House to boost federal power—a pattern that would be repeated regularly over the next decade. Few Republicans had shown much interest in combating voting rights abuses in the South in the 1940s and early 1950s. They had lined up behind two relatively mild expansions of federal authority in 1957 and 1960 but then exhibited little concern during the Kennedy administration. Several factors had coalesced by 1965 to shift the policy climate. Events in Selma legitimized the African American freedom struggle in the eyes of white Americans, who strongly condemned violence by law enforcement personnel and looked favorably on the demonstrators’ goal of securing the franchise. This made it harder for nonsouthern lawmakers to ignore voting injustices. Johnson’s decision to set a bold agenda and then stand behind it forced Republicans to either back much stronger federal oversight of electoral policy in the South or vote along-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 226

[ 226 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

side southern Democrats. Finally, voting rights did not involve economic regulation or the transfer of wealth from whites to blacks, areas in which Republicans had shown a stronger inclination to resist federal authority. They could support the Voting Rights Act knowing that it would affect few if any of their constituents because it was aimed at the South.18 By 1970, more than 1 million African Americans had been added to voter rolls across Dixie. Gains were especially dramatic in Mississippi and Alabama. The number of black politicians across the region would soar in the decades to come. The Voting Rights Act was a significant step toward a more just society, but it was no panacea. Registration was just one step in the political process. Money, organization, and turnout also mattered, and among many African Americans, especially the poor, these were in short supply. African Americans remained a minority in most parts of the South and could be outvoted by whites unless strong biracial alliances formed. In the years ahead, southern communities limited black political power by gerrymandering districts, crafting new registration requirements, holding more at-large elections, and other techniques.19

Racial Violence Events in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles abruptly shifted lawmakers’ attention. The largest race riot in American history up to that point began on August 11 when a white police officer pulled over an African American he suspected of drunk driving. As several officers tried to subdue the man, a crowd assembled and began to throw things at the police. African Americans had long criticized city police for excessive force, and over the next several days, rioters looted stores and set fire to buildings, most of them owned by whites. Sixteen thousand National Guard troops and police officers were deployed by August 14. By the time the riot ended, there were 34 dead (most of them African American) and more than 1,000 injured; more than 3,000 people had been arrested, and nearly 1,000 buildings had been damaged or destroyed. Smaller-scale violence occurred that month in Chicago and several locales in the East. Much of the nation, including the White House, was stunned.20 African American leaders tended to talk about urban violence in sociological, sometimes apocalyptic, language. In this view, joblessness,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 227

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 227 ]

poverty, and racism led to feelings of alienation and resentment, which in turn fueled violence. Psychologist Kenneth Clark, who had launched an initiative to improve educational and employment opportunities in Harlem in the early 1960s, described poor black neighborhoods as “a nuclear stockpile which can annihilate the very foundations of America.” King called for a civilian review board to monitor police and increased antipoverty spending. Some African Americans welcomed the riot as the start of a long-overdue revolution.21 Some Republicans echoed these socioeconomic explanations, but others flatly rejected them. “Let us cease to engage in the verbal lynching of policemen,” James Martin pleaded; they “are being used as an excuse for every robber, rapist, and murderer.” Republicans also bristled at claims that American society was somehow at fault. “Now I am asked to assume blame . . . because my skin is white,” Martin defiantly proclaimed. “I refuse to accept such responsibility.” Republicans often repeated Goldwater’s argument that civil disorder stemmed in part from liberal elites stirring up hope for social change that could not be achieved.22 The Republican Coordinating Committee issued a civil rights proclamation, “Equality in America: A Promise Unfulfilled,” three weeks after the Watts riot. The committee, which consisted of prominent lawmakers and party officials, rejected Goldwater’s call to blame Democrats for the riot and other lawlessness, but it pledged “vigorous law enforcement.” The committee boasted of Republicans’ part in assorted civil rights reforms and blasted Johnson’s failure to press for school integration and his tardiness in implementing the equal employment provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Civil rights groups had leveled some of the same criticisms.23 Yet in other respects, the statement was guaranteed to fall flat with African Americans. The committee devoted a great deal of attention to condemning voter fraud in the North and South but was silent about jobs, housing, and other matters of great concern to blacks. “We are entering a new phase of the struggle for equality of opportunity and responsibility,” the group observed. “In this phase major emphasis must be placed on state, local, and private action.”24 Meanwhile, white violence against civil rights activists in the South continued. In June 1966 a white man shot James Meredith during a

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 228

[ 228 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

peaceful protest walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. Several days later three Mississippi Klan members brutally executed sixty-five-year-old Ben Chester White; they randomly stopped White by the side of the road on the pretext of hiring him to do some chores and then shot him nineteen times. The three were set free. Whites engaged in other attacks against civil rights activists in Mississippi and other parts of Dixie that summer.25 Black leaders disagreed over how to respond to this barbarity. Alarmed over the “complete breakdown of law and order” in Mississippi, King appealed to the White House for federal aid. Johnson’s refusal deepened some activists’ mistrust of him and other Democrats. Stokely Carmichael, who had become head of SNCC that spring, gave voice to some of their anger and frustration by demanding “black power.” Carmichael urged African Americans to stop “begging” for their rights. “Every courthouse in Mississippi ought to be burned down tomorrow,” he said soon after the Meredith and White shootings. Some Black Power advocates pointed to events in the South as proof that integration was impossible; blacks would be better off focusing on themselves. Wilkins, King, and other civil rights leaders found this approach self-defeating, morally dubious, and even suicidal.26 Racial violence was not confined to the South. Eight cities, seven of them in the North, experienced race riots or near riots during a twentyday stretch in July 1966. The most dramatic outbreak occurred in Chicago, where ghetto residents clashed with police over whether fire hydrants should be opened—as they had been in some white neighborhoods—to provide relief from the intense summer heat. African Americans also complained about a lack of swimming pools and other recreational facilities that were available to whites. Whites tended to blame African Americans, not racism or poverty, for the violence.27 King and an interracial group of activists stepped up their direct action campaign against slums, segregated schools, poverty, and housing discrimination in Chicago. They held marches in white neighborhoods and staged protests at real estate agencies. Enormous crowds of whites greeted the nonviolent demonstrators with Confederate flags and taunts of “White power!” and “Burn them like Jews!” Many threw stones, bricks, and other debris. King, who was hit by a rock, told reporters, “I

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 229

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 229 ]

have never in my life seen such hate.” Some blacks retaliated with violence. By early September, King and Mayor Richard Daley reached an agreement under which the city promised assorted reforms. Tensions subsided, but not before two people died, scores of buildings were damaged by fire and looting, and several thousand police and National Guard forces were deployed. The violence constituted the latest and most intense round of racial conflict that had been raging in the Windy City for decades.28 The summer of 1966 marked the fourth consecutive year of widespread civil disorder. Social scientists, along with many liberal Democrats, contended the violence stemmed from forces beyond an individual’s control. Republicans sharply disagreed. “Some of our own big cities are rapidly reverting to the jungle,” Ford remarked. He asked a gathering at the Illinois State Fair, “How long are we going to abdicate law and order— the backbone of any civilization—in favor of a soft social theory that the man who heaves a brick through your car or your window or tosses a firebomb into your car or snipes at firemen is simply the misunderstood and underprivileged product of a broken home?” A western Republican confessed that black leaders’ talk about violence “shook [him] up.” Republicans accused civil rights leaders, the Supreme Court, communists, and, most often, Democrats of fostering a climate of lawlessness. One GOP lawmaker accused Democrats of using the riots to “ram through massive spending programs for city Democratic political machines.29

Housing, Education, and Poverty It was in this charged climate that Johnson called for additional reforms. There was widespread bipartisan support for his plan to boost federal protection for civil rights workers and to ban discrimination in jury selection. These were aimed primarily at the South. His proposal to outlaw discrimination in the sale or rental of housing, which applied nationwide, was far less popular. Republican help was unlikely, as McCulloch and Dirksen, two of the president’s strongest GOP allies in 1964, firmly opposed it.30 Civil rights activists saw housing segregation as a prime cause of segregated schools, which left black students ill prepared for the job market.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 230

[ 230 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

African American poverty, in other words, stemmed as much (or more) from a lack of training and skills as from discrimination by employers or a lack of initiative by applicants. In addition, businesses were expanding much more rapidly in the suburbs than in black neighborhoods. Activists thought stronger federal action was essential; Kennedy’s 1962 executive order banning discrimination in new units built under two government programs applied to less than 3 percent of the nation’s housing.31 Perhaps the only thing that stirred more white resistance than integrated neighborhoods was interracial dating or marriage. According to a 1966 poll, nearly 60 percent of whites nationwide would be upset if they had a black neighbor. White opposition rose to 76 percent in neighborhoods where African Americans were more likely to move—that is, areas typically inhabited by whites who could not afford to move to the suburbs.32 Whites associated blacks with a host of ills. A grocery store manager in Chicago observed that African Americans were “usually dirty and bring rats and bugs,” while a Florida resident announced he would tolerate a black neighbor “only if he was a good yard man. . . . Then I could hire him cheap to do my yard.” White families saw their homes as their chief source of financial security, and they feared black neighbors would cause home values to drop. Whites also regarded their homes as sanctuaries from the larger world and as proof of their sacrifice, success, and membership in the mainstream of American life. Especially for white working-class families, home and neighborhood had long provided a sense of identity within a larger community bound together by religion, ethnicity, and work. As wealthier whites fled to the suburbs, those who remained in the cities were even more determined to protect their neighborhoods from the violence and social decay they thought African Americans were sure to cause. For decades, urban and suburban whites had occasionally used violence to drive out blacks or prevent them from moving into white neighborhoods. Class tensions were also prominent; many working-class whites resented white politicians and other elites who favored neighborhood integration but did not have to live next to blacks themselves or send their children to heavily black schools.33 Whites tended to believe that segregated neighborhoods reflected personal preferences—theirs as well as African Americans’. They thought

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 231

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 231 ]

that unlike in the South, where African Americans were unjustly constrained by laws regarding public accommodations and voting, the rest of the nation operated as an open, fair marketplace where individuals reaped what they sowed. The government had not helped them, whites claimed, and they saw no reason why it should aid African Americans, whom they deemed unwilling or unable to compete in school and at work. They spoke passionately about their “rights,” which they defined as being free from government interference in the buying, selling, or renting of property.34 Civil rights advocates had long argued that residential segregation was not simply a matter of choice. Federal, state, and local governments, as well as the housing industry, had helped create, maintain, and encourage it. Sometimes this was deliberate; in the early twentieth century many cities had enacted residential segregation laws, and government agencies sometimes excluded racial minorities from federal housing programs or made participation prohibitively expensive. Restrictive covenants, which barred the sale of property to members of certain races or ethnicities, had also locked blacks out of many neighborhoods (although the Supreme Court had invalidated the enforcement of such covenants in 1948). Real estate agencies, lenders, and insurance agencies often refused to serve blacks or steered them away from white neighborhoods. Real estate agencies also exploited whites’ racial fears through blockbusting: agents would spread rumors that blacks were moving into the neighborhood as a way to prod whites to sell them their homes at reduced prices; then the agents often sold or rented the properties to African Americans. Home builders accepted government financial assistance and then barred African Americans from their units.35 Policy makers’ desire to expand suburbia also facilitated segregation. Governments adopted zoning regulations that restricted or prohibited multifamily housing, which put many suburban neighborhoods financially off-limits to the lower classes of any race. Governments facilitated home ownership by spending money on infrastructure, offering guarantees to lenders that encouraged them to make mortgages more widely available and more affordable, and allowing home owners to reduce their tax burdens by deducting their mortgage interest and property taxes. The way these policies functioned, however, encouraged home owners

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 232

[ 232 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

to see them as the natural workings of a value-neutral market. Many of these policies were created and operated without conscious racial malice, and home owners certainly worked hard to buy and maintain their homes. Nevertheless, the ethos of self-sufficiency that many white home owners used to contrast themselves with unworthy blacks dependent on the government was a gross oversimplification; white suburbanites did receive government assistance.36 Lawmakers’ mail was almost exclusively against the housing provision (Title IV) of Johnson’s civil rights bill. Some of that opposition was due to a grassroots lobbying effort by the National Association of Real Estate Boards, whose spokesman denounced the legislation as an “affront to the American tradition of freedom of contract.” The president of a large California real estate organization warned local agents, “YOUR BUSINESS IS IN JEOPARDY.” Dismissing Title IV as “an invasion of property rights,” Dirksen announced that most Republicans had “no stomach” for it.37 Republican critics wove together long-standing attitudes about race as well as more imminent concerns. Several charged that the legislation would reward lawbreakers and stir unrealistic expectations for racial progress. A few highlighted the recent violence as proof that existing civil rights laws had failed and resurrected claims that laws could not change racial patterns. Although civil rights leaders pointed out that high poverty rates meant that few African Americans would be moving to the suburbs anytime soon, some legislators engaged in demagogic appeals. “Title IV,” William Dickinson of Alabama forecast, “would have the practical effect of extending the cities’ current lawlessness and rioting into the suburbs to which people have fled.” It would destroy private property rights and “grant special privileges to a 10-percent group.” The House Republican Policy Committee turned its fire on a proposed Fair Housing Board, which House Democrats had added to the bill without the White House’s endorsement. The legacy of the New Deal loomed large as the committee charged that the Fair Housing Board, which would have cease-and-desist powers of enforcement, posed a greater threat to individual freedom than the NLRB.38 The legislation passed on August 9 with a slim majority of Republican support. Twenty-five Republicans who had backed the 1964 Civil Rights Act voted against it. As with the Voting Rights Act, the most revealing

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 233

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 233 ]

factor was not the final tally. In an earlier vote, a majority of Republicans had favored a proposal, offered by Arch Moore (R-Va.), to delete Title IV altogether. Romney, Scranton, and other liberals appealed to Ford to rally House Republicans against Moore’s amendment, but the minority leader refused. What may have helped bring Republicans on board to support the final bill was the amendment by Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (R-Md.), which left roughly 62 percent of the nation’s housing stock free from antidiscrimination policies (Mathias offered it as a way to retain at least some of Title IV).39 Dirksen was the center of attention as the bill moved to the Senate. Javits warned that failure to pass it would mean more urban disorder, and some state GOP leaders informed Dirksen that state and local candidates needed black votes to win elections. The Illinois senator remained firm in his opposition, however. Southern Democrats filibustered, but this time, they were sometimes aided by Republicans, who absconded to the Senate cloakroom to avoid quorum calls or even joined the filibuster. “The Senate has to demonstrate it will not be intimidated by marches and demonstrations into passing lousy legislation for a very small minority of the people,” Dirksen stated.40 Johnson summoned Dirksen to the White House, but even the president’s legendary persuasive skills failed to bring the senator on board. Urban decay and segregation, Dirksen told the president, resulted from blacks’ behavior, not housing discrimination. The Illinois lawmaker informed Johnson that the chairman of the University of Chicago Psychology Department had moved out of Hyde Park because crime, drug abuse, and disorder had increased as the black population rose. According to the professor, the situation was so bad that university trustees had considered relocating the entire campus. Dirksen similarly pointed to a businessman who had lost half a million dollars because his retail tenants in Hyde Park were fleeing to the suburbs to be near their customers, who were afraid to shop in the neighborhood.41 Cloture failed by ten votes, with Republicans voting almost two to one against it. Whereas twenty-seven Republicans had backed cloture in 1964, just twelve did this time. “The old-time coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans were united and effective,” crowed James Eastland. Republicans reiterated arguments about the rights of property owners and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 234

[ 234 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

the dangers of federal power; some dusted off anti-FEPC arguments from the 1940s. Wallace Bennett (R-Utah) maintained, “Measures like this are not going to encourage the basic individual initiative of . . . those who live in the ghettos, to get out and earn a living and to make a way for themselves in America.” A second cloture vote failed, again by ten votes.42 The GOP’s stance drew sharp criticism from civil rights leaders. King accused the bill’s opponents of giving “valuable assistance to those forces in the Negro communities who counsel violence.” The NAACP’s annual report for 1966 declared, “It was the obdurate, race prejudice promoting attitude of Everett M. Dirksen . . . that prevented the invoking of cloture.” Clarence Mitchell claimed Dirksen had replaced Eastland as “the greatest single roadblock to civil rights legislation.”43 Republicans resisted several other attempts to integrate African Americans into spaces whites regarded as their own. Race lay just beneath the surface in the debate over the Johnson administration’s plan to provide rent supplements so low-income families could afford better housing. “Every neighborhood in America will be opened up to public housing,” James Martin warned. “A Washington bureaucrat is going to pick your neighbor, and if his choice is too poor to be able to afford to live in your neighborhood, or too indolent to want to strive to better his economic condition, then the Federal Government will take your tax money to pay his rent so he can live next door to you.” Whites had long associated public housing with blacks. Likewise, Paul Fino, a Republican congressman from the Bronx, called the program “a blank check to . . . subsidize forced economic integration.” Even though Fino did not use openly racist language, race was very much on his mind; he made nearly concurrent allegations that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) secretly intended to force school integration on the North. Rent supplements passed in both houses of Congress, despite minuscule Republican support. Both parties rallied to insert language requiring local approval of all rent supplement contracts; this provision helped ensure that during the first four years of the program, less than 10 percent of all eligible housing units were located in the suburbs.44 Similar patterns were evident with regard to education. School boards, black protesters alleged, intentionally gerrymandered boundaries to preserve segregation. White suburban students attended classes in well-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 235

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 235 ]

funded, gleaming new buildings, but black schools were often overcrowded and squalid. Activists also demanded curricular reforms, such as the teaching of African American history. Some waged their battles through the courts and local politics, but others engaged in boycotts or walkouts. High black dropout rates and low academic achievement, they contended, were caused by systemic failures rather than individual shortcomings.45 Blacks in the South were also concerned about schools. Twelve years after Brown, little or no integration had occurred. “Freedom of choice” plans, whereby districts allowed parents to choose which schools their children attended, had mushroomed. Civil rights groups charged that such policies put the burden of integration largely on African Americans parents, who often faced heavy pressure from white school officials to keep their children in all-black schools. HEW only intermittently withheld federal financial aid, which had increased substantially because of the 1964 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The department issued stricter guidelines in March 1966 that required “substantial progress” by the start of the upcoming school year. HEW would still accept “freedom of choice” plans, but it vowed to ensure that they produced integrated schools.46 Southern Democrats who were eager to defend their region’s educational status quo found allies in the GOP. When the Johnson administration proposed legislation to boost federal aid to elementary and secondary schools, the House added three amendments: the first curbed federal power to withhold funds, the second limited busing, and the third deleted the phrase “racially imbalanced” as one criterion by which the commissioner of education was authorized to make federal grants. Republicans in both houses overwhelmingly supported these plans, which also passed the Senate.47 Two other matters in the fall of 1966 precipitated intense debate over school integration: a rumored equal educational opportunity proposal, and the administration’s “demonstration cities” legislation. The former, which reportedly would have provided nearly $6 billion in federal aid to build new, integrated schools and create financial incentives to foster cooperation between suburban and urban districts, never materialized. In part, it was quashed due to outcry when copies of the proposal were

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 236

[ 236 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

leaked to Fino and at least one other Republican congressman. The demonstration cities measure, which was intended to reduce urban blight, became law, but only after a coalition of Republicans and Democrats reduced its funding to less than half of the $2.3 billion originally sought by the White House.48 In both cases, Republicans charged that the White House was secretly plotting to bring school integration to the suburbs. The House Republican Policy Committee warned that the administration’s proposal for metropolitan redevelopment and planning would become the “foundation for such things as school busing, pairing, teacher assignments, and creation of metropolitan-wide school districts.” Federal agencies would bludgeon local communities into compliance by withholding money. Republicans noted that such a scenario had almost played out in Chicago a year earlier; only after Dirksen’s intervention did federal officials release the funds. Members of the GOP continued to distinguish between southern segregation, which they insisted was an intentional act of government and thus subject to Title VI regulation, and nonsouthern segregation, which they claimed was unintentional and therefore ought to be free from federal oversight.49 Republicans routinely pointed to the opinions of Commissioner of Education Harold Howe II to justify their warnings. Howe’s prominent family had a long history of involvement in African American education. He endorsed busing as appropriate in some cases and talked about the need to rethink the concept of the neighborhood school. He advocated building centralized educational parks that would draw white and black students, and he was willing to deliberately “enrag[e] suburban taxpayers,” if necessary, to transform the status quo. A graduate of Yale and Columbia universities, Howe had taught at Phillips Academy and been superintendent of the tony Scarsdale, New York, school district. He thus provided an easy target for Republicans’ populist narrative of Washington elites eager to usurp local control of schools to win favor among radical black activists.50 The GOP’s discussion of race was open and blunt. According to Fino, “Suburbs [were] going to be forced to plan schools with central city slums—at the expense of the suburbs, whose tax structure will be supervised by the metro government.” Fino demanded that the Johnson ad-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 237

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 237 ]

ministration “Stand up to Black Power!” He was particularly alarmed that Howe had cited the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s cooperation on transportation as an example of what could happen with schools. “Set up metro and you give the slums access to suburban taxpayers,” the New York congressman warned. Even though Howe denied these charges, the Republican assault caught the eye of the White House, and the administration agreed to add language prohibiting use of the demonstration cities bill to fight racial imbalance. Even then, only sixteen House Republicans voted for the measure. It became law due to the overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, as well as somewhat stronger backing among Senate Republicans. GOP concern over federal intervention in education was also evident when Senate Republicans voted almost four to one against Javits’s proposal to restore $570,000 of the nearly $1 million the House had cut from HEW’s Title VI enforcement budget.51 Race was similarly entangled with the issue of poverty. Although poor whites greatly outnumbered poor blacks, a higher percentage of African Americans was destitute. Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph called for a “Freedom Budget,” which included $100 billion for health care, a government jobs program, housing redevelopment, and other initiatives. Whitney Young Jr. demanded a “Domestic Marshall Plan” of a least $20 billion. Noting that the United States had rebuilt Europe after World War II, he contended that the nation owed its black citizens no less. Both plans represented substantially higher federal spending than Johnson’s War on Poverty; the money would have to come from higher taxes, paid largely by white middle- and upper-class households, from reduced spending elsewhere, or both.52 The War on Poverty had many components, but at its core stood the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Approved by Congress in 1964, the OEO managed several initiatives, including the Job Corps (to provide training to low-skilled youth), Volunteers in Service to America (to promote education and development in disadvantaged areas), and the community action program. Community action aimed to involve poor people directly in efforts to improve their lives.53 The antipoverty program, Republicans charged, wasted taxpayers’ money. The Job Corps was plagued by high costs, unruly behavior by

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 238

[ 238 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

some participants, and high dropout rates, they alleged. Republicans’ hostility was evident in budget battles on Capitol Hill. In the House, only 15 Republicans voted for the president’s $1.75 billion antipoverty proposal; 105 were against it. Republican opposition was less intense in the Senate, but the GOP was instrumental in defeating liberal Democrats’ attempts to increase spending, as well as in successful efforts to cut OEO funding in half.54 Republican resistance was also evident in 1967 with regard to Johnson’s omnibus civil rights bill. It included his proposals from the previous year—open housing, protection for civil rights workers, prohibition against discrimination in jury selection—plus cease-and-desist powers for the EEOC. Javits, Case, and Kuchel favored the cease-and-desist provision and the plan to broaden Title VII to cover state and local public-sector employees, but most Republicans objected. Despite George Romney’s attempts to get Republicans behind open housing, most remained firmly against it. Democrats similarly evinced little appetite for reform, and public opinion remained sharply hostile. The legislation went nowhere.55 Finally, Republicans clashed with civil rights activists over the means of funding elementary and secondary education. Led by Albert Quie of Minnesota, House Republicans advocated block grants to states. This approach, which southern Democrats found appealing, would eliminate some federal restrictions on state and local officials. But civil rights groups complained that those officials would neglect or underfund programs for African American students and block integration. Quie, who had voted for the 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws, vigorously denied this charge. His plan went down to defeat, in part because southern Democrats were willing to support the administration’s bill once the White House accepted amendments that devolved some power to the states and agreed to remove Howe from civil rights enforcement at HEW.56

The 1967 Riots By the spring of 1967, civil rights activists, the media, and lawmakers were speculating whether the summer would bring another round of widespread racial violence. King predicted that riots would occur in at

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 239

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 239 ]

least ten cities. Carmichael said blacks were “going to shoot the cops who are shooting our black brothers in the back”; he wanted to “take over” Washington. The National Rifle Association advised its membership to be ready to defend themselves and their property. Javits cited “the explosive potential of the cities” to argue in favor of Johnson’s request for an extra $75 million in antipoverty spending.57 It was indeed a summer of unrest. A riot began in Newark, New Jersey, on July 12 when a rumor spread among the city’s African American population that a black cabdriver had been murdered while in police custody (in reality, he had been severely beaten). Six days of violence resulted in 26 deaths, 700 injuries, widespread destruction of property, and more than 1,500 arrests. On July 23 a larger conflagration engulfed Detroit soon after police raided a bar in an African American neighborhood. Governor George Romney dispatched the National Guard, and Johnson eventually ordered U.S. Army troops to the Motor City. They engaged in numerous shoot-outs with rioters, and tanks patrolled some streets. Five days of violence led to more than 40 deaths, more than 7,000 arrests, widespread looting, and the destruction of more than 2,000 buildings. Detroit, a city the media and many policy experts had hailed for its favorable racial climate and progress in fighting poverty, became a symbol of social chaos.58 Newark and Detroit were not the only cities to experience violence. Smaller riots had occurred in Cincinnati, Tampa, Dayton, Philadelphia, and elsewhere in June. In July ninety-five cities suffered racial violence of varying intensity. Tensions were especially high in Milwaukee, where thousands of whites responded to peaceful open housing marches by holding counterdemonstrations. They carried signs reading “Go Back to Africa,” “Work Don’t March,” and “Black Slaves Forever.” Some shouted “kill . . . kill . . . kill,” while others hurled assorted debris at the demonstrators. Some of the black protesters retaliated with violence. Such clashes occurred intermittently for several months.59 Republicans reiterated their customary explanations for the civil disorder. Some blamed civil rights leaders for encouraging African Americans to think that laws could be ignored because they were unjust. Carmichael was a favorite target; several Republicans noted that he had spoken favorably of Fidel Castro and communist rule in Cuba during his

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 240

[ 240 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

recent trip to the island. Urban problems, James Utt (R-Calif.) contended, stemmed from ghetto residents’ lack of initiative. “It does not cost anything to clean a place up,” he proclaimed. “It takes only effort to clean weeds and remove trash; it requires but one thing to start an improvement program, and that is desire.” A Pennsylvania congressman announced, “I cannot conceive that there is arson in the heart of a man who toils in support of his family.” Several Republicans, including some liberals, ascribed partial responsibility to the media, which had given too much attention to Carmichael and other radicals and not enough to leaders such as King and Wilkins.60 Republicans again upbraided liberal Democrats. Albert Watson of South Carolina rebuked Attorney General Ramsey Clark for “not [having] the stomach to enforce the law,” while John Ashbrook of Ohio contended that violence was due in part to “a series of liberal court decisions hampering law enforcement, rewarding rioters rather than punishing them, . . . lax law enforcement by politically motivated public officials who are overly solicitous about the Negro vote, and a supine Congress which refuses to act.” Other Republicans insisted that liberals were dangerously ignorant of the riots’ origins and consequences.61 On July 24, the second day of the firestorm in Detroit, Republican congressional leaders held a press conference to claim that “mounting evidence” proved the riots were part of a larger conspiracy. Dirksen, who had speculated about communist involvement, said there was “a timetable” denoting where riots would occur next and claimed that Molotov cocktail factories had already been located. When pressed by reporters to reveal the factories’ locations, the minority leader refused to release “information that we can disclose in far more dramatic fashion later.” Dirksen grew so defensive over the questioning that he stormed out of the conference, protesting he did not have to be specific. Neither Dirksen nor any other Republican ever revealed that information.62 The GOP did not speak with one voice, however. “In my view, the riots . . . are neither communist inspired nor the result of an interstate conspiracy,” Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts declared. “Hunger, bad housing, ill health, and a lack of work need no allies to create an atmosphere which breeds violence.” Brooke, who was the first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote in the twentieth century,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 241

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 241 ]

called for the formation of a committee to investigate causes of and solutions to the violence. Johnson did just that on July 28; the eleven-member group, headed by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, included three Republican lawmakers—Brooke, William McCulloch, and John Lindsay. Brooke attacked “insulated and insensitive” lawmakers in both parties for not enforcing civil rights laws and appropriating too little money for antipoverty programs. “Black power is a response to white irresponsibility,” he said.63 Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky similarly rebuked Republicans who sought partisan advantage. “Blame is on us all,” he solemnly observed. He appealed to Congress to establish a $1 billion fund for housing, education, and other social welfare programs that would take many years to implement. The senator also joined a bipartisan group that advocated short-term measures, such as providing more recreational facilities in ghetto areas, accelerating federal construction programs to provide employment for black youth, and lobbying the entertainment industry to televise more sporting events in the hope of keeping people off the streets.64 Charles Percy, who had won an Illinois Senate seat the previous November, saw the violence as a test of America’s values. “If we continue to spend $66 million a day trying to save the sixteen million people of South Vietnam while leaving the twenty million poor in our own country unresolved,” he asserted, “then I think we have our priorities terribly confused.” Calling the ghettos “the shame of our nation,” the senator lamented that lawmakers had “hardly made a dent on the slums.” King, NAACP leaders, and liberal Democrats spoke in similar terms.65 The eight Republican governors who assembled in New York City in early August (at Nelson Rockefeller’s request) echoed these pleas. They agreed that government officials needed to take firm steps to restore order quickly, but they also stressed that dealing with riots solely through law enforcement would produce the “unacceptable, ultimate result of a society based on repression.” State and local governments, they emphasized, needed to do more to help ghetto residents, and the National Guard had to be better trained for riot control (many activists believed the Guardsmen used excessive force). The governors also chastised Washington for insufficient and inadequate social welfare programs.66

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 242

[ 242 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

Liberal Republicans were once again powerless. Bankers refused requests from Javits and other federal officials to invest in ghetto areas unless they were guaranteed protection against loss. Republicans, especially in the House, lined up behind remedies that focused largely on punishment. On July 19 the House easily passed William Cramer’s bill to increase federal penalties on those who crossed state lines to foment violence. The next day the House voted not to consider a bill authorizing $40 million for rat extermination. Republicans voted 148–22 against the plan, which they deemed an unnecessary expense, and several urged inner-city residents to solve the problem themselves. “Putting out a little rat poison is not too much to ask,” an Ohio Republican commented. Media attention to the rat-control vote may have embarrassed the lawmakers into reversing their decision two months later, when forty-five Republicans who had voted against the plan in July supported it.67 Economic questions remained central to the debate over race. Although few lawmakers in either party were willing to embrace liberals’ call to grant the EEOC cease-and-desist powers, the Republican Coordinating Committee proposed some antipoverty measures in December 1967. (The committee, comprising former presidential nominees, members of Congress, RNC personnel, and state and local leaders, had been formed in January 1965.) It stressed that blacks, even those who were well educated, often had “special difficulties” in the job market; this could lead to a sense of resignation, which whites interpreted as laziness. In noting that African Americans’ doubts about equal opportunity could “be overcome only by demonstrated performance,” the committee implied that success should be measured by jobs and income rather than by hiring practices. In this regard, the committee embraced the thinking of many activists. However, its policy recommendations, which included tax credits for businesses and a lower minimum wage for youth to encourage hiring, differed markedly from what activists wanted.68

The 1968 Civil Rights Act Prospects for civil rights legislation appeared grim when the new Congress convened in January 1968. Nevertheless, a small bipartisan group in the Senate, led by Walter Mondale (D-Minn.) and Brooke, attached an

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 243

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 243 ]

open housing amendment to a bill to protect civil rights workers in the South. The amendment covered nearly 91 percent of the nation’s housing. Having just returned from a trip to Africa, Brooke observed that many black Africans “wonder if America is really different from South Africa.”69 Proponents as well as critics of open housing frequently talked of racial violence. One organization, the Committee for the Preservation of a Free Society, predicted that open housing would “lead to and cause the biggest race riot this country has ever had.” It warned of “militant groups in most cities across the country just waiting for the protection of an open housing bill so they can go into and disrupt all neighborhoods.” Brooke vigorously denied such accusations. He and other supporters conceded that an open housing law would mean little immediate change for ghetto residents because they could not afford to move to the suburbs; but, they argued, it would expand opportunities for middle-class African Americans and prevent riots by serving as a symbol of hope for the poor.70 In the midst of the Senate debate, the president’s committee to investigate the riots, known as the Kerner Commission, released its report. Firmly rejecting arguments that the violence stemmed from a leftist conspiracy or the participants’ moral depravity, the commission cast the riots as rebellions against police brutality, unemployment, underemployment, substandard housing and schools, and poor municipal services. Rioters, the commission argued, wanted full access to the material benefits of American society and demanded to be treated with dignity. “What white Americans have never fully understood, but what the Negro can never forget, is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto,” the commission declared. “White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” The commission recommended substantial increases in federal spending.71 Most Republicans sharply disagreed with the diagnosis as well as the remedies. Congressman Dan Kuykendall of Tennessee blasted the Kerner Commission for failing to identify “the two principal culprits— the lawless who seize on any excuse to pillage and destroy and the politicians who, for political advantage, overpromise the disadvantaged.” J. Herbert Brooke of Florida proclaimed, “The Negro must shoulder part

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 244

[ 244 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

of the blame for his own plight, due to the Negro’s self-indulgence and feeling sorry for himself and attempting as a race to make the white population the whipping boy for injustice brought about by slavery and its aftermath.” Utt labeled the commission “a biased selection of liberal extremists” and called its policy recommendations a “blueprint for socialism.” A handful of Republicans took a more favorable view. “The study has . . . told a story that has long needed to be told,” McCulloch declared. Percy saw it as a chance for Congress to take meaningful steps to address urban problems.72 The open housing bill, meanwhile, was making progress in the Senate. Several cloture votes narrowly failed to stop a filibuster by southern Democrats, but Republican support was much stronger than it had been two years earlier. Open housing proponents triumphed on March 4, when the Senate voted 65–32 for cloture—precisely the two-thirds needed. Twenty-four Republicans backed the move, with just twelve voting against it. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill a week later. Other provisions boosted federal protections for civil rights workers, strengthened antidiscrimination policies in jury selection, and tightened federal efforts to prevent riots. Acknowledging that his group had been taken by “surprise,” a spokesman for the National Association of Real Estate Boards vowed to defeat the measure in the House.73 The outcome in the Senate bore notable similarities to events in 1964. Dirksen was able to persuade several midwestern Republicans to back cloture and the legislation itself. His change of heart remains something of a mystery. Some pundits have speculated that he and Johnson worked out a deal whereby Dirksen would support the bill, and the Democratic Party would back a weak opponent against the senator in the fall campaign. Also, Dirksen may have been worried about losing control of Senate Republicans, some of whom were pressuring him to give GOP candidates in the North something positive to show black voters. The minority leader attributed his switch to the riots and other racial violence, which, he said, “put this whole matter in a different frame.” Dirksen had previously cited state and local open housing laws to argue that federal action was not needed, but he now chastised the states for being “slow on the trigger.”74 As in 1964, Dirksen narrowed federal enforcement power. The De-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 245

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 245 ]

partment of Housing and Urban Development could receive, investigate, and mediate complaints of discrimination, but enforcement would occur in the courts through the filing of individual lawsuits. The history of state and local FEPCs, as well as voting rights law, clearly showed that this was an expensive, time-consuming, and often ineffective process.75 In the House, early tallies indicated there were fewer than forty Republican votes for the Senate bill. Gerald Ford wanted to send the bill to a conference committee, where he hoped it would be weakened. Civil rights leaders firmly opposed that move. On March 19 all five Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted to postpone consideration of the bill until April 9. The delay, which passed by one vote, gave the real estate industry and other opponents a chance to ramp up their efforts. The lobbyist for the National Association of Real Estate Boards declared that members of the group were “incensed” by the Senate bill and wanted it killed. Lawmakers in both parties were soon flooded with mail. A group known as the Emergency Committee of One Million claimed the bill would lead to quotas, “[force] homeowners to sell their property, and [encourage] vicious gangs of rioters and looters to destroy neighborhoods which dare to resist.”76 Ford soon came under pressure from several directions. McCulloch led a group of Republicans who pushed the minority leader to approve the Senate measure. “There’s an election coming up this year,” he reminded Ford, and “the Republican Party should be out in front on civil rights.” Brooke made a similar appeal. “We simply must not adopt a position which brands us as insensitive to the issues affected by this bill,” he wrote to Ford. Mitchell and other civil rights activists in the LCCR worked with the Johnson administration to press Republicans; they publicly called on Nixon and Rockefeller, the two leading contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, to urge House leaders to back the Senate bill. Both did so.77 The House debate revealed ongoing divisions in the GOP. “Men can be imprisoned outside of jails,” McCulloch commented. “The ghetto dweller knows that.” South Carolina GOP chief Harry Dent warned that Republican support would “seriously jeopardize” the party’s prospect for victory in November by allowing George Wallace, who was running for president as an independent, to sweep the South.78

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 246

[ 246 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

Then King was shot and killed in Memphis. He had gone there to support striking black sanitation workers who were protesting dangerous working conditions, low wages, and unequal treatment. At the time of his death, King was also in the middle of planning a Poor People’s Campaign, which involved bringing a cross-racial coalition of the disadvantaged to Washington, D.C., to prod federal authorities to substantially boost spending on antipoverty initiatives. King’s violent death sparked a wave of rioting in more than 100 cities across the nation; as a result, 350,000 National Guard troops were activated, and more than 60,000 were deployed. Federal troops were dispatched to Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore. Machine-gun posts protected the U.S. Capitol, while at the White House, the president and his aides could see smoke from the fires that raged several blocks away. The violence resulted in 39 deaths, more than 2,600 injuries, and 21,000 arrests.79 Back in the House, Republicans saw another opportunity to blast liberals. The Republican Congressional Committee, a conservative House group, claimed that police “officers [had] been hog tied” by liberal court decisions. “Republicans offer the only real answer—the upgrading of skills to qualify ghetto dwellers for decent jobs,” the group proclaimed. Percy, meanwhile, proposed a broad ten-point program that included “austerity” budget measures that cut defense spending and other programs but increased funding for housing, education, health care, and an emergency jobs program. The Illinois senator endorsed tax increases on businesses and individuals to pay for these initiatives. His plan found few allies in either party.80 On April 10 the House approved the Senate’s housing bill 250–172. One hundred Republicans voted for it, and eighty-four were against it. Once again, GOP enthusiasm was actually less than that indicated by the final tally. Earlier, a majority of Republicans had voted for a step that, in effect, would have sent the bill to a conference committee. But once it became clear the measure would pass without going to conference, twentythree Republicans changed their votes.81 The outcome in the House surprised many observers. A pivotal moment occurred in the Rules Committee on April 9, when John Anderson of Illinois voted against sending the bill to a conference committee—a move favored by all the other Republicans—thus defeating the proposal.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 247

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 247 ]

In mid-March Anderson had voted to delay consideration of the bill, so his change of heart, like Dirksen’s, remains puzzling. His mail was running two to one against the bill. Pundits have speculated that Anderson (and others) backed the legislation because of the rioting that followed King’s assassination. Anderson, however, insisted that the violence was not a factor, and there had been rumors prior to King’s death that he might change his vote. Likewise, neither Ramsey Clark nor Gerald Ford believed that King’s death influenced the final vote. Anderson obliquely referenced the social turmoil when rebutting critics from both parties who denounced the bill as a misguided attempt to reward lawbreakers. “I seek to give them hope,” he observed, “that the dream of owning a home in the suburbs or a decent apartment in the city will not be denied the man who was born black.”82 Civil rights activists were decidedly lukewarm about the new law. Ralph Abernathy, the new head of the SCLC, described it as “barely a step forward.” Roy Innis of CORE denounced it as “a hoax on the black people.” Clarence Mitchell, who had lobbied extensively for the proposal, countered that naysayers were either “just plain dishonest” or had not read the legislation.83 Civil rights leaders were also disappointed in Congress’s response to the Poor People’s Campaign. Thousands of people built shacks and pitched tents near the Washington Monument in a development called Resurrection City. They planned to stay until lawmakers addressed the issues of jobs, housing, and income, and they held nonviolent demonstrations at various federal agencies over the next several weeks. Javits, Case, Brooke, and Texas congressman George H. W. Bush were among the handful of Republicans who toured Resurrection City and offered rhetorical support. In an attempt to help the protesters achieve their demands, Senator John Williams (R-Del.) released a list of wealthy agricultural interests that received a total of $600 million in federal subsidies to keep farmland idle.84 Conservatives reiterated their usual denunciations of civil rights protests. Albert Watson linked the campaign to communism, and Strom Thurmond thought the poor ought to clean up the considerable debris left in Washington by the rioting after King’s death. “Let the marchers come to town to work, and not to depend on charity,” he wrote to Roy

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 248

[ 248 ] ch ap t e r e i gh t

Wilkins. There was little support for the campaign in either party or at the White House. The protesters grew dispirited when they gained no policy victories and heavy rains turned Resurrection City into a muddy swamp. The effort ended in late June, when federal officials ordered the encampment disbanded.85

Conclusion Historian Hugh Davis Graham has rightly stressed that the 1968 Civil Rights Act demonstrated “the strength of the reform impulse” that characterized the mid-1960s. Overall, although critics raised several valid points, the law was another victory for racial justice. By making housing discrimination illegal, it not only sparked greater federal enforcement over time but also stimulated grassroots fair housing organizations. It raised public awareness of the issue, and the mere existence of a federal law prompted some lenders and others in the housing industry to change their behavior. Congress finally strengthened federal enforcement powers some twenty years later.86 In helping to pass the Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Civil Rights Act, Republicans (especially in the Senate) supported changes that few of their predecessors would have favored just a decade or two earlier. The GOP again showed that it could adapt to new circumstances. At the same time, there were notable continuities with the past. Between 1965 and 1968, Republicans were successful in limiting federal intervention in racial matters outside the South, just as they had been in 1964, with the Civil Rights Act, and in the 1940s and 1950s with regard to FEPC legislation. In 1966 one observer recalled that during the civil rights debate two years earlier, “no one breathed a word about open housing because they realized it was so unpopular, so volatile, that it would [have] kill[ed] the whole bill.” The turmoil of 1965–1968, in other words, reinforced long-standing views instead of sparking a sudden reversal or “backlash.”87 Republicans were also instrumental in keeping other proposals from becoming law, particularly those that would have expanded federal authority over equal employment opportunity or significantly boosted federal spending for the poor. Liberal Republicans who favored a stronger

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 249

ci v i l rights policy, 1965–1968 [ 249 ]

federal role in these areas remained where they had always been—on the margins of their party. Most Republicans continued to see poverty as an individual problem. Hard work, they insisted, was the key to personal advancement, and the nation continued to be a land of opportunity. These views had deep roots in both the party and the white middle-class culture. According to Republicans, Great Society liberalism jeopardized public safety and wasted middle- and upper-class taxpayers’ money on indolent ghetto residents. This was a potent political narrative that would be repeated, or implied, frequently in years to come. The GOP’s message continued to repel black voters. Whatever their criticisms of Johnson and other Democrats—and they had many—most blacks still found the GOP unappealing. Beliefs about the cause of the riots vividly illustrate the gap between African Americans and the Republican Party. Blacks overwhelmingly believed the violence stemmed from discrimination, substandard housing, poverty, and police brutality. Most white Americans, in contrast, agreed with the GOP’s analysis.88 In 1965 Dwight Eisenhower told fellow Republicans that Watts was connected to a larger decline in “moral standards” that troubled many Americans. “The political party that can make itself a real crusader for the restoration of these values can win a great many converts,” the former president observed. As the 1968 election neared, Republicans would follow Eisenhower’s astute political insight.89

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 250

The Nixon Synthesis

9

Once the votes had been counted, Republicans wasted little time assigning blame for their loss of the 1964 presidential election and arguing over what to do next. Declaring that the party was in worse shape than at any point since 1936, Javits called on Republicans to repudiate their weak civil rights plank and stop using law-and-order rhetoric to fan white resentment toward African Americans. “Democrats will be running against . . . the 1964 platform for years to come if we do not take steps to nullify these liabilities,” he predicted.1 Conservatives saw 1964 as a base from which to build. Goldwater wrote to each of the 132 members of the RNC and informed them that straying from conservatism “would be the prelude to the destruction of our nation.” He dismissed Rockefeller, Romney, and other liberals as “so-called Republicans.” Romney fired back with a twelve-page letter in which he expressed his distress over the “southern-rural-white orientation” of Goldwater’s campaign and reminded the senator that he received 8 million fewer votes than Nixon had in 1960. “The party’s need to become more broadly inclusive and attractive should be obvious to anyone,” Romney observed.2 Nixon weighed in as well. Despite his losses in the 1960 presidential election and the 1962 California gubernatorial contest, the former vice president still enjoyed the respect of many Republicans. Nixon urged the party to welcome both liberals and conservatives, but not “the ‘nut’ left or the ‘nut’ right.” Nixon cited himself as the personification of where he wanted the party to go. “I’m perhaps at dead center,” he announced.3 Nixon would make a stunning comeback and capture the White [ 250 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 251

the nixon synthesis [ 251 ]

House four years later. Along the way, he and other Republicans engaged in a vigorous, sometimes acrimonious debate over region, race, and the future of the GOP. The astute Nixon understood that if he were to have nationwide appeal, his stand on race would have to be somewhere between that of Rockefeller and Goldwater. Nixon’s rebirth signaled that the conservatives’ 1964 takeover of the party would be short-lived.

Struggling for Direction As Democrats celebrated the inauguration of Lyndon Johnson, the RNC searched for a new leader to replace Dean Burch, a Goldwater ally. Conservatives were on the defensive, but their financial donations and activism meant that party leaders could not ignore them. Liberals remained too few and too weak to take command. The committee compromised on Ohio GOP chief Ray Bliss. Alarmed that only 25 percent of Americans identified as Republican (a drop of thirteen percentage points from 1940), Bliss believed his job was to attract voters, not debate ideology.4 Various groups also hoped to influence the party’s direction. These included the Republican Coordinating Committee and the Free Society Association, headed by Goldwater. Other fledgling organizations included Republicans for Progress, composed largely of former Eisenhower administration personnel, and the Council of Republican Organizations, a consortium of nine liberal-leaning GOP groups such as the Ripon Society, whose membership comprised mainly Ivy League faculty and students. Another group, the Committee of ’68, opened a community center in a Newark ghetto in June to assist residents with jobs, housing, and education.5 Several prominent Republicans sharply blasted the Goldwaterites for ignoring African Americans. “We have got to get the party away from being an Anglo-Saxon Protestant white party,” commented Charles Percy. He had received just 11 percent of the black vote in his failed bid to become governor of Illinois.6 Black Republicans also demanded change. Edward Brooke’s reelection as Massachusetts attorney general was one of the few bright spots for the GOP in 1964, but he excoriated his party for joining “Operation

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 252

[ 252 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

Dixie . . . based on a gamble for white backlash that did not materialize.” Many pundits and party leaders viewed Brooke, a dashing figure who wore expensive suits and was married to a white woman, as a rising star. The National Negro Republican Assembly (NNRA) called on party officials to name four blacks to the RNC; no African American had been a member in several years. Other black Republicans urged the GOP to become more sensitive to how African Americans interpreted its messages. “The word ‘conservatism’ creates a nightmare of fear among Negroes,” Grant Reynolds told a Republican audience in Texas. “I don’t think many of you know that.”7 Nearly all Republicans viewed the South as essential to the party’s rebirth. Given that the GOP had controlled Congress for only four of the previous thirty-four years, several Republicans revived arguments from the 1940s that failure in the South meant the party would have to win nearly everywhere else to regain majority status. That seemed to be an impossible task, given the enormous margins Democrats had enjoyed in the industrial states of the East and Midwest in 1964. Some Republicans wanted to court the expanding southern black electorate. “I don’t want this party to be a racist or a lily-white party,” the defeated GOP candidate for governor of North Carolina asserted. Former RNC chair Thruston Morton called on the GOP to build a progressive coalition of blacks and whites who were more concerned with economic matters than racial divisions. “The negro in the South is going to vote . . . and when they do vote . . . their vote is going to be more important than is the negro vote in [the urban North],” he told the RNC. Morton urged the GOP to concede the racially conservative white vote to segregationist Democrats and to focus on states such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina. “There is in these states,” he affirmed, “the sound foundation for Republicanism not based on racism.” Burch similarly hoped southern Republicans would stress their economic conservatism and avoid “overt or covert” racial appeals. “You don’t have to go down there and wave the Confederate flag,” he said.8 Others disagreed. Alabama GOP chief Manyon Millican declared there was “no justification for an attempt to go after the Negro vote.” Alabama Republicans issued a statement that courting black voters constituted reverse discrimination. Wirt Yerger Jr. predicted a two-party

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 253

the nixon synthesis [ 253 ]

South divided largely along racial lines, with blacks firmly in the Democratic column and conservative whites moving to the GOP; he crudely remarked that African Americans were “wearing the collar of the national Democratic Party.” A state senator from Georgia observed, “Suppose you register three whites and are reasonably sure two of them will vote for you; then you register three Negroes believing that only one of them will vote for you, where should you spend time and money?” South Carolina GOP head Drake Edens Jr. similarly announced, “We don’t look at color. We look at the vote. We play the odds.”9 Bliss’s big-tent approach occasionally led him to focus on African Americans. By the summer of 1965, he had named the former head of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission to a prominent post at the RNC and met with several black Republicans. He stressed that the party needed to improve its showing in urban areas and vowed to strengthen minority outreach, which his two predecessors had allowed to wither. Organizational efforts in black communities materialized slowly, if at all. In December 1965 Jet columnist Simeon Booker asked, “Whatever happened to the GOP comeback among Negroes?”10 Republican ideology continued to alienate black voters. Several months after the 1964 election, a Republican interviewer asked Rufus Butler, an Urban League official in Portland, Oregon, if the GOP had improved its standing among blacks. The Republican Coordinating Committee had recently issued its post-Watts statement highlighting GOP support for the 1964 and 1965 laws and declaring that future battles for racial justice would occur primarily at the state and local levels. Butler credited the GOP’s role in passing these reforms but stressed that African Americans wanted the statutes to be implemented effectively. “This is where [Republicans] are conspicuously lacking,” he commented. The interviewer wondered whether African Americans appreciated Eisenhower’s civil rights achievements, and Butler replied that blacks were more concerned with current economic challenges. “I can’t think of a word to frighten a large Negro audience more than the suggestion that you simply leave . . . the implementation of the civil rights laws to the states,” he added. African Americans, Butler pointed out, continued to see the GOP as the ally of big business and the status quo. Butler also challenged the common Republican assertion that hard work would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 254

[ 254 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

lead to success. “The average Negro knows that this is still a lie,” he declared.11 Republican efforts in Dixie also crippled prospects for black support. Congressman Albert Watson, a South Carolina Democrat who had backed Goldwater in 1964, ran as a Republican in a special election in June 1965. Watson welcomed opposition from civil rights groups and urged the party to ignore black votes. “You can’t outdo the president,” he advised the GOP. Pro-Watson groups played to white fears by warning of “Negro mobs” that would “TAKE OVER THE SOUTHERN STATES.” Democrats, pro-Watson forces alleged, bought the votes of illiterate African Americans and then favored them once they took office. The national Republican Party poured money into Watson’s race, which he won, as well as two successful mayoral campaigns run by Goldwaterstyle conservatives in Mississippi.12 Conservatives dominated state parties in the Deep South, but more racially moderate figures were ascendant elsewhere. Winthrop Rockefeller (Nelson’s brother) emerged as the Republican leader in Arkansas, while in Virginia, Linwood Holton won the GOP’s gubernatorial nomination in 1965. Although Rockefeller opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he had served on the board of the National Urban League and donated money to promote school integration. He lost to Orval Faubus in the 1964 gubernatorial contest. Holton had backed Eisenhower’s intervention in Little Rock and urged that public schools be kept open and gradually integrated. Like Rockefeller, he made economic development and honest government his prime concerns. Holton lost too. Although the strong showing by Rockefeller and Holton buoyed Republicans’ hope for the future, these relatively liberal figures had trouble garnering black votes. Democrats were beginning to soften their racial positions, and African Americans continued to identify the GOP with Goldwater.13 Despite Bliss’s desire to win black votes in Dixie, he was willing to let racial matters run their course. The lack of black participants in some southern Republican organizations did not bother him, and when reporters asked about the segregationist views predominant in some state parties, he shrugged the question off. “If the Democratic Party is big enough to accommodate Adam Clayton Powell and Russell B. Long, we are certainly able to cope with our own differences,” he commented.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 255

the nixon synthesis [ 255 ]

Liberals protested that Bliss had taken a morally dubious and politically foolish position of “monolithic apathy.”14 Black Republicans across Dixie were dismayed. One stated, “There is no meeting ground of Goldwaterism and Lincolnism, there is only a meeting ground of Goldwaterism and Jeff Davis-ism.” An African American attorney in Nashville observed, “Negroes are now ashamed to stand up and say they are Republicans.”15 John Lindsay, who had helped guide the 1964 Civil Rights Act through the House, buoyed liberal Republicans’ spirits that fall by winning the New York City mayoral election. Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Robinson, and other black celebrities supported him. Campaigning aggressively in black neighborhoods, Lindsay promised economic development, improved education, and a civilian review board to oversee police. Like Lyndon Johnson a year earlier, Lindsay undercut predictions of a racial backlash by doing well among white ethnic voters. Many pundits compared the youthful, handsome Lindsay to John F. Kennedy and saw him as a harbinger of a more moderate Republican Party.16 Liberals also hoped for success in the South. A prime example of their thinking appeared in April 1966 with the publication of the Southern Project Report, a joint effort by Republicans for Progress and Republican Advance (the latter had been formed in 1950 primarily by Yale Law School students and faculty). Written by a team of eight people, three of whom were southerners, the report warned that the GOP faced a stark choice in a rapidly changing region. “If the Republican Party bets on the forces on the way up—the negro, the white middle class, the young professional—it will continue to grow,” it asserted. “Yet, should the Republican Party choose instead to court segregationist white or Birchite extremists, while it may realize short term gains, it surely will pay a heavy penalty for decades.”17 Although the report praised several state parties for their racial progress, it expressed alarm over the campaigns run by Watson and several others, as well as the lily-white GOP organizations in the Deep South. The Voting Rights Act, the report predicted, would soon “make race a dead-end political street.” With increased black voting, the Deep South states that had voted for Goldwater would go Democratic in 1968. In 1965 alone, 49,000 African Americans in Louisiana registered as Dem -

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 256

[ 256 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

ocrats, but only 1,155 did so as Republicans. Moreover, high black birthrates posed long-term problems for a monochrome GOP. In contrast, the report offered an optimistic forecast about whites. “Once the fears of white working men that they will lose their jobs to Negroes are not realized and once other scare stories are found to be just that,” it envisioned, “other factors such as economic interest will play a more powerful role in determining the electoral behavior of such persons.”18 According to the Southern Project Report, Goldwaterism had flourished in the South because liberals and moderates had failed to offer an alternative. It recommended that the RNC undertake more aggressive public relations efforts among southern blacks and require state parties across Dixie to be more welcoming to African Americans. “The development of a bi-racial Republican Party in the South will, in the long run, in the long pull of history, remove completely race as an issue in the last area of the country where it still remains one,” the report forecast. Republican notions of a South outside the national mainstream were again on full display.19 This approach would, the report’s authors contended, pay dividends in the North too. A segregationist southern GOP would lose support among the media and among educational, religious, and other institutions that shaped public opinion. Northern voters, both white and black, would not want to be associated with racial hatred. “If the Republican Party is to win elections in California, Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Michigan it cannot afford the albatross of staunchly segregationist fraternal parties in the Deep South,” the report declared.20 Critics immediately raised objections. “The people of South Carolina are accepting of the changes that are coming about,” protested Harry Dent. “There are no whooping, hollering, chest-thumping segregationists in the Republican Party here.” For Dent, the lack of black participation in party affairs was no proof of racial animosity. At the GOP’s March convention, there were no blacks among the 1,161 delegates and alternates; in contrast, there were black members in twelve of the fortysix county delegations at the state Democratic gathering. Other Republicans disagreed with Dent. One lamented to Bliss that South Carolina leaders had “gone far in telling the Negro race that they are not wanted in our party.”21

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 257

the nixon synthesis [ 257 ]

The “long pull of history” would reveal that many of the Southern Project Report’s assumptions and prognostications were partially accurate at best. Political, economic, and social conditions were improving for southern blacks, and whites were becoming more egalitarian. Nevertheless, the report overestimated the degree to which urbanization and economic development would transform the status quo, and whites continued to harbor deep skepticism toward government. Social welfare programs and other public services in the southern states, which disproportionately benefited blacks, were not nearly as generous as such programs elsewhere. The black vote, moreover, proved less influential than the report predicted. Between 1965 and 1967, increases in black registration surpassed gains in white registration in just three of ten southern states. More important, black registration in most states remained a small fraction of white levels. And registration was only the first step; liberals faced the difficult problem of keeping supporters involved in politics and mobilizing them on Election Day.22 The North was not nearly as free of racial conflict as the report assumed. In December 1965, for example, a Republican in Milwaukee told GOP leaders that discussions at local party gatherings “make one think that he is at a white citizens council meeting in the Deep South.” Like their southern counterparts, northern whites would continue to see blacks as threats to their jobs and neighborhoods well into the future. They also saw blacks as the undeserving beneficiaries of wasteful programs financed by their tax dollars.23 The U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee soon released its own study, Where the Votes Are. It, too, challenged conservatives’ prescription that the GOP move to the right. With only 25 percent of Americans identifying as Republicans, electoral success required holding Republican voters as well as attracting independents and Democrats. Republicans, the study maintained, needed to pay close attention to an emerging political force—young, well-educated, middle-class professionals, who tended to be more pragmatic than ideological.24 Where the Votes Are urged Republicans to be cognizant of racial trends. Over the next generation, African Americans would equal or outnumber whites in eight of the nation’s ten largest cities and constitute one-third or more of the population in most of the thirty biggest cities.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 258

[ 258 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

Democrats held an important structural advantage with these voters, the study emphasized, because urban political machines had welcomed blacks into the party and, more important, provided public-sector employment and other forms of government largesse.25 Nevertheless, the authors of Where the Votes Are saw an opening for the GOP. Pointing out that jobs were African Americans’ top priority, the study urged the party to help blacks become owners and managers of small businesses, “the traditional training ground—in addition to farming—for poor, immigrant minorities working their way up to the great middle class.” Republicans’ assumptions about a dynamic economy that provided upward mobility were evident. “It is an appeal that is less blatantly political and less paternalistic than that used by Democrat city bosses,” the study contended, “and yet it could be the constructive and effective means to transform the outlook—and dissolve the bloc-voting pattern—of the nonwhite.”26 Republicans had already taken steps to boost the party with African Americans. Bliss named twelve African Americans to a special advisory committee in February 1966. Two months later he hired Clarence Townes Jr., an African American insurance executive from Richmond, Virginia, as his special assistant for minority affairs. The thirty-eightyear-old Townes had lost a race for the state assembly in 1965, but he was the first African American since Reconstruction to be endorsed by either major party in the Old Dominion.27 Townes believed African Americans would be best served by activity in both parties. Republicans had an opportunity in the South, given the Democrats’ segregationist history, but the GOP needed to organize in black areas and abandon destructive habits and attitudes. For Townes, the GOP’s race problem had begun well before 1964. “The hard fact remains that to most Negroes, the Republicans just do not seem to understand the desires and aspirations of the ‘new’ Negro who has evolved since the 1930s,” he told Bliss and other leaders. Townes maintained that African Americans viewed Republicans as defenders of an unjust racial and economic status quo. He noted, “We Republicans nurse our inability to appeal to Negroes by saying our opposition is hypocritical. . . . Our party seems to say, ‘Come if you want to, but come on our terms and remember Lincoln.’”28

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 259

the nixon synthesis [ 259 ]

The NNRA was not enthusiastic about these developments. The group worried that the advisory committee, and Townes, would simply follow party leaders’ wishes. The NNRA also charged Bliss and the RNC with meddling in its internal affairs and demanded that Republican officials apologize to Martin Luther King Jr. for Clay Claiborne’s writein effort in the 1964 presidential election. Bliss’s approach in the South came under particularly intense fire. The NNRA passed a resolution accusing him and GOP congressional leaders of “courting white terrorists, racists, bigots, and extremists . . . out of a misguided hope for temporary political gains.”29 The GOP’s troubles with African Americans extended well beyond the NNRA. Louis Harris followed up his 1963 survey with another indepth study of whites’ and blacks’ opinions about race and politics. Little had changed in three years. When asked who would do more for blacks in the future, 69 percent of African Americans chose the Democrats—an increase of six percentage points—and only 3 percent chose the Republicans. African Americans retained especially fond memories of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, and they held Lyndon Johnson in high regard too. No Republican enjoyed comparable standing. The poll offered troubling news for Republicans who were eying the growing black electorate in the South. Democrats, especially in the Upper South and border states, were winning over African Americans by taking a more moderate approach to racial matters.30 Blacks continued to see the GOP as insensitive or hostile to their economic struggles. “The Democrats seem to know that it takes money for people to live—and the Republicans don’t know that,” said a St. Louis woman. “The Republicans always put money in their pockets,” commented a New York service worker. “They don’t invest it in people, don’t help the Negroes.” There was a silver lining for the GOP, however. Almost half of African Americans said they would vote for a Republican if the right candidate came along; they felt the Democrats were taking them for granted.31 Whites, meanwhile, were feeling myriad emotions. Most agreed that discrimination was a problem in American society, and they would not want to face the challenges African Americans confronted regularly. Yet whites still held many negative stereotypes about African Americans,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 260

[ 260 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

such as the belief that they had “looser” morals and a poor work ethic. Seventy percent thought African Americans were trying to move ahead too fast. “They should try the installment plan,” a Virginian opined.32 There was a class dimension to white attitudes. Well-educated, upperincome whites had less intense negative stereotypes of African Americans and indicated stronger support for closer interracial contact and liberal policy reforms. Conversely, 61 percent of white, working-class ethnic residents in the North, many of whom were the children or grandchildren of immigrants, claimed that blacks enjoyed better treatment from government, business, and other institutions than their parents and grandparents had received. Sixty-three percent worried that African Americans wanted to take their jobs. Racism was no doubt behind much of this, but Harris noted that working-class whites felt a deep sense of unfairness; they saw themselves on the front lines of change, while wealthier whites faced little direct contact with African Americans. Working-class whites believed Johnson’s antipoverty efforts were tilted too heavily toward helping African Americans, while they still struggled to make ends meet. Harris also reported a profound sense of alienation among many whites—more so than among African Americans. Whites’ anger, frustration, and resentment toward a government that supposedly cared more about blacks would be a boon to the GOP and an albatross around the Democrats’ neck for years to come.33 So, too, would whites’ fear of African Americans. Harris found that nearly 60 percent of white urban dwellers felt uneasy walking the streets because of riots and violent crime, both of which they associated with blacks. “People have become afraid of the Negroes,” a New Jersey housewife remarked. “When you see them in groups, you think they’re going to start a riot.” Some whites thought black violence arose primarily from poverty and other social ills, but most linked it to communists or other subversive groups and believed it hurt civil rights efforts. “When I see these demonstrations on TV, it makes me think of them as savages,” a Seattle resident stated. Concern over social disorder ran so deep that whites increasingly objected to peaceful civil rights protests, which they worried would turn violent.34

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 261

the nixon synthesis [ 261 ]

The 1966 Election Poor standing among African Americans did not hurt the GOP in the November 1966 elections. Republicans gained forty-seven seats in the House, four seats in the Senate, and eight governorships. The party did especially well in the Midwest and West; progress was much less pronounced in the East, where the GOP failed to halt a long-term decline. The Republican Party boosted its showing with suburban voters and reduced Democratic advantages in several urban areas. “It looks as if we have a very live elephant,” Bliss cheerfully announced.35 Racial conflict benefited some Republicans. Ronald Reagan’s victory in the California gubernatorial contest was a case in point. Though not a bigot, the former Hollywood actor opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and open housing laws as the unconstitutional regulation of private property. He criticized the Watts rioters and promised to crack down on those who broke the law. One Reagan ad compared urban areas to “jungles.” Social disorder was not reducible to race (Reagan’s sharp denunciation of rebellious white college students resonated with white voters), yet there were clear racial dimensions. Whites who believed that Democratic governor Pat Brown had been too lenient toward civil rights protesters voted nine to one for Reagan. Jackie Robinson called Reagan’s victory “a tragedy” and warned that Reagan was “another Barry Goldwater, with what the kids call ‘smarts.’” The new governor was like the former Arizona senator in another respect: confident of his good intentions, he was puzzled and resentful when African Americans criticized him.36 White backlash proved crucial to Charles Percy’s victory over Paul Douglas, one of the Senate’s staunchest civil rights proponents. Percy was cut from a different cloth than Reagan or Goldwater. He told an audience in Jackson, Mississippi, that he wanted the South to join the GOP, but not on the basis of racism (some GOP leaders there boycotted his address). Since losing his bid to be governor of Illinois in 1964, Percy had formed the New Illinois Committee, a nonpartisan group organized to help ghetto residents with housing, employment, and education. However, when racial conflict escalated in Chicago in the summer of 1966, Percy said he favored exempting single-family units from open

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 262

[ 262 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

housing laws. He also benefited when Republican organizations (which, he claimed, were not under his control) went into traditionally Democratic strongholds and distributed anti–open housing literature that blatantly appealed to racial resentments. White voters in Cicero and other areas where civil rights demonstrations had occurred that summer abandoned Douglas in droves. Percy’s success, as well as Reagan’s, demonstrated that Republican candidates did not need black support to win in urbanized states.37 Race played a role in New York City as well. Whites, including many longtime Democrats, overwhelmingly voted to abolish a civilian board charged with promoting better relations between the mostly white police force and racial minorities. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association stoked whites’ fear of black violence by arguing that the board was hindering officers’ ability to fight crime.38 Yet the 1966 elections were not simply a triumph for conservatism or a sign of whites’ hostility toward blacks. The RNC’s internal election analysis found that the GOP won 19 percent of the nonwhite vote in congressional contests—a slight decline from 1962, but a notable increase over 1964. That figure must be interpreted cautiously, for it surely reflected that some African Americans stayed home due to their disillusion with the Democrats.39 Republicans who had supported civil rights laws at the federal and state levels won several House races. A number of newly elected Republican senators were racial liberals or moderates, including Charles McC. Mathias Jr. (Md.), Percy, Mark Hatfield (Ore.), Robert Griffin (Mich.), Howard Baker (Tenn.), and, most notably, Edward Brooke (Mass.). Brooke, whom some pundits called “as white as a black man can be,” defied expectations that the white backlash would sink his candidacy. Over the next decade these senators would provide crucial votes to protect civil rights laws from attacks by conservatives in both parties. In addition, George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller won approximately 30 percent of the black vote on their way to reelection as governor of Michigan and New York, respectively. These results were not necessarily proof that white voters were eager for further reforms; however, they showed that favoring a stronger role for government in racial matters did not mean certain defeat.40

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 263

the nixon synthesis [ 263 ]

Results in the South also defied easy categorization. Republican success was greatest in areas where Goldwater had been weakest. Each of the four Republican congressional candidates in Mississippi—the bedrock of Goldwaterism two years earlier—lost. Republicans still fared poorly or failed to nominate candidates across much of the region, but there were a few exceptions: Claude Kirk Jr. won the governorship of Florida on a strong anti–open housing platform, and conservative Howard “Bo” Callaway almost became governor of Georgia. Citing polls showing that few blacks were inclined to vote Republican, most state GOP leaders concluded that pursuing the African American vote was a waste of time and money. “The Republicans are not going out of their way to get Negroes,” said the executive secretary of the North Carolina GOP. “The Negroes must come to them.”41 He was being charitable, for Republican parties in some states were overtly hostile toward African Americans. The South Carolina GOP, for example, displayed the Confederate flag at its convention. Marshall Parker, the Republican candidate in a special Senate election in the Palmetto State, tried to tie his opponent, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, to the Kennedys and accused him of seeking the black vote. African American support helped propel Hollings, who was more racially moderate than other southern Democrats, to a narrow victory.42 A few southern Republicans actually did well among African Americans. The Arkansas GOP mounted extensive organizing efforts among blacks, who played a critical role in electing Winthrop Rockefeller governor. Spiro Agnew received more than 90 percent of the black vote in his gubernatorial victory in Maryland. Running against staunchly segregationist Democrats, Rockefeller and Agnew surely won a sizable share of their black support by default. In Kentucky, Senator John Sherman Cooper garnered more than half the black vote on his way to reelection. In Tennessee, victorious Senate candidate Howard Baker, a racial moderate who had wrested control of the state GOP from Goldwater conservatives, received an estimated 15 to 20 percent of black ballots. Simeon Booker noted that the growing black electorate and greater support for civil rights among whites, especially younger whites, had convinced GOP leaders that “no truly reactionary candidate can win an important office in mid-20th century America.”43

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 264

[ 264 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

Two other aspects of the 1966 elections were notable. First, Republicans remained concerned about fraud in African American neighborhoods. The GOP leader in Cook County, Illinois, asked FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Ramsey Clark for at least fifty federal agents to patrol Chicago. He claimed that in 1964, Operation Eagle Eye had found numerous examples of voters receiving illegal “assistance” in marking their ballots or voters being threatened with the loss of welfare benefits if they did not vote Democratic.44 Second, Republican efforts to woo black voters were still heavily rooted in the past. Claiming that “Democrats Talk! Republicans Act!” GOP campaign literature touted the party’s support for the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, as well as its efforts under Eisenhower and even during Reconstruction. Republicans acknowledged blacks’ economic concerns—including mounting inflation and the rising unemployment rate among African Americans (as the white rate was falling)—but they offered no solutions to these problems. Such appeals failed to inspire African Americans, who, as one civil rights leader in Chicago observed, were “not asking what have you done for us lately” but rather “what are you going to do for us tomorrow?” African Americans, he noted, were increasingly disappointed with local Democrats, but “the Republicans aren’t giving us much of a choice.”45 It is thus not surprising that black Republicans continued to express their frustration. Jackie Robinson wrote to Bliss, “I do know that I want to support the Republican Party, but I’ll be damned if I will, if the Party continues to support people who mean my race is no good.” Addressing the National Federation of Republican Women, Lovelyn Evans, a seventy-two-year-old lifelong party member, recalled the “ugly Republicans” on display at the 1964 convention. “It is not easy for a Negro to be a Republican,” she lamented. An African American alderman from New York pointed out that black Democrats had outnumbered black Republicans fifty to one at a recent National Conference of Negro Elected Officials, and Democrats attending the gathering had repeatedly highlighted this disparity. In 1966 Democrats elected 133 African Americans to state legislatures, whereas the GOP elected just 9. Black politicians, Townes observed, were understandably going “where the action is.”46 Results from the handful of state and municipal elections a year later

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 265

the nixon synthesis [ 265 ]

demonstrated the racial polarization in northern politics. African Americans overwhelmingly backed victorious Democrats in mayoral races in Gary, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. This was not surprising in Gary and Cleveland, where the Democratic candidates were black. Their narrow triumphs (by only 1,400 and 1,600 votes, respectively) highlighted the power of the black vote. The pattern was similar in Philadelphia, where liberal Republican Arlen Specter failed to win any of the city’s predominantly black wards and lost by 11,000 votes. Whites, meanwhile, were moving to the GOP. In the once solidly Democratic Cleveland and Gary, the white vote went 82 percent and 90 percent to the Republicans, respectively. John Lindsay’s success two years earlier had been an aberration.47

The Battle for the 1968 Republican Nomination There were two early favorites for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination: Richard Nixon and George Romney. The former vice president was in the midst of a remarkable political comeback. Since moving to New York in 1963 to practice law, he had earned the respect and support of numerous corporate executives and eastern party officials. Nixon now assembled a staff of competent, loyal advisers who wanted to make him president. His extensive campaigning for Republican candidates nationwide since 1964 had reinforced his abiding strength with voters and boosted his popularity among state and local party leaders, as well as GOP lawmakers. These party insiders, not voters, would be most influential in determining the nominee.48 Romney was not to be discounted. Overcoming a difficult childhood to become a successful auto executive, he personified the American dream of upward mobility. He became governor of Michigan in 1962 and then easily won reelection in 1964 and 1966. Supporters believed he would have similar drawing power in other solidly Democratic states across the Northeast and Midwest. Throughout 1966 and 1967 Romney polled well among both Republicans and independents, and unlike Nixon, he bested Johnson and Robert Kennedy in hypothetical matchups.49 Throughout his public life, Romney exhibited a firm commitment to racial equality. He had teamed with labor leader Victor Reuther to inves-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 266

[ 266 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

tigate the 1943 race riots in Detroit, worked to combat housing discrimination, and lobbied for a state FEPC. As cochair of the Michigan Constitutional Convention in the early 1960s, he favored other legal reforms and a state civil rights commission. While governor, he expanded civil rights protections and, in 1963, joined Martin Luther King Jr. in an open housing demonstration in the wealthy, all-white suburb of Grosse Pointe. Two years later he participated in a march to show support for the victims of police violence in Selma. Michigan’s black voters rewarded him with increasing levels of support; he won approximately 9 percent of the African American vote in 1960, 19 percent in 1964, and 30 percent in 1966.50 Romney’s only potential liability was his Mormon faith. At the time (prior to 1978), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred African Americans and all men of black lineage from the priesthood. Many senior officials, including some prophets (the most supreme position in the church), taught that God had cursed blacks. A deeply religious man, Romney was proud of his record on race and resented criticism that he did not confront church authorities (he had privately resisted an appeal from a high-ranking church leader to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act). “You name me one man in the Republican Party who has gone as far as I did,” he challenged.51 Romney embarked on an eighteen-city tour of the nation’s ghettos in September 1967 and came away convinced that urban problems made “Vietnam look like child’s play.” Romney favored reduced funding for the space program, cuts in military spending, and “drastic revision” of the budget to finance the “most massive effort” in history to combat slums. “I am more convinced than ever before that unless we reverse our course, build a new America, the old America will be destroyed,” he commented. “The seeds of revolution have been sown. They cannot be rooted out by force.”52 Nixon took a more measured approach. At times, he voiced the standard conservative arguments about permissive judges, politicians who made promises they could not keep, and crime fostered by individuals’ poor moral choices rather than broad social forces. Riots and other social disorder, he wrote in a Reader’s Digest article, had left the nation in a “war for the survival of a free society.”53

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 267

the nixon synthesis [ 267 ]

Nixon continued to believe that the core problems facing African Americans were economic. “White America is dangerously deluding itself if it thinks a handful of court decisions and civil rights acts are going to make full competitors . . . out of children who arrive at life’s starting line fresh from broken families, slum conditions, inferior schools, and crime-and-vice-ridden neighborhoods,” he declared. Nixon announced he would not push aggressively for integration because doing so would hurt race relations; public opinion needed to evolve first. Busing black children to white schools would not improve their academic performance, he insisted. A better solution would be to improve existing African American schools.54 The former vice president urged businesses to “reach out . . . to recruit the hopeless in the slums where they live.” He told a New York Times reporter that “the people in the ghetto have got to have more than an equal chance” and should be given a “dividend” to enable them to participate fully in mainstream society. “Jobs is the gut issue,” he commented. “If you don’t have jobs, you don’t have housing and you don’t get off welfare.” Nixon told a Virginia audience that civil rights laws were a “necessary revolution” but added, “After ten years of open doors we need a period of helping people walk through those doors.” He did not specify what that might entail.55 Nixon worried that further civil rights demonstrations would exacerbate racial animosities. He told the New York Times: I know that’s the exciting way to do things. Marching feet. Protests. But the nation is awake. Some people are terrified. Sooner or later, the white community is going to retaliate, and all the patient works will be undone. And the majority of Negroes are going to take the heat. This is a time for builders, not destroyers. This is a time for reconstruction, not revolution. This is much harder work, and it’s not going to be accomplished by charging around like Father Groppi. Nixon was referring to James Groppi, a Milwaukee priest who had encountered violence and fierce resistance when he led open housing marches into white neighborhoods. This characterization of direct action

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 268

[ 268 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

protest harked back to views expressed by Taft and other Republicans a decade or more earlier. Like Eisenhower, Nixon called for a middle way, one that rejected the “angry outburst of hate” and the “furious silence of despair.”56 Nixon also carefully staked out a middle ground regarding the South. He would not base his campaign on the region, but he would not write it off either. There were compelling political reasons behind this approach. The eleven ex-Confederate states, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma, constituted the largest bloc of delegates at the GOP convention. Most Republican delegations from the Midwest and Northeast were controlled by governors who had serious reservations about Nixon.57 Nixon had astutely sensed that a rerun of the Goldwater campaign would be political suicide. He thus distanced himself from Goldwater when he visited all eleven former Confederate states in 1965 and 1966. Nixon told a gathering of Republicans in Jackson, Mississippi, that there was “no future in the race issue.” After the speech, he reiterated his support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. As the 1966 campaign season wound down, he published an editorial blasting the Democrats for nominating staunch segregationist gubernatorial candidates in several southern states. “The Republican opportunity in the South is a golden one,” he insisted, “and we should leave it to the Democrats to go prospecting . . . for the fool’s gold of racist votes.” He called on the GOP to “not climb aboard the sinking ship of racial injustice.”58 Yet Nixon refused to berate southern parties over race. He opposed the Mississippi Republican Party’s claim that segregation was “absolutely essential” and promised to resist any attempt to insert a segregationist plank into the GOP’s 1968 platform, but he also argued that it was “unrealistic and unwise” for national leaders to demand that state parties repeal such clauses “without delay.” South Carolina Republican leader Harry Dent advised Nixon to court Strom Thurmond as a way to counter George Wallace; Nixon was worried that if Wallace ran as an independent, he would deny the GOP the White House by sweeping the South. When a reporter asked Nixon if he was embarrassed to share a stage with the South Carolina senator, Nixon replied, “Strom is no racist. Strom is a man of courage and integrity.” Liberal Republicans such as

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 269

the nixon synthesis [ 269 ]

Romney tended to criticize the South from afar and were not inclined to woo Thurmond.59 By the spring of 1968, Nixon had cemented his place as the frontrunner. Romney’s campaign had been struggling for months, and the governor withdrew in late February, just days before the New Hampshire primary. Many Republican leaders were still angry over Romney’s refusal to back Goldwater in 1964; they also thought he was self-righteous. In addition, Romney had been hurt the previous September when the media widely circulated a casual comment that he had experienced “brainwashing” by American military personnel while visiting Vietnam in 1965. That remark raised questions about his mental fitness to be president. Left without a candidate, liberal Republicans looked to Nelson Rockefeller, but the New York governor announced on March 21 that he would not seek the nomination. Some conservatives were trying to coax Reagan to run, but he too refused. For several weeks that spring, Nixon had the field largely to himself.60 With public opinion surveys showing that crime was the chief domestic concern, Nixon reassured voters that he would protect them. “The most fundamental civil right is the right to be safe from violence,” he affirmed. The nation, he told a radio audience in March, must “prepare to meet force with force if necessary.” For Nixon, crime would be reduced by punishing the perpetrators rather than boosting federal spending on the poor.61 Nixon also blasted the Kerner Commission, which, he noted, “has put undue emphasis on the idea that we are . . . a racist society, white racists versus black racists.” Claiming that the nation could not afford a substantial increase in domestic spending, he dismissed talk of new antipoverty initiatives as a “cruel delusion.” Fiscal responsibility, he said, was “something that Negroes may not vote for, but it is good for them.” In two radio addresses in late April and early May, he charged that whites tried to ease their racial guilt by trying to “buy off” African Americans with welfare, public housing, and other programs. Such efforts raised expectations that could not be met and trapped blacks as “wards of a custodial state.” The former vice president was essentially restating the old “bought vote” argument.62

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 270

[ 270 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

Many southern Republicans were drawn to Reagan, whom they saw as the true conservative, so Nixon tried to head off any pro-Reagan movement by scheduling meetings with Dixie officials on May 31 and June 1. The gathering occurred just days after the Supreme Court’s decision in Green v. New Kent County, which outlawed the use of “freedom of choice” school desegregation plans to perpetuate segregation. The Court placed the onus for integration on local officials, not parents, and indicated it would measure compliance with Brown based on the racial composition of schools, rather than any statements of intent. The southerners pressed Nixon on school desegregation, voting rights, textiles, and other issues. He replied that although Brown was settled law, there were limits on how far the federal government should go in enforcing integration. He also promised to appoint “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court (a favorite term of conservatives, who believed liberal justices had used a broad reading of the Constitution to justify expanded federal power) and to “let [southern states] go” from federal supervision if they could prove an absence of racial discrimination in voting. Southern leaders in both parties regularly pointed to the large increases in black registration since 1965 as proof that federal oversight was no longer needed.63 Nixon also made a pragmatic pitch to the southerners: Reagan would lose in November, he declared, making Hubert Humphrey—extremely unpopular in the South because of his views on civil rights—the president (Johnson had announced in March that he would not seek reelection). The southern Republicans emphasized the threat Wallace posed in the region, and when Nixon asked them how he should deal with the former Alabama governor, they told him to get Thurmond on board. Nixon quickly arranged for the senator to join the meeting in Atlanta and appealed for his help. Several weeks later, Thurmond announced that South Carolina’s delegates would support Nixon.64 Nixon did try to court black voters. Rejecting advice from campaign director John Mitchell that attending King’s funeral would hurt him among white southerners, he joined Rockefeller, Romney, Javits, and other mourners in Atlanta on April 9.65 Nixon’s most significant attempt to woo African Americans was his black capitalism proposal. Declaring that blacks would advance econom-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 271

the nixon synthesis [ 271 ]

ically through private enterprise, Nixon endorsed increased federal technical and financial assistance to black-owned businesses, job training for African American workers, tax credits for companies that opened or expanded in black neighborhoods, federal mortgage aid to boost home ownership among African Americans, and efforts to bring together black entrepreneurs and white-owned banks. Government, he argued, could incubate black self-help, and “from this can flow the rest—black pride, black jobs, black opportunity, and yes, black power . . . in the best sense of that term.” Nixon aimed to create a new coalition in American politics that would include traditional Republicans, white southerners, and African Americans who favored private enterprise over welfare. In Nixon’s eyes, these individuals were driven by a strong sense of selfreliance. The GOP, Nixon avowed, honored and demanded work, whereas Democrats dispensed federal largesse.66 Black leaders were not impressed. Weeks before his death, King had called Nixon a “tragic choice” for the GOP and dismissed him as irrelevant to the nation’s problems. Brooke lamented that Nixon failed to grasp the social and economic roots of the riots. Jackie Robinson, who had worked for Rockefeller since 1966, worried that a Nixon victory would mean “going backward.” African Americans were upset by Nixon’s stand on school integration; his law-and-order rhetoric, which critics saw as little more than a rationalization for police crackdowns on blacks; and his courting of segregationist white southerners such as Thurmond. Nixon did enjoy the backing of CORE leaders Floyd McKissick and Roy Innis, who found his self-help message appealing, as well as black athletes Wilt Chamberlain and Joe Louis.67 Rockefeller shook up the contest on April 30 by changing his mind and announcing his candidacy. The governor claimed he was the only Republican who could heal the nation because only he had credibility with African Americans. To those who said good schools, housing, and jobs for African Americans were too expensive, Rockefeller retorted, “We can’t afford not to do it.”68 The governor also insisted that, unlike Nixon, he could appeal to voters outside the party’s core constituencies. Rockefeller reminded Republicans that Nixon had lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York in 1960 because of his poor showing in urban areas. And, he maintained,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 272

[ 272 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

the Republican candidate had to win those and other northern states because Wallace, running as an independent, would carry the South. Rockefeller called Wallace “a racist” and accused Nixon of being coy when asked to state his views about the former Alabama governor. That August, polls showed Rockefeller faring better than Nixon against Humphrey, but the liabilities that had doomed Rockefeller in 1964 still applied. Many Republicans did not like him personally and regarded him as too liberal and disloyal.69

The Republican Convention Republicans gathered in sunny Miami that August. This time, there were twenty-six African American delegates. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP complained to Bliss that several southern states had no African American delegates or alternates, and there were only three black delegates from the South overall. The Civil Rights Commission, Wilkins pointed out, had recently issued a stern report charging that both parties in the South had excluded African Americans or done little to encourage their participation. Bliss replied that the GOP was open to all and that blacks simply had not responded to standing invitations to participate in party affairs. Technically, Bliss was correct. With the exception of Mississippi, southern parties had removed formal language prohibiting black participation; however, as the commission noted, directives from state officials regarding black outreach were often ignored at the local level.70 The head of the NAACP and other black leaders remained deeply concerned about economic issues. Wilkins asked a platform subcommittee to support cease-and-desist powers for the EEOC, as well as an economic bill of rights that included guaranteed employment at an adequate wage and access to good education and health care. Ralph Abernathy, who had become president of the SCLC after King’s death, organized a direct action effort by approximately fifty veterans from the Poor People’s Campaign. The group, which Abernathy described as delegates “from the 51st state of hunger,” demanded that the GOP address the economic problems facing poor blacks. Abernathy claimed that 1968 was one of the “last chances for the Republican Party to win the black vote.”71

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 273

the nixon synthesis [ 273 ]

The protests were irrelevant. The Platform Committee was stocked with conservatives who sat silently when Lindsay connected race riots to poverty but cheered when Reagan urged getting tough on crime. The committee essentially ignored nearly all the civil rights leaders’ wishes; it did, however, favor more federal aid for job training and economic aid for blighted areas.72 The South stood at the center of the important battles in Miami. Facing an unexpected challenge from Reagan, who had announced his candidacy on August 5, Nixon went all out to shore up his southern flank. He enlisted help from Tower and Thurmond, both of whom worked diligently to keep the southern delegations in line.73 Nixon made a direct appeal when he met with delegates from seven southern states and the District of Columbia on August 6. He vowed not to concede the South to Wallace or run a northern-based campaign. Nor would he, as president, “ram anything down your throats” or shift his views to “satisfy some civil rights group.” Judges should interpret the law rather than make it, Nixon asserted, and local school boards should determine educational policy. Nixon repeated his opposition to busing as well as his promise to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. When someone inquired about his support for open housing legislation, Nixon replied that although he preferred the issue be handled at the local level, Congress had done the right thing (and helped Republicans avoid a convention fight) by passing the 1968 Civil Rights Act. Nixon’s statements quickly spread through the media; the conversation had been recorded and then leaked.74 The South stayed with Nixon, who won the nomination on the first ballot. He chose Maryland governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate. Agnew had appointed several African Americans to state positions and helped pass the first open housing law south of the Mason-Dixon line, but he had become a conservative hero that spring when, after several days of rioting in Baltimore, he chastised civil rights leaders for failing to rebuke extremists. Agnew also blasted the Poor People’s Campaign and the Kerner Commission report, and he vowed not to “bid for peace with the public dollar.” Clearly, Agnew would be of no help with African Americans, but party leaders hoped his Greek immigrant roots would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 274

[ 274 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

boost Nixon among white working-class voters. Thurmond and other conservatives were thrilled Nixon had not picked John Lindsay or some other liberal.75 Nixon’s acceptance speech signaled his focus on law and order. The nation had experienced five consecutive summers of widespread racial violence, Vietnam War protests sometimes got out of control, and violent crime was on the rise. Rioting even occurred in black neighborhoods of Miami during the convention. Promising to be the candidate of the “forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators, that are not racists or sick, that are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land,” he denounced the courts for “weakening the police forces against the criminal forces.” Nixon blasted Democrats for producing “an ugly harvest of frustration, violence, and failure across the land.” African Americans “do not want programs that perpetuate dependency,” he declared. Instead, private enterprise would enable blacks to “have a piece of the action.” American business, Nixon professed, was “the greatest agent of progress ever developed in the history of man.”76 Events in Miami deeply troubled black leaders. In Wilkins’s view, Nixon would leave African Americans dependent on state and local authorities, who had oppressed them for decades, and on a private sector that had left too many blacks living in poverty. Alleging that Nixon had “prostituted himself to get the southern vote,” Robinson called the Republican ticket “racist.” He announced that he would work for Humphrey and predicted “the most horrible riots in all our major cities” if Nixon won. One black Republican compared the GOP ticket to “a bad dream,” and another noted, “The Republican party reckons it can do without the Negro.”77 Publicly, Nixon acknowledged he would not win many black votes, but privately, he tried to mend fences. He invited Townes and E. Frederic Morrow to California to discuss blacks’ reaction to his candidacy. Soon after the convention he had lunch with Brooke, who briefly joined him on the hustings; the senator abandoned the candidate in September because he found Nixon’s heavy emphasis on law and order to be racially insensitive. Brooke tried but failed to persuade Nixon to change his tone.78 Nixon firmly rejected the view, popular in the media and among liber-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 275

the nixon synthesis [ 275 ]

als, that he had adopted a “southern strategy” rooted in whites’ racism. “We’ve got to get the country together,” he announced. “They talk of the South as racist. That’s bunk. There are racists North and South. The South has changed. This is the time for a great breakthrough . . . time to speak the language of conciliation, not only in personal terms, but in political terms.” Nixon also denied that he was trying to appeal to a white backlash outside the South. “That’s your term,” he told reporters. “It is not so much backlash as it is people trying to fight their way up . . . decent people who don’t want to be mean, don’t want to hate.” Unlike Javits and other liberals, Nixon aimed to break down notions of southern exceptionalism. In his formulation, whites anywhere in the nation who opposed a stronger federal role in schools, housing, jobs, and crime or increased spending to fight poverty had no reason to feel guilty.79

The Fall Campaign and the 1968 Election Nixon held a comfortable lead in the polls early that September. He had united his party, whereas the Democratic convention in Chicago was marked by chaos. Inside the convention hall, delegates fought bitterly over the Vietnam War, while outside, thousands of antiwar protesters clashed with police and National Guard troops. Television viewers worldwide watched the chaos, which included the police teargassing and clubbing some of the demonstrators. Humphrey won the nomination, but to millions of observers, he looked weak, indecisive, and utterly ineffective as a leader. Nixon could not ignore Wallace. The former Alabama governor was calling for law and order and was firmly opposed to federal authority on racial matters; those views, plus his populist economic policies, gave him a solid base of support among whites in the Deep South and among working-class whites outside of Dixie. Polls showed him with 20 percent of the vote in mid-September, a remarkable position for a third-party candidate. Wallace had little chance to win, but observers thought he might capture enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the Democratic majority would likely make Humphrey president.80 Unlike Humphrey, Nixon refused to criticize Wallace’s racial views or

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 276

[ 276 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

speculate about his motivations. Instead, Nixon and his allies aimed to build support across the South by arguing that a vote for Wallace helped Humphrey. At the same time, they made vague assertions that the Republican Party agreed with much of what the former governor was saying.81 Conceding the Deep South to Wallace, Nixon concentrated on the metropolitan areas of the peripheral South, where outright opposition to Brown, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act was rare. Voters there articulated a color-blind worldview. They thought closing the public schools was shortsighted and harmful to the South’s economic and social development, yet they opposed substantial or rapid school or neighborhood integration dictated by federal officials. To the extent they supported change, they wanted it to be gradual and locally controlled. Believing that media reports of the civil rights movement unfairly depicted the South as a benighted, racist region, they were eager to portray their communities as places of racial progress. Viewing their affluence as a result of their hard work, they considered federal antipoverty programs a wasteful transfer of their wealth to undeserving ghetto residents.82 Nixon assured these voters that he saw the world much as they did. During an interview broadcast in Charlotte in early September, he affirmed that school integration was a good idea, but he rejected several methods advocated by civil rights activists to achieve it. According to Nixon, threatening to cut off federal funds to districts that did not integrate was a “very dangerous” policy that should be used sparingly. He emphatically opposed busing and defended “freedom of choice” plans, provided they did not perpetuate segregation. Harry Dent was so impressed that he arranged for the interview to be rebroadcast across the South and for a transcript to be widely distributed. Brooke, Javits, and other liberal Republicans were outraged. Asked by reporters whether he was advocating that Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which forbade federal financial support of segregation) be ignored, Nixon distinguished between segregation caused by laws and segregation resulting from housing patterns. Because, in his view, the latter was not facilitated by government, he would not subject it to federal oversight.83 That message also resonated with white voters in the North, where civil rights groups continued to demand school integration. These situa-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 277

the nixon synthesis [ 277 ]

tions sometimes turned violent, such as a clash in November 1967 between African American students and Philadelphia police. Federal authorities, meanwhile, were starting to take notice of northern inequities. In March 1968 HEW officials instructed northern districts to halt segregation caused by factors other than housing. Local leaders, in other words, could not redraw boundaries to maintain a color line. HEW told school officials to provide equal educational opportunities for black students; this meant discontinuing long-standing practices such as larger class sizes, less qualified teachers, and lower expenditures in black schools. Busing also emerged as a source of bitter conflict in some northern communities. Pointing to antibusing language in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Nixon firmly rejected any federal attempts to mandate busing. “If the local school board thinks busing is best, that’s up to them,” he declared. “But federal money, or the threat of its withdrawal, should not be used to force them.”84 Nixon was in sync with most white voters on law and order, and no other domestic issue worked more to his advantage. In September a Harris poll found that 81 percent of voters nationwide agreed that “law and order has broken down,” and 84 percent thought a “strong president” could “make a big difference in directly preserving law and order.” Nixon wooed middle-class whites with television ads decrying the rise in violence, reiterating his claim that the “first civil right” was the right to be safe, and promising to aggressively combat lawlessness. The ads contained no overtly racist appeals, and on rare occasions they even included pictures of law-abiding African Americans. Behind the scenes, however, Nixon denounced blacks when he thought they were responsible for disruption. Nixon filmed one commercial that highlighted a racially motivated teachers’ strike in New York City, using it to condemn disorder in the nation’s schools. He told his aides, “Yep, this hits it right on the nose . . . it’s all about law and order and the damn Negro–Puerto Rican groups out there.”85 The law-and-order issue sharply divided whites and blacks. An October poll found that 52 percent of African Americans believed that police brutality was a significant factor in rising lawlessness, but only 10 percent of whites agreed. Fifty-four percent of whites blamed disorder on the courts, whereas just 26 percent of blacks did. Fifty-four percent of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 278

[ 278 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

whites reported feeling unease on the streets, and more than half linked that feeling to “fear of racial violence.” Blacks tended to equate calls for law and order with racism, but whites did not. The gap extended to the broader question of racial progress as well. Whereas 72 percent of African Americans thought the pace of change needed to be faster, only 26 percent of whites agreed.86 Nixon made few overt or sustained appeals for black votes. Vowing not to lose white suburbanites by paying too much attention to urban issues, he visited only one ghetto. Nixon rebuffed Brooke’s suggestion that he spend more time in black areas. “If I am president,” he informed a prominent Pennsylvania Republican, “I am not going to owe anything to the black community.” Agnew similarly expressed little interest in reaching out to blacks. He rejected appeals to visit poor African Americans, claiming that if you had seen one ghetto, you had seen them all. In addition, Agnew announced that one did not learn about poverty by talking to poor people. He told a national television audience that he opposed the Montgomery bus boycott because it encouraged lawbreaking.87 Nixon sought votes from middle-class blacks by running several ads in Jet toward the end of the campaign. The national media largely missed these efforts to incorporate a handful of blacks into his new political coalition. The spots stressed that violent crime “hurt the black man most of all.” They also touted the importance of increased funding for education and the need for black teachers and principals to serve as role models for African American students. Finally, the ads claimed that private enterprise, with a modicum of government assistance, would enable African Americans to escape poverty.88 As the campaign neared its culmination, Nixon sat down for an interview with Jet. “Black capitalism,” he maintained, was “intended not only as a more effective means of economic development, but also as a means of raising the ceiling for black aspiration, and moving from dependence to independence.” Like many social scientists, Nixon embraced the idea that the poor, both white and black, lived in a “culture of poverty” that left them ill prepared to compete in mainstream society. He told the magazine he favored a “remedial approach to the problems of the poor, one which extends a helping hand across the chasm which separates the poverty subculture from the rest of society.” Nixon called on corpora-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 279

the nixon synthesis [ 279 ]

tions to “act from a greater sense of urgency than the normal pursuit of profit” and “recruit the hopeless where they live.” Government could also spur economic development in ghetto areas through tax credits and other programs. Democrats, according to Nixon, offered blacks only endless dependency.89 Using Brooke as an intermediary, Nixon invited a dozen prominent black leaders to his New York City apartment in late October. In expectation of victory in November, he wanted to discuss how to heal the nation’s racial divisions. But so many of the invitees refused to attend that the event never happened. Instead, some black leaders worked to defeat Nixon. During the final weeks of the campaign, Abernathy traveled to African American neighborhoods to warn that a victory for “tricky, slicky, Dicky” would be disastrous.90 Nixon narrowly won the popular vote but enjoyed a comfortable margin in the Electoral College. Wallace triumphed in five Deep South states. Nixon and Wallace combined to win approximately 58 percent of the nationwide vote. Humphrey received an astonishing 12 million fewer votes than Johnson had in 1964; roughly 40 percent of Nixon’s support came from voters who had backed Johnson. The congressional situation was not as bleak for the Democrats, as the GOP won five Senate seats but only four in the House.91 The election results revealed sharp regional and racial divisions. Nixon failed to stem the GOP’s ongoing decline in the Northeast, but because of his strength in the Midwest, West, and South, he did not have to. His success in suburbia proved critical. A survey of the thirty-five largest metropolitan areas found that Nixon did very well in the suburbs throughout the nation and ran best in areas such as Phoenix, Tampa, Atlanta, and Southern California. The suburbanization of American politics had begun.92 In the South the GOP could claim a partial victory at best. Nixon won several of his target states, including Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The South soundly repudiated Humphrey, who carried only Texas—and narrowly, at that. Some white southerners were abandoning the Democrats, but others were moving away from the Republicans. Of the forty-four southern congressional districts that had voted for Goldwater, twenty-nine (66 percent) voted

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 280

[ 280 ] ch ap t e r ni ne

for Wallace. Nixon performed better in districts won by Johnson four years earlier than in those carried by Goldwater. Beneath the presidential level, white southerners were reluctant to vote Republican. The GOP gained only two House seats in Dixie and one Senate seat (Florida). The South Carolina Senate race revealed the abiding strength of the Democrats: the Republican candidate lost every county in the state.93 Racial polarization between the parties was stark. Estimates typically placed Nixon’s totals among blacks at between 10 and 12 percent. Like Eisenhower, he simply did not need the black vote. More important, black turnout declined significantly compared with 1964, which was troubling news for Democrats. The difference between the two majorparty candidates was more pronounced among blacks than among any other segment of the electorate. Humphrey received just 40 percent of the white vote.94

Conclusion Nixon’s victory marked an important turning point in the contentious four-year debate over civil rights and the place of the South. In the wake of Goldwaterism, liberals such as Rockefeller and Romney had articulated a racially progressive vision that focused on bringing the Northeast and the Midwest, as well as African Americans, back to the GOP. Like earlier generations of liberals, they proved unable to implement their plan. More important, their analysis was wrong. Nixon campaign adviser Kevin Phillips pointed this out a year later in his widely read book The Emerging Republican Majority: “One of the greatest political myths of the decade . . . is that the Republican Party cannot obtain national dominance without mobilizing liberal support in the big cities [and] . . . gaining substantial Negro support. . . . The actual demographic and political facts convey a very different message.” Phillips was the latest in a long line of Republicans to argue that, from a political perspective, wooing black voters was unnecessary and might even be counterproductive. According to Phillips, racial conflict was driving both northern and southern whites into the GOP and cementing black loyalty to the Democrats. Nixon did not need New York, Michigan, or the other Democratic-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 281

the nixon synthesis [ 281 ]

leaning states that liberal Republicans had long insisted were crucial for victory. Javits, as liberal as anyone in the Senate, received just 23.4 percent of the black vote in his successful 1968 reelection campaign.95 Yet 1968 was not a victory for conservatives either. Nixon distanced himself from Goldwater, showing that the GOP could adjust to cultural transformations. He understood that most whites did not want to roll back the civil rights reforms from earlier in the decade. Nixon also grasped that whites demanded peace, objected to substantial new spending on the black poor, and did not want federal authorities mandating the integration of schools and neighborhoods. Nixon did not impose these attitudes; rather, he connected with white voters by telling them a narrative about themselves, African Americans, and the nation that they already believed. He defined the GOP’s approach to racial politics for decades to come.96 It is thus not surprising that a campaign based on these themes generated little support among African Americans. Indeed, Republican politics since 1964 had done nothing to alter long-standing black views of the GOP. Overwhelming majorities of blacks continued to believe that the party offered them little or, worse, threatened to undo racial progress. Finally, Nixon dissolved notions of a distinct South. Claims by pundits and historians that the GOP adopted a “southern strategy” mischaracterize what happened in the mid-1960s. Nixon believed that whites in Chicago were not much different from those in Atlanta or Los Angeles. Whites who were uncomfortable with the prospect of more federally mandated racial changes thought they had found their champion. Nixon would fulfill many of their expectations over the next five years. He would also disappoint them.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 282

10

Schools, Voting Rights, and the Supreme Court, 1969–1970

Amid gray skies and blustery winds, Richard Nixon took the presidential oath of office on January 20, 1969. “No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not,” he declared in his inaugural address. “To go forward at all is to go forward together. This means black and white together, as one nation, not two.” Nixon proclaimed a new era in which the implementation of existing racial policies would matter more than fresh initiatives.1 This conciliatory tone masked an undercurrent of anxiety in Washington. Outgoing Johnson administration officials were so concerned about domestic turmoil that they left the Nixon team a stack of blank executive orders declaring martial law—only the date and city had to be filled in. Worried that antiwar and civil rights activists might try to disrupt the inauguration, federal officials had amassed the largest security force ever for the event, but the day unfolded peacefully. Clarence Townes had helped convince Ralph Abernathy to call off a demonstration, and other activists saw direct action as futile. “We don’t need to get a lot of our people clubbed for nothing,” commented one black leader. There were few African Americans at any of the festivities. A black minister offered the Lord’s Prayer at the afternoon ceremony, while jazz legends Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington and soul music sensation James Brown entertained the nearly all-white crowds at the inaugural balls that evening.2 African Americans had deep reservations about the new president. Nixon had met with Urban League head Whitney Young Jr. in midNovember and with six black leaders a week before the inauguration, but [ 282 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 283

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 283 ]

he did not announce any new policies afterward. Civil rights leaders were upset when Nixon did not name an African American to his cabinet. Jet reported, “The black brain drain is on,” as African Americans with prominent federal jobs began to resign. Abernathy dismissed Nixon’s call for black capitalism as “a bone” that would help only a few. Blacks, he announced, “want the prime rib of beef.” Simeon Booker published a special letter to Nixon in Jet. “You as the next president must ‘get with it’ and quit the gimmickry and tokenism and decide to do a job for every American,” he wrote. “You have shown no interest and given no leadership to win support among us.“ Some African Americans feared Nixon; rumors circulated in many black neighborhoods that the administration was planning to build concentration camps to house them.3 Similar rebukes occurred throughout Nixon’s presidency. “I can think of no president who has more blatantly sacrificed the ideals of equality and racial justice for his own political ends,” Bayard Rustin told the graduating class at Tuskegee Institute in 1970. “Nixon is not simply riding the wave of reaction. He is encouraging that reaction.” Later that summer the chair of the NAACP’s board of directors characterized Nixon as the first president since Woodrow Wilson to be blatantly “antiNegro.” Black leaders charged that the Nixon administration was part of a broader federal plan involving “genocide” against the Black Panther Party. The Civil Rights Commission blasted the administration’s efforts as “highly inadequate” and singled out the president for special criticism. Nixon was not surprised. “The NAACP would say the rhetoric was poor if I gave the Sermon on the Mount,” he told his aides.4 Historians tend to offer similar interpretations. Though some have credited Nixon with progress in school desegregation and affirmative action, scholars often view him as the morally repugnant architect of a latetwentieth-century conservatism that attempted to slow, or even reverse, the racial gains of the post–World War II era. Any advances that occurred during the Nixon administration came from the courts, the federal bureaucracy, or a Democratic-controlled Congress, such scholars maintain. They also tend to see Nixon as devoid of conviction. Driven by insecurity and resentment over his lack of acceptance by East Coast elites, Nixon made race a prominent component of his populist campaigns against the media, courts, executive branch agencies, and universi-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 284

[ 284 ] ch ap t e r t e n

ties. Other scholars have found him inconsistent and contend he gave little attention to racial issues.5 There is a good deal of truth in these interpretations. Nixon privately exhibited a crude vulgarity toward blacks (and Jews) that reflected popular stereotypes of his era. “I have the greatest affection for [blacks], but they’re not going to make it for five hundred years,” he said to his aides. “They aren’t. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. . . . They don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.” Nixon railed against “these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls” and claimed “there has never in history been an adequate black nation, and they are the only race of which this is true.” He showed at least modest accord with research that claimed a genetic-based racial hierarchy of intelligence. Nixon engaged in perpetual battles with the courts and federal agencies, especially the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), over the pace of integration. He favored few racial policies that whites opposed and routinely calculated how issues would play politically. Nixon wrote off most of the black vote as unwinnable.6 Nevertheless, scholars have ignored or downplayed several important aspects of racial politics and policy in the early 1970s. Nixon thought about race often, and it sometimes left him feeling puzzled or even powerless. Contrary to stereotype, he had several core principles that shaped his behavior, and these usually overlapped with the beliefs of a majority of voters; given that symmetry, Nixon was eager to maximize its political advantage. Nixon believed the Constitution forbade legal segregation but did not require integration. He accepted the distinction, long championed by civil rights activists, between de jure and de facto segregation. Federal power could and should be brought to bear against the former, which he regarded as an artificial barrier that limited individual merit. “It’s clear that everybody is not equal, but we must ensure that anybody might go to the top,” he told White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman. The latter type—de-facto segregation—resulted from personal choices in a free society, and Nixon believed that attacking it was bound to fail; worse, it risked starting a full-fledged race war. According to speechwriter William Safire, Nixon warned “the roof would blow off” and “all hell

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 285

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 285 ]

would break loose” if the courts tried to outlaw de facto school segregation. Nixon, along with several advisers and some Republican legislators, routinely expressed alarm that the nation was on the cusp of widespread social disorder. Whereas civil rights activists and liberal politicians in both parties often invoked violence, or the threat of violence, to justify federal action, to Nixon, violence was a reason not to act. In this respect, he followed in the footsteps of Taft, Eisenhower, and other Republicans.7 The domestic turmoil associated with the Vietnam War and other issues shaped the broader context in which Nixon approached racial policy. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Harvard University professor whom Nixon named as his chief urban affairs adviser, warned the new president that an escalation of violence was inevitable. Statistics proved his point: in 1969 there were 602 bombings or bombing attempts across the nation; a year later there were 1,577. As one example, Boston University had to evacuate buildings eighty times during the fall semester because of such threats. The Nixon administration itself was under siege. In the spring of 1970 the White House was surrounded by a ring of school buses to protect the president from antiwar demonstrators. Haldeman privately noted there was “lots of concern . . . about terrorism and left-wing plans for violence,” such as the assassination or kidnapping of top government officials, including the president. Nixon and his aides feared the nation was falling apart; critics thought he was paranoid.8 Nixon’s pessimism about race relations also influenced his behavior. “Forget the polls, people don’t tell the truth to pollsters on this,” he commented to his aides. “I think the majority of people are against integration. The majority are scared to death of the black militants, and of the white militants as well.” Neither whites nor blacks, Nixon believed, were eager to live and work together. “People react to fear, not love,” he asserted. “They don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.” There were exceptions, of course. Nixon acknowledged that a great deal of progress had been made, but advances happened slowly. “You’re not going to solve this race problem for a hundred years,” he told aides. “Intermarriage and all that, assimilation, it will happen, but not in our time.”9 Nixon placed greater emphasis on economics than integration. He had long believed that the chief problem facing African Americans was poverty, and business was the engine of upward mobility. Government

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 286

[ 286 ] ch ap t e r t e n

played a role, but only a secondary one. Although his push for affirmative action in hiring and black capitalism would fall short in many respects, and although his own commitment to these and other initiatives was haphazard, they were not simply cynical ploys to divide the Democrats or play to white racial animosities. Nixon sometimes exhibited a defeatist attitude. For instance, struck by the filth of New York City during a visit in 1970, he declared that nothing could be done to make such environments livable. Nixon also had far less faith in government than civil rights activists did, and he harbored a deep distrust of federal bureaucrats. Civil rights activists wanted him to take bold steps with regard to schools, jobs, housing, voting rights, and other matters because, in their eyes, vigorous presidential action led to progress. Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson were the benchmarks by which they would judge Nixon.10 Nixon’s approach to race echoed Eisenhower’s in several important respects. He was inclined to seek political gain from racial tensions, yet he insisted he was a sensible moderate caught between overzealous activists and stubborn whites. Like the former president, Nixon saw little value in speeches. “I would rather be measured by my deeds than all the fancy speeches I may have made. . . . I don’t think I am going to win [blacks] with the words,” he commented. Critics complained that Nixon’s rhetoric often left blacks feeling marginalized, but he was capable of taking quiet steps that led to racial progress. Nixon frequently denounced the federal courts for moving too far ahead of public opinion.11 The president shaped racial policy, but so did other parts of the federal government, including the courts, the federal bureaucracy, and Congress. Nixon had to work with a Democratically controlled Congress for his entire presidency, and even Republican legislators often disagreed with the White House. The Senate was particularly influential. Edward Brooke, Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, and other Republicans allied with liberal Democrats to protect earlier policies from conservatives’ attacks or to move policy in a more liberal direction. The initiatives of the 1960s proved resilient and were sometimes expanded on, but even so, liberals failed to achieve many of their goals. Conservatives were often disappointed as well. Barry Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1968 but exerted minimal influence. The Nixon years were not an era of conserva-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 287

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 287 ]

tive dominance in the GOP, and conservatives did not set the policy agenda in Congress. Congressional Republicans often differed with the president over the South’s place in American society. Whereas Nixon tried to minimize regional disparities, most Republicans on Capitol Hill continued to see the South as “different.” They still voted in favor of civil rights reforms applicable to Dixie while opposing policies that would expand federal power in their own home states and districts. This was particularly true in battles over school and neighborhood integration, voting rights, and the confirmation of two Supreme Court nominees. Southern Republicans complained about the double standard, but in the early 1970s they failed to achieve many of their policy goals.

School Desegregation in the South Nixon administration officials were a diverse group. Conservatives on the team included Haldeman, speechwriter Patrick Buchanan, and Harry Dent, Nixon’s adviser for southern affairs (and a former aide to Strom Thurmond). Liberals included Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) George Romney, HEW chief Robert Finch, Secretary of Labor George Shultz, and presidential aide Leonard Garment. Beneath them stood the federal bureaucracy, which consisted largely of nonpolitical appointees who favored a stronger federal role in racial matters. The White House and civil rights leaders clashed within days of the inauguration. Nixon took office at a time when federal authorities were ratcheting up pressure on southern officials. By striking down “freedom of choice” plans, the Supreme Court had forced school districts to take affirmative steps and show real change. Guidelines from HEW’s Office of Civil Rights required all districts to at least begin desegregation by the fall of 1969. Finch announced that five southern districts, already targeted for a cutoff of federal aid, would receive funds if they developed acceptable desegregation programs within sixty days. He was even willing to send federal officials to help them come up with plans. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights feared that the 700-plus southern districts at various stages of negotiation with the federal government would see this as an opening for further delays or outright avoidance of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 288

[ 288 ] ch ap t e r t e n

desegregation. Roy Wilkins blasted the move as “a concession to President Nixon’s die-hard Dixie supporters.”12 Yet the president’s southern constituents were not happy either. White opinion was not monolithic. Some saw desegregation as necessary for social and economic development. Others expected Nixon to restrain the bureaucrats at HEW, whom they regarded as duplicitous, overzealous, and ignorant of the complexities of race in the South. They wanted guidelines to be eased or even revoked, the cutting off of funds to cease, and money that had already been withheld to be restored. Although a majority of districts were making some steps toward integration, the most resistant tended to be in areas with high black populations. By the spring of 1969, 130 districts had refused federal aid altogether rather than integrate.13 Complaints from southerners flooded the White House. According to Dent, Thurmond was “rather furious” that HEW officials would not retreat. The South Carolina senator informed Nixon that he was receiving more mail on civil rights than any other issue and predicted that in 1972 the president would not carry the southern states he had just won in November. “The Republican Party in the Southern states, and in the nation, will rise or fall on this issue,” he asserted. Texas congressman George H. W. Bush noted he had a mailbag “full of irate letters” over a federal suit against the Houston school district. Southern leaders were also troubled when Nixon appointed civil rights activist James Farmer as an assistant secretary at HEW and New Yorker James Allen Jr. as commissioner of education. Allen’s views on schooling were essentially the same as those of former commissioner Harold Howe II, whom southern leaders had despised. Some southern politicians even grumbled that Nixon had hired too many African American secretaries at the White House.14 Although Nixon resented criticism from conservatives on these and other matters, he tried to tamp down the southern blaze. Vice President Spiro Agnew, who was wildly popular across Dixie, reassured southern Republicans that things would change. Even Finch sounded several conciliatory notes in a March interview with U.S. News & World Report, which the White House distributed throughout Dixie.15 This bought the administration some goodwill, but southern Republicans continued to bombard the White House. Leon Panetta, head of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 289

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 289 ]

HEW’s Office for Civil Rights, came under particularly intense fire. (Panetta, a liberal California Republican, had worked for Thomas Kuchel; he would later serve under Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.) Thurmond told Nixon he was “at a loss” over what to say to whites who had voted for the president. G. Paul Jones Jr., head of the Georgia GOP, complained to Dent that school officials had been “rebuffed at every turn” by federal authorities. “Harry, we might as well forget 1970, we might as well forget candidate recruitment, we might as well look for some other pastime than politics . . . unless this school situation is straightened out quickly,” Jones emphasized. “For God’s sake, get this message through.” He angrily chronicled how HEW staffers had rejected as tokenism one district’s plan to enroll fourteen whites in a majority-black school. Several wealthy residents, Jones added, had promised large donations if the school issue could be resolved to their liking.16 Criticism came from the grass roots as well. “I am not a wealthy man,” one South Carolina father wrote to Dent, “but I will work nights, Sundays, and holidays to send my children to a private school if it becomes necessary.” Dent, who believed poor white and black students in the Palmetto State were being hurt by the rapid growth in private school enrollment, relayed these concerns to Nixon.17 The president moved to rein in HEW that May. He instructed Finch to exercise closer oversight of desegregation in South Carolina and ensure that federal actions would not offend the state’s white citizens. By mid-June, HEW had given eighteen districts a one-year extension on the deadline for filing desegregation plans.18 These steps drew fire from blacks and liberal Republicans. A national poll reported that African Americans overwhelmingly believed that Nixon’s commitment to racial equality was much weaker than that of either Kennedy or Johnson. Delegates to the NAACP annual convention unanimously passed a resolution condemning any effort to weaken or postpone the guidelines, and the LCCR threatened to file lawsuits. Eight African American lawmakers, including Edward Brooke, declared that any retreat would amount to a “betrayal of black people.” Senator Robert Packwood of Oregon told Nixon that softening civil rights enforcement would be a moral as well as a political setback for the GOP. Hugh Scott and other Republican senators, several of whom were up for

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 290

[ 290 ] ch ap t e r t e n

reelection in 1970, complained about Nixon’s civil rights policies to RNC chair Rogers Morton. “It ain’t so bad,” Morton replied.19 On July 3 Finch and Attorney General John Mitchell jointly announced that the administration would promote school desegregation primarily through lawsuits brought by the Justice Department, rather than by cutting off federal funds. This transferred responsibility from the executive branch to the judiciary. Finch and Mitchell also signaled that the administration would be more flexible, giving southern districts additional time to develop desegregation plans. Owing to difficulties involving finances, facilities, and faculty, they maintained, not all districts could be expected to meet the fall 1969 goal. Black-majority districts were automatically given another year. White House conservatives lamented that the statement was too timid, but civil rights leaders worried that southern judges would not push hard enough. “It’s almost enough to make you vomit,” Wilkins commented. White southerners tended to hail the move.20 Politics clearly played a central role in this decision. Nixon could now blame the courts for unpopular policies. Yet the president also believed that unrealistic goals had caused too much disruption; change, he thought, had to occur more slowly than the NAACP and others wished. He also worried that cutting off funds would penalize poor children of both races, given that some districts continued to segregate even after losing their funds. In that case, the federal government had no leverage. Panetta, as well as some officials in the Johnson administration, had voiced similar concerns.21 Nor did all African Americans favor cutting off funds to districts that did not desegregate. Nixon met with sixteen black newspaper publishers at the White House in late May; one editor urged the president to find a new strategy because cutting off funds was hurting black students and causing black teachers to lose their jobs.22 Nixon’s political gains in Dixie proved short-lived. Within days of the Mitchell-Finch statement, the Justice Department announced lawsuits against several districts in both the North and the South and signaled that more would be forthcoming. Dent informed the president that the mood in the South ranged from betrayal to confusion; the Louisiana GOP was “in deep anguish” over the “very tough” approach HEW was taking there. Some southern Republican leaders speculated that the administra-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 291

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 291 ]

tion was buckling under criticism from the New York Times and other eastern media outlets. Upset that HEW might cut off funds to Atlanta schools, one popular Republican congressman from Georgia threatened Finch with impeachment.23 Mississippi took center stage that fall. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that thirty-three school districts in the state had to desegregate by early September. Senator John Stennis wrote to Nixon in early August, demanding a delay. The Mississippi Democrat predicted that if the order stood, whites would abandon the public schools in droves; his threat to return home to lead the resistance particularly troubled Nixon. The president was counting on Stennis, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to secure approval of antiballistic missile legislation. Stuart Symington of Missouri, who opposed the missile plan, would take over if Stennis departed. When negotiations with the Mississippi lawmaker went nowhere, Nixon opted to back down on schools to save the missile project. Politics was also a factor; Panetta later quoted John Ehrlichman, the president’s chief domestic advisor, as saying, “The blacks were not where our votes are.”24 Days before classes were scheduled to begin in Mississippi, Finch asked the court to postpone integration until December 1. Moving forward in September, the secretary predicted, would bring “chaos, confusion, and a catastrophic education setback” for both white and black students. The court approved Finch’s request. Nearly all the civil rights lawyers at the Justice Department filed a protest with Mitchell. The NAACP took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, accusing the administration of violating Brown. The Civil Rights Commission offered a broader critique, alleging that the White House had overseen a “major retreat” on school desegregation.25 Nixon pushed back at a press conference in late September. Sounding like Eisenhower, the president described himself as standing between “two extreme groups . . . those who want instant integration and those who want segregation forever.” He stoutly defended the administration’s position with regard to Mississippi as well as the shift toward litigation. “I do not consider it a victory for integration,” he added, “when the federal government cuts off funds for a school and thereby, for both black and white students in that school, denies them the education they should have.”26

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 292

[ 292 ] ch ap t e r t e n

A month later, in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled 8–0 that Mississippi districts must “terminate dual systems at once.” It was a sharp rebuke to the White House. Nixon privately railed against the “clowns” on the Court. “Integration hasn’t worked,” he told Haldeman. Nixon also became the first president to publicly disagree with a Supreme Court ruling on desegregation, but he pledged to enforce the law.27

The Haynsworth Confirmation Battle Questions of race, education, and the South also figured prominently in the debate surrounding Nixon’s first Supreme Court nominee. Conservative Clement Haynsworth Jr., a fifty-six-year-old native of Greenville, South Carolina, and a Harvard Law School graduate, had served on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1957. The NAACP, LCCR, and other civil rights groups were deeply troubled by his civil rights rulings, particularly his support for “freedom of choice” plans. (According to Haynsworth, those decisions had occurred a decade or more earlier and did not reflect his current beliefs.) The judge also faced strong opposition from unions, as well as allegations that he had engaged in several unethical financial practices. Adding to the drama was northern Democrats’ anger toward Republicans for their recent successful efforts to block Abe Fortas, a liberal, from becoming chief justice. Some northern Republicans, as well as a few members of the White House staff, urged Nixon to withdraw the nomination. He refused.28 The Senate rejected Haynsworth by a vote of 45–55 on November 21, making him the first nominee to be turned down since 1930. Twenty-six Republicans voted for him, but seventeen, nearly all from the Midwest and the East, voted against him. Several in the latter group cited electoral pressures or concern that Nixon was paying too much attention to the South. Civil rights leaders were elated. Nixon blamed the media, labor, and northern Republicans for the humiliating outcome. White southerners charged that Haynsworth was a victim of antisouthern prejudice. Bemoaning that the courts were plagued by a record number of “mediocre” judges, Nixon persuaded Haynsworth to stay on the bench.29

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 293

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 293 ]

The Voting Rights Act—The House Allegations of regional bias were also prominent in the debate over the Voting Rights Act, which came before the House that December. Two sections of the law were due to expire in 1970—the trigger formula, which had suspended literacy tests in several southern states, and preclearance, which required states affected by the trigger to secure federal approval before changing their voting statutes. Civil rights activists favored a simple extension of the law until 1975. In their eyes, these two provisions had been instrumental in dramatically increasing black voter registration across the South. These activists had allies on both sides of the aisle. Among their strongest Republican friends were Hugh Scott and William McCulloch, who were proud of the law and troubled that southern communities were using assorted means to dilute the influence of newly enfranchised black voters. (According to Dent, some southern GOP officials had complained about heavy black turnout in some contests.) Many Republicans, including McCulloch, were also concerned about widespread voting abuses in large urban areas in the North. Meanwhile, southern lawmakers from both parties insisted that gains in black voter registration proved their region had changed. They wanted to either let the automatic trigger and preclearance sections expire or create a new statute that suspended literacy tests nationwide (fourteen nonsouthern states had such tests or similar requirements) and toughened antifraud laws. For the southerners, more than regional pride was at stake; it was about power.30 Nixon welcomed a nationwide ban on literacy tests as a way to remove the stigma from the South. Others in the administration also thought that approach was warranted, given a recent Supreme Court decision (Gaston County v. United States) that literacy tests, no matter how they were implemented, discriminated against African Americans because of their poor educational opportunities. But Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford informed the White House that an outright ban on literacy tests would not pass Congress. Nonsouthern Republicans wanted to retain literacy tests in their states. McCulloch and Scott predicted that the GOP would suffer politically if the law’s provisions were not simply extended. Describing the Voting Rights Act as the “Magna Carta” of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 294

[ 294 ] ch ap t e r t e n

civil rights, the Pennsylvania senator warned that activists “would object militantly and violently” if the president got his way.31 The administration’s plan, announced in late June, called for literacy tests to be outlawed nationwide until January 1, 1974. It would also empower the attorney general to enforce voting rights nationwide and establish a federal commission to investigate voter fraud and discrimination. Preclearance and the trigger mechanism would be eliminated; the Justice Department would file suits on a case-by-case basis against laws already in existence. The White House’s bill also moved voting rights cases from the District of Columbia bench—a liberal venue—to the local federal courts. Ending preclearance, Attorney General Mitchell testified, rightly shifted the burden of proof from the states to the federal government. Noting that a greater percentage of African Americans voted in parts of the Deep South than in Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., he added that the administration’s measure would protect the rapidly growing black population outside the South.32 Southern Republicans cheered. “For the first time in eight years,” Mississippi party chair Clarke Reed proclaimed, “we have an administration that is making it clear that the same laws that govern the South must govern the entire nation.” Civil rights leaders worried that the legislation would direct enforcement resources to locales where no problems existed.33 The House approved the administration’s bill 208–203 in December. Owing in part to strong lobbying efforts by the White House, 129 Republicans stood with the president, while only 49, nearly all from northern industrial states, supported a simple extension of the existing law’s provisions. Civil rights groups considered the outcome their worst defeat in a decade. “What has happened to the party of Lincoln?” a stunned reporter asked an aide to one of the Republican dissenters. “It has put on a Confederate uniform,” he responded. Ford objected to such Civil War comparisons. “This is not the Reconstruction era and neither is this 1965,” he proclaimed. “Just as we do not want any second-class citizens in this country, neither do we want any second-class states.” McCulloch was not so sanguine. “Progress has been made only by impact of federal law and not through generosity of spirit,” the Ohioan countered. “The South has not to any appreciable extent suffered a change of heart.”34

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 295

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 295 ]

School Desegregation Continues Notions of southern exceptionalism were also central in discussions of education policy. House Republicans had allied with southern Democrats to add an amendment to an HEW appropriations bill that would prevent the agency from employing several desegregation tools and would restore “freedom of choice” plans. “Leave it alone!” Nixon privately ordered his aides. But when the bill came before the Senate near the end of the year, Finch lobbied senators in both parties to delete or modify the amendment, which Scott worried would “undo several years of progress.” The reasons for the administration’s shift are unclear. Nixon disagreed with the Court’s direction, but he did not want to defy it. The president also may have been trying to defuse northern Republicans’ grumbling that the White House was paying too much attention to the South. A slim majority of Senate Republicans, mostly from the East and the Midwest, joined liberal Democrats to add language rendering the amendment innocuous. The coalition also rejected Sam Ervin’s amendment that would have prohibited the courts or federal agencies from requiring busing. Both votes were defeats for conservatives.35 Education remained a pressing concern in the early months of 1970. Thousands of students across the South would soon be involved in desegregation initiatives. Some southern whites worked for peaceful (though often minimal) compliance, but others remained firmly against any change. Southern politicians in both parties tried to ride this wave of opposition. In January George Wallace accused Nixon of doing “more to destroy the public school system in one year than the last administration did in four.” He vowed to lead a movement to defeat the president in 1972 unless he reversed course. Albert Watson, the GOP candidate for governor of South Carolina, sharply denounced busing, called for the state to defund districts that complied with court orders to bus, and urged residents to resist “judicial tyranny.” Thurmond warned Nixon that the school situation had reached “crisis proportions.”36 Other southern leaders advocated policies that would soften or eliminate federal enforcement in Dixie or require districts across the nation to integrate. They hoped the latter would either dilute whatever support existed for federal efforts or undermine enforcement in the South by

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 296

[ 296 ] ch ap t e r t e n

stretching federal resources. Several of these plans passed the House, as Republicans allied with southern Democrats, but the Senate then voted them down or modified their language to render them ineffective. Senate Republicans tended to divide along regional lines, with northerners continuing to argue that the South was different. Any suggestion that New York and Mississippi were identical, Javits insisted, was “patently invalid.”37 Pressure also came from the courts. Particularly notable was a February 5 decision requiring Charlotte, North Carolina, to implement a widespread busing program starting in April. Queen City public officials, Judge James McMillan ruled, had created and perpetuated segregated schools. White residents denounced the “dictatorial power” of the courts and stepped up grassroots protests efforts. They were not against integration, they insisted; they simply wanted the best education for their children. Forbidding freedom of choice, they claimed, discriminated against them. In their view, segregation resulted from personal choices made by whites and blacks alike and thus did not warrant governmental intrusion. Many talked about boycotting the public schools or sending their children to private institutions.38 Charlotte remained peaceful, but that was not the case in Lamar, South Carolina, where a mob of 100 used bricks, bottles, and ax handles to attack a bus carrying black students in early March. State troopers fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Local authorities closed schools for a week, but when they reopened, roughly 80 percent of the white students did not attend. The crisis soon receded, but the incident made national headlines and offered yet another example of the inflammatory potential of this issue. A Gallup poll found that 70 percent of southern whites believed school integration was moving too fast.39 Battles over school integration were not confined to Dixie. In early February a judge ordered school officials in Los Angeles to integrate no later than fall 1971. In Denver at least twelve bombs destroyed or severely damaged nearly one-third of the district’s school buses. According to a January National Observer article, growing numbers of white northerners were abandoning public education by moving to the suburbs or enrolling their children in private schools. The story pointed out that nearly 75 percent of African Americans in Illinois attended schools that

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 297

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 297 ]

were 95 to 100 percent black. “If they bused in colored children we’d have riots,” a principal in a largely white area of Chicago said. “They know this at the Board of Education.” Patrick Buchanan forwarded details of the Observer piece to Nixon. “Why should we continue to kick the South and hypocritically ignore the same problems in the North?” the president wrote on the speechwriter’s memo. “Is de facto segregation OK in the North and not in the South?”40 African American leaders, meanwhile, still had little regard for the president. “It is crystal clear,” the Chicago Defender asserted, “that the President is part of the conspiracy to cancel out the purpose and intent of public school racial balance, heighten white supremacy, and by the same token keep the Negro down as a second-class citizen.” Jackie Robinson wrote to Nixon, “There seem to be no key officials in your administration who have an understanding of what motivates black people.”41 African American criticism intensified in February after a memo from Moynihan to Nixon was leaked. Moynihan had recommended that the president pursue a policy of “benign neglect” on racial matters. Twentyone black leaders issued a statement blasting the document as evidence of a deliberate White House effort to “wipe out” two decades of racial progress. This was not the first time Moynihan had run afoul of civil rights leaders; his 1965 report on trends in African American family life had prompted some to call him a racist. This time, Bayard Rustin accused Moynihan of blaming blacks rather than structural economic trends for high black poverty rates. In both cases, much of this criticism reflected an oversimplified reading of Moynihan’s argument. His memo counseled the president to continue the “extraordinary” racial progress that had occurred over the previous decade but urged him to defuse the rhetoric from “extremists of either race,” who were prone to “martyrdom, heroics, histrionics, or whatever.” Nixon privately agreed and indicated a desire to court the 30 to 35 percent of African Americans who, he was sure, quietly supported him.42 The president believed the nation faced “a very historic crisis.” Integration, he commented to his staff, was deeply unpopular and, in fact, had failed. “You see, at the time of the Brown decision in 1954, sentiment for integration was much higher than it is now,” Nixon asserted. Nixon

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 298

[ 298 ] ch ap t e r t e n

repeated an anecdote, which he had heard from Haldeman, that black students at Stanford University had once been eager for contact with whites but now kept to themselves. The president railed against the courts and other government officials for pushing too hard. Stories in the New York Times about racial conflict in schools left him convinced that liberals such as Javits were naïve. “A hell of a lot of classrooms are jungles, dangerous as hell,” Nixon stated. The president was particularly disturbed by a report that the District of Columbia school board, under pressure from civil rights protesters, had fired a white principal and replaced him with an African American. Haldeman noted that Nixon was afraid that this type of response “will result in adverse counteraction that will build a monstrosity, i.e. Wallace.” “If the Supreme Court goes as far as de facto racial balance,” Nixon warned, “all hell will break loose.”43 The president, one aide observed, showed “extreme perplexity over what to do.” He complained there was no political benefit to be won. “There’s mileage for anybody who wants to be Governor, but no mileage for somebody who has to be President,” he told his aides. “Reagan, [Claude] Kirk down in Florida, they can emphasize the negatives—all the failures of integration. Seventy-five percent of the people, black and white, will agree—I know this country.” Nixon considered instructing the Justice Department to file appeals against a series of lower court rulings in the wake of Alexander; he readily conceded that doing so would be “futile,” but he hoped it might place the White House “on the right side of the issue” and slow integration. When officials at the Justice Department expressed doubt that they could make a case against the Charlotte decision, Nixon fumed, “Justice needs to examine the realities as well as the legal technicalities.” The department did file an antibusing brief later that spring when the Charlotte case went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned the lower court’s pro-busing ruling.44 Nixon solicited input from a variety of administration officials, members of Congress, and academic experts. Richard Russell stated he had never seen white southerners so incensed, while Agnew predicted “massive rioting” if federal authorities pushed integration too aggressively. Garment tried to formulate a compromise, while Buchanan lobbied Nixon to take a more confrontational approach. “The ship of Integration

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 299

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 299 ]

is going down,” Buchanan wrote. “It is not our ship; it belongs to national liberalism—and we cannot salvage it; and we ought not to be aboard.” The speechwriter feared that “compulsory mixing” of whites and blacks would lead to “bloodshed.” Nixon scribbled “excellent analysis” on Buchanan’s memo, but he continued to search for an answer. Garment was too liberal, Buchanan was too conservative, and, as the president noted to Ehrlichman, “Agnew can go too far—with [a] McCarthyite tinge.”45 Nixon also quietly met with African American members of the administration, black Republicans from state and local government, and black teachers and ministers. According to Haldeman, Nixon wanted the insights of “responsible” blacks. James Farmer told the president he was embarrassed to meet with African Americans, and the White House stirred the wrath of the state and local officials by urging them to keep the event secret. Another embarrassing moment occurred when Mitchell remarked that he was “surprised to find such intelligent blacks in the Republican Party.” Participants criticized Nixon for getting advice on African American concerns from “white black authorities” such as Moynihan and Garment. The blacks praised some of the administration’s economic policies, however.46 That spring, Nixon took several steps to calm the waters. He removed Panetta, who had continued to upset white southerners. The president also created a cabinet-level task force, led by Agnew and Shultz, to advise southern leaders how to achieve desegregation peacefully. When administration officials met with southern governors in March, however, some of them spoke of defiance. John J. McKeithen of Louisiana pledged to go “to the streets” if the courts pressed too hard.47 The president ordered his staff to prepare a major statement on school integration. Nixon did not want to challenge the courts directly, but he intended to influence future rulings by rallying public opinion. The courts could not, he believed, continue to exacerbate racial tensions by issuing unenforceable decisions. Nixon instructed his speechwriters to avoid condemning the South as “morally wrong.” He commented that hypocritical northern white liberals chastised the South but sent their children to private institutions.48 Nixon released the document on March 24. The president affirmed

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 300

[ 300 ] ch ap t e r t e n

that Brown was both legally and morally correct and pledged to fight legally enforced segregation nationwide. He rebuked those who demanded integration “no matter what the cost in the disruption in education,” as well as those who “wish the clock of progress would stop or be turned back to 1953.” The Supreme Court, he noted, had yet to weigh in on several fundamental aspects of the school question, including busing. The president asserted he would not be bound by lower court decisions, which often differed substantially from one another.49 Nixon came down firmly against “racial balance” and busing. He made a clear distinction between de jure segregation, which had been outlawed by Brown, and de facto segregation, which was constitutional but “undesirable.” In the latter case, Nixon wanted the courts or lawmakers to consider the wishes of parents and other local factors. Whites had fled public education, Nixon pointed out, leaving the schools and the surrounding communities “racially isolated.” The president echoed the rhetoric of white grassroots protest by upholding the individual’s right “to decide for himself where and how he wants to live.” Localities where de facto segregation occurred could adopt busing or other policies to promote integration if they wanted to, but the federal government should not require them to do so. Busing, he claimed, was an expensive waste of money. The president was in sync with the public; an April poll showed that 86 percent of respondents opposed busing.50 Nixon insisted that schools focus on quality education. He emphasized that a strong home life was the most crucial determinant of student success; too many black children lacked such an environment and thus trailed whites in academic achievement. “It is unquestionably true that most black schools—though by no means all—are in fact inferior to white schools,” he declared. Because of this disparity, it was understandable that most whites did not want to send their children to schools with large numbers of African Americans. Other factors creating this gap included “long-term patterns of discrimination.” Echoing Lyndon Johnson’s famous 1965 address at Howard University, Nixon embraced notions of compensatory justice by affirming the nation’s obligation to “repair the human damage” caused by segregation. “We must,” he affirmed, “give the minority child that equal place at the starting line that his parents were denied.” To that end, Nixon would ask Congress to ap-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 301

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 301 ]

propriate $1.5 billion over the next two years to boost student performance in poor districts and to help districts meet the challenges of courtordered desegregation.51 Civil rights activists blasted Nixon for not offering a robust moral defense of integration. They noted that southern school officials had long bused white and black students to perpetuate segregation, and the courts had ordered relatively few districts to implement the desegregation policy. The steady barrage of criticism left Nixon frustrated. Haldeman noted in early April that the president “broods frequently over problem of how we communicate with young and blacks. It’s really not possible, except for the Uncle Toms, and we should work on them and forget militants.”52 Though some conservatives complained that Nixon had been too soft on the courts, Dent reported that reaction in the South was “generally favorable.” Housing segregation and school district boundaries would ensure that the nearly all-white suburbs, Nixon’s core support in the region, would experience little or no school integration under the president’s approach. That was not the case for rural areas, which tended to have one countywide district.53

Another Supreme Court Nominee The school controversy played out while the White House was engaged in another Supreme Court confirmation fight. Nixon had nominated G. Harrold Carswell, a southern conservative. Legal experts, liberal Democrats, and some Republicans questioned Carswell’s intelligence and competence. Civil rights organizations considered him a racist. They were deeply troubled by his involvement with a Tallahassee, Florida, group that had purchased a city golf course in 1956 and privatized it to avoid integration, as well as several of his civil rights rulings. In 1948 the nominee, then a candidate for public office, had defended the morality of segregation and vowed to “always” act to preserve it. Carswell now insisted his views had changed. Nixon (unaware of Carswell’s statement when he made his choice) insisted that his nominee’s record was “without a taint of any racism.” He refused civil rights activists’ calls to withdraw the nomination and defiantly told congressional leaders that if the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 302

[ 302 ] ch ap t e r t e n

Senate did not confirm Carswell, he would choose someone from Mississippi .54 The Senate rejected Carswell 45–51 on April 8, making Nixon the first president since Grover Cleveland to suffer the defeat of two Supreme Court nominees. Twenty-eight Republicans backed Carswell, but thirteen did not. Once again, Republican opponents were primarily from the Northeast and Northwest. A teary-eyed Brooke warned his colleagues that putting Carswell on the Court might precipitate a race war. Nixon excoriated the Senate for “malicious character assassination” and antisouthern bigotry. He then nominated Harold Blackmun, a midwesterner, whom the Senate unanimously confirmed in May.55

The Voting Rights Act—The Senate The Senate once again pushed policy in a liberal direction when it debated renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Regional divisions were evident as Republicans allied with liberal Democrats to defeat several crippling amendments offered by Ervin and other southerners. They rejected the North Carolina Democrat’s proposals to shift the date of the trigger to 1968, move jurisdiction on voting rights cases from the District of Columbia to local federal courts, transfer the burden of proof in cases involving new election laws from the states to the federal government, and permit a state that had abolished its literacy test after November 1, 1964, to escape federal oversight. On March 13 the Senate voted 64–12 to approve a bill that extended the Voting Rights Act for five years, lowered the voting age to eighteen, and added an additional trigger mechanism that brought parts of several nonsouthern states under federal supervision. Recognizing the potential power of the black vote, several southern senators backed the measure. The House abandoned its more conservative plan and passed the Senate’s bill in June. Civil rights groups were elated.56 Nixon had to decide what to do about the legislation, which was very different from what he had proposed a year earlier. Mitchell advised a veto, but Garment speculated that doing so would produce urban unrest. The president grumbled that there was no political windfall for the GOP because young people and blacks voted Democratic, but he agreed to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 303

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 303 ]

sign the bill because he felt “an obligation not to have the God damn country blow up.” His fears about disorder applied more to blacks than to young people. If the measure had simply been an extension of the franchise to eighteen-year-olds, Nixon told his aides, he would have vetoed it. The president quietly signed the legislation with just one adviser present.57 Conservatives were dumbfounded. Thurmond wrote to the president and reminded him of the May 1968 meeting where Nixon had assured southern officials of his opposition to measures that applied primarily to their region. The South Carolina Republican asked the president what he should tell them. Nixon’s reply, if he offered one, is unknown.58

More School Issues in the South White southerners were also upset over Nixon’s policy regarding the tax-exempt status of private schools. According to one estimate, by 1970, nearly 400,000 students—almost all of them white—attended such schools. Wanting to assure potential donors that their contributions would be tax deductible, parents and administrators contended that tax exemption did not constitute federal support for segregation. Civil rights activists countered that it did. Finch lobbied the administration to side with the activists, but Nixon wanted the secretary to remain neutral. “Whites in Mississippi can’t send their kids to schools that are 90 percent black,” the president commented. “They’ve got to set up private schools.” In May the Justice Department filed a brief in favor of maintaining the schools’ tax-exempt status, a policy the Johnson administration had embraced. By July, Nixon shifted course and announced that the IRS would not allow tax deductions for donations to private schools that discriminated. Even though there was a low threshold of compliance—schools simply had to state they did not discriminate—southern Republicans were irate. Thurmond called the move “shocking” and again asked Nixon what he should tell South Carolina voters who thought the president was their ally.59 Why did Nixon change his mind? Politics may have been a factor. The administration announced the policy soon after Wallace prevailed in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Alabama. Hoping to weaken or

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 304

[ 304 ] ch ap t e r t e n

eliminate Wallace as a potential presidential rival, Nixon had secretly provided his opponent with $400,000 and ordered the IRS to investigate whether Wallace’s brother had taken bribes. Nixon then had the results of the investigation leaked to the press. Wallace ran a nakedly race-baiting campaign and won a runoff in June. Nixon may have concluded that Wallace would rally conservatives, so it was in his best interest to move toward the center.60 Other evidence indicates that Nixon had contradictory feelings. At one point he apparently concluded that the correct approach was to deny the tax exemption. “I believe we have to do what is right on this issue,” he wrote to Ehrlichman. “But again let us be under no illusion. We are badly hurt politically.” A few days later, however, the president was troubled by a memo from Dent highlighting white southerners’ anger toward the White House. Nixon now lamented that he had been swayed by “bad advice” on the IRS issue. According to Haldeman, Nixon thought his policy would not produce any votes for the GOP and “badly hurt private schools both North and South.” The president then “issued a whole series of orders about no more catering to liberals and integrationists to our political disadvantage.” He decided he would not visit Watts (which had apparently been under discussion) because doing so might upset whites while yielding few gains among blacks.61 The president enthusiastically embraced proposals to limit the IRS to “investigations only where there are complaints” and to withdraw taxexempt status only when schools’ nondiscrimination claims were “clearly fraudulent.” “IRS must do as little as law requires no more,” Nixon wrote. In 1971 the courts ruled that a school’s good-faith pledge of nondiscrimination was insufficient; institutions would have to take additional steps to show they were open to whites and blacks alike.62 Several other issues provoked white southerners’ wrath that summer. The Justice Department filed desegregation lawsuits against more than fifty southern school districts, including twenty-one in Mississippi. HEW cut off funds to several districts that had ignored orders to desegregate. Media reports stated that HEW was mandating busing and quoted the attorney general as promising to dispatch federal authorities to Dixie in September to monitor districts that had promised to desegregate. White southerners, one RNC member from Mississippi informed

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 305

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 305 ]

the White House, believed Nixon talked like a conservative but governed like a liberal. “Don’t wet my leg and then tell me it’s raining,” he wrote to Dent. “I know the difference.”63 Well aware of the political firestorm raging across the South, Nixon worked to gain control of administration policy. Haldeman described the president as “very much upset” by the perception that his administration was aggressively pushing integration, and Nixon wanted “HEW ordered not to impose racial quotas or busing in any area for any reason.” When Dent informed the president that HEW was considering desegregation guidelines for extracurricular activities, Nixon firmly replied, “No—under no circumstance.” Nixon commanded civil rights officials at HEW to consult with Dent “on all actions and statements which affect the South,” and he instructed Dent to “give the staff hell” for taking steps on civil rights issues that exceeded his instructions and caused political damage.64 The president huddled with several of his top advisers in early August. He told the group there were no votes to be gained, including in the North, by desegregating southern schools. He also thought that white and black demagogues were eager for confrontation, which could hurt the White House politically and exacerbate racial tensions. The issue thus had to be resolved before the 1972 election. Nixon insisted that the law be carried out, but officials were not to push for sweeping changes, brag about desegregation accomplishments, or worry about liberals’ criticism. Rather, they were to act quietly and effectively without browbeating the South. They were to treat all regions equally, as there were serious racial problems in the North too. Speculating that the nation would eventually reject the Supreme Court’s approach as too aggressive, the president reiterated that the law did not require integration and implied that extensive integration was unachievable.65 Nixon also conferred with southern Republicans and conservatives from other parts of the nation. The lawmakers gave the president an earful. “We in the South are motivated by race,” a Georgia congressman told him. Another congressman said “heads should be rolled” at bureaucratic agencies that enforced civil rights too aggressively, and Dent informed the group that a HUD attorney had been fired following complaints from Senator John Sparkman (D-Ala.). Several called the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 306

[ 306 ] ch ap t e r t e n

IRS’s ruling about the tax-exempt status of private schools a gross error that would create political headaches for the GOP without furthering integration. Some worried that a similar policy would be applied to churches. The leader of the North Carolina GOP pointed out that whites in the Tar Heel State were referring to Nixon as “Mister Integrator” and that the president was losing favor among the middle class. John Tower reminded the president that the South was not alone in its opposition to busing; the Texas senator had been in Los Angeles when the courts there ordered busing, and the resulting white hostility made him think he was “in the middle of redneck territory in Mississippi.” Nixon assured the group that his policy was desegregation, not integration.66 Nixon worked quietly to carry out the law. At the president’s request, Billy Graham made televised pleas, shown in every southern state, for peaceful change. Against the advice of several aides, Nixon traveled to New Orleans in mid-August and met with the biracial desegregation committees from several southern states; he hoped to boost the committees’ credibility and prevent trouble when schools opened. The president vowed to uphold the law while “treating this part of the country with the respect it deserves.” He noted that northerners often criticized the South but overlooked similar problems in their own cities.67 Schools opened that fall with relatively little violence. Rumored boycotts and other protests largely failed to materialize. In the South, more desegregation took place during the first two years of the Nixon administration than over the previous decade. In 1968, 18.4 percent of the African American students in eleven southern states attended schools that were majority white; in the fall of 1970, 38.1 percent did. The region was now more desegregated than either the North or the West. “There was no reason to break out the champagne,” Garment recalled, “but a cold peace in the South was better than a bloody war.” Notable progress had occurred, and the Nixon administration had helped make it possible.68 Yet there were other forces at work too. Activists had continued to press the issue at the grassroots level and in the courts. Many southern whites had concluded that some level of desegregation was inevitable and that further violence would impede the region’s economic development. Widespread closing of schools to avoid integration was impractical because private education was simply too expensive for a majority of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 307

s ch o o l s , vot i ng ri gh t s , and the supreme cour t [ 307 ]

whites. All-white schools were not an option in rural areas. By the early 1970s, school districts had grown much more dependent on federal aid; the possible loss of those funds due to a refusal to desegregate was also a factor in southern decision making. Critics accused the administration of inflating the numbers, and there was some truth to these charges. Owing to strong pressure from the White House to move quickly, HEW performed only a cursory review of many desegregation plans. Minimal change was often the result. Many districts spent federal money earmarked for desegregation on regular expenses, and some schools receiving such aid fired black teachers and staff. Even within desegregated schools, white and African American children were often separated, assigned to classes based on “ability.” Civil rights groups complained that this was a subterfuge to maintain racial separation and limit black education; school officials claimed the policy reflected real differences among students. That fall, the administration affirmed the legality of grouping students in such a manner.69 The Civil Rights Commission issued a 1,100-page report in October, sharply criticizing the administration. “Unless we get serious about this,” chair Theodore Hesburgh warned, “the country is on a collision course.” Hesburgh charged that the White House had tried to block the release of the report, and he singled out the president for his weak leadership. Hesburgh later resigned in disgust over administration policies.70

Conclusion During Nixon’s first two years in office, conservatives in both parties suffered several notable defeats. The reform impulse of the 1960s proved resilient, and focusing on Congress brings this point into clearer focus. Republicans, most notably in the Senate, and nonsouthern Democrats resisted conservatives’ attempts to weaken or eliminate parts of the Voting Rights Act and to reform school policies. As in years past, this coalition was more eager to support changes in Dixie than in their home states. These lawmakers also rejected both Haynsworth and Carswell. White southerners often criticized Nixon for failing to break sharply from past policies, and civil rights groups accused him of thwarting integration to reap political benefits. Nixon’s desire for support from white

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 308

[ 308 ] ch ap t e r t e n

southerners, few of whom favored substantial change, unquestionably influenced his handling of this matter. Yet he also believed that the government, especially the courts, should not mandate rapid, large-scale changes that had little public backing. Doing so would result in little integration and would likely produce violence. Nixon worried that this was already happening and would only get worse if the courts did not shift course. These concerns would be evident over the next two years, when the battle over integration focused more heavily on urban areas nationwide.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 309

Integration Revisited

11

On January 22, 1971, Richard Nixon delivered his second State of the Union address. Given the mild recession the nation had experienced for most of the previous year, the president emphasized that ensuring a more prosperous future required reining in federal power. He mentioned six priorities, none of which dealt specifically with race. The twelve black members of the House of Representatives, all of them Democrats, demonstrated their anger over Nixon’s civil rights rhetoric and policies by boycotting the speech.1 The protest was the latest salvo in a war between the White House and black leaders. A month earlier Bayard Rustin had called the president “a national disaster.” Whitney Young Jr. met with the president and the cabinet and, according to one observer, “minced no words” in criticizing the administration. Young requested federal aid for his cashstrapped organization and, using the oft-repeated claim that the black vote was up for grabs, implied he could aid the president in 1972. Few blacks, however, thought highly of Nixon. Just 23 percent of blacks approved of his performance, compared with 47 percent of the nation as a whole. African Americans’ confidence that the federal government would help improve their lives had plummeted since the 1960s.2 Like Eisenhower, Nixon believed his administration had done “good things” for civil rights yet received “no credit.” He doubted he would ever enjoy widespread approval among blacks, but he felt a duty as president to occasionally offer support. In January Nixon informed Young that $21 million in federal contracts would be directed toward the Urban League over the next two years. (The Watergate hearings later revealed [ 309 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 310

[ 310 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

that the money was never fully appropriated.) The president resented Young’s steady volley of criticism but saw him as a “responsible” alternative to other black leaders and genuinely liked the Urban League’s emphasis on job training and self-help. When Young died a month later, Nixon delivered a eulogy at his graveside; he was the first president to do so for an African American leader. In late March, after fourteen months of trying to arrange a summit, black members of the House met with Nixon and presented sixty proposals on education, housing, employment, and other matters, many of which involved substantial increases in federal spending. Congressman Charles Diggs of Michigan, head of the group, labeled the administration’s reply, a 115-item list of its ongoing civil rights activities, a “tragedy.”3 These clashes were a sign of things to come. For the remainder of Nixon’s first term, integration of schools and neighborhoods proved deeply controversial. Policy debates over these matters increasingly focused on suburbs nationwide and urban areas outside the South. The White House, along with Republicans in Congress, succeeded in limiting federal authority in these locales. At the same time, Senate Republicans continued to fend off conservatives’ drive to roll back federal power in the South.

School Desegregation On January 14 HEW secretary Elliot Richardson, who had replaced Finch the previous June, held a press conference to trumpet the “unprecedented progress” in school desegregation across the South. HEW had terminated federal aid to 202 districts, none of which lay outside the South or the border states. J. Stanley Pottinger, head of HEW’s Office of Civil Rights, indicated that enforcement efforts outside of Dixie would soon be ramped up.4 For Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.), that move could not come soon enough. He was deeply troubled by the widespread school segregation in the North. When the Senate considered a bill to promote school desegregation in the South, Ribicoff proposed an amendment that would cut off federal aid to metropolitan areas nationwide unless they devel-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 311

integration revisited [ 311 ]

oped plans to steadily advance desegregation over the next twelve years. That would mean mixing African American students from central-city areas with white suburbanites. This was no stunt; Ribicoff was throwing down the gauntlet to fellow northern liberals in both parties. Ignoring the Senate custom of refraining from personal attacks against fellow lawmakers, Ribicoff stared at Jacob Javits, one of the bill’s authors, and said, “I don’t think you have the guts to face your liberal constituents who have moved to the suburbs to avoid sending their children to school with blacks.” Stunned and hurt, the New Yorker expressed support for integration in the North but defended the legislation as the best that could be achieved at the moment.5 Like the Powell amendment of the 1950s, the Ribicoff plan created unusual alliances. Several civil rights organizations opposed it because they believed it would kill the desegregation legislation altogether. Southerners, who hoped to do just that, voted alongside several liberals to keep the amendment alive. The Senate ultimately rejected the Ribicoff proposal; liberal Republicans such as Javits, Case, Scott, and Mathias voted against it. They and other Republicans then allied with liberal Democrats to defeat Sam Ervin’s attempt to bring back “freedom of choice” plans. As before, northern Republicans favored reform in the South but not sweeping changes in their own region.6 A more important development that spring was the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education that busing was one of several permissible remedies for school segregation. Representatives of the Nixon administration had appeared before the Court and argued against the NAACP; they also tried to reassure white parents in Charlotte that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require integration. The president, who privately opposed the ruling, told White House officials to comply but to avoid any bold moves to promote integration. He wanted to take a slow, case-by-case approach and “fuzz it up.” Maintaining a low profile, Nixon contended, would keep a potentially explosive situation under control, help African Americans, and protect the administration from charges that it wanted to punish the South. Nixon took some comfort when an aide informed him that the Court had left several loopholes—policy makers could reject busing

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 312

[ 312 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

if it would be too disruptive to students’ health or learning, and because the ruling did not apply to de facto segregation, most of the North and most suburbs were unaffected.7

Housing Nixon tried to gain control over another racial challenge that summer— housing. Between 1960 and 1970, the black population in central urban areas rose substantially, while suburbs remained overwhelmingly white. Civil rights activists continued to insist that discrimination was the primary cause of these patterns, which were evident nationwide. Viewing housing, education, and employment as part of an interconnected web, activists pushed for many of the Kerner Commission’s proposals to remedy urban poverty and segregation. This was an uphill fight. The 1968 Fair Housing Act did not define “fair housing,” and its enforcement provisions were weak. HUD was a young, cumbersome agency with extensive ties to builders and other segments of the housing industry—the very entities it was supposed to police. Whites remained firmly opposed to housing integration; only interracial marriage and dating aroused more intense resistance. Other difficulties stemmed from differences between HUD secretary George Romney and the president. Romney had been a stronger supporter of the 1968 law and was less inclined to compromise on policy matters. Nixon did not like Romney and still resented the governor’s refusal to release his delegates to him at the 1968 GOP convention. As a result, Romney remained on the margins of the administration and was unhappy for much of his tenure.8 The secretary had one potential lever to push for integration. The 1968 Housing and Urban Development Act set ambitious targets for new federally subsidized housing projects, many of which would be built in the suburbs. It offered mortgage and rental assistance, as well as other aid, for builders and residents. Romney planned to threaten to withhold federal money to force local powerbrokers in government and industry to open these new units to African Americans. Known as the Open Communities program, Romney’s initiative did not have the president’s approval. It also differed sharply from the Justice Department’s approach,

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 313

integration revisited [ 313 ]

which relied on individuals filing complaints, followed by federal authorities initiating lawsuits in cases of suspected discrimination. Civil rights activists believed this was an expensive, time-consuming, and largely ineffective means of enforcement that had already been tried and found wanting in cases involving voting and employment. By the spring of 1970, HUD had cut off funding to several locales.9 Romney’s actions undoubtedly reminded Nixon of the school integration mavericks at HEW. In July 1970 a Task Force on Low Income Housing recommended that federal aid be tied to progress on integration. “I am absolutely opposed to this,” Nixon informed Ehlrichman. “Knock it in the head now.”10 The integration issue boiled over in the white working-class suburb of Warren, Michigan, during the summer of 1970. Just 28 of its 180,000 residents were black, but one-third of its workforce was. In 1967 whites had burned a cross, thrown rocks through windows, and yelled obscenities when a racially mixed family moved in. Romney, then governor, had deployed the state police to protect them. HUD cut off funds to Warren in May 1970, and the press reported that federal authorities were undertaking a nationwide effort to integrate the suburbs. When Romney visited Warren two months later, he reiterated his opposition to “forced integration” but insisted on “affirmative action” if the town wanted federal assistance. Several hundred people protested Romney’s visit; some pummeled his car as he left a meeting. Residents later decided to give up the federal money rather than integrate. To Nixon, the Warren debacle offered strong evidence of the limits of federal power and the intensity of racism in the North. He was also eager to oust Romney.11 That fall, the president instructed aides to “stop” the secretary from emphasizing housing integration. “Can’t force blacks into housing—or we’ll have a war,” he told his staff in November 1970. The president also predicted that an aggressive approach would exacerbate white flight to the suburbs. Romney eventually fell into line with administration policy and retained his job.12 Nixon publicly articulated his views on housing in an 8,000-word policy statement released in June 1971. The president drew a sharp contrast between “racial” and “economic” discrimination. Embracing much of the language of civil rights activists, he warned that “racial isolation”

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 314

[ 314 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

bred “mistrust, hostility, and fear” and led to “wasted human potential and stunted human lives.” Unable to participate in the economic boom occurring in suburban areas, jobless individuals trapped in “dehumanizing” urban environments would become dependent on welfare. Nixon promised to boost federal efforts to process discrimination claims, but he also favored a more proactive approach. Housing policy, Nixon contended, should mitigate the effects of past discrimination, prevent future discrimination, and focus on desirable outcomes rather than just equitable procedures. “If the effect of the action is to exclude Americans from equal housing opportunity on the basis of their race, religion, or ethnic background,” he announced, “we will vigorously oppose it . . . regardless of the rationale which may have cloaked the discriminatory act.” Likewise, in evaluating applications for federal housing assistance, “consideration should be given to their impact on patterns of racial concentration.” Nixon vowed to push lending institutions, which had a lengthy history of discrimination, to develop “effective, affirmative measures against racial discrimination.”13 Yet Nixon also stressed that federal law did not require economic diversity in wealthy areas. “A municipality that does not want federally assisted housing should not have it imposed from Washington by bureaucratic fiat,” the president announced. Communities would retain considerable leeway in determining their future development. To Nixon, “an open society does not have to be homogeneous, or even fully integrated.”14 Civil rights activists were outraged. To some, Nixon had merely restated a false contrast between de facto and de jure segregation and aimed to preserve the racial status quo. Bayard Rustin asserted that the president had “diagnosed a cancer and prescribed an aspirin for the remedy.” New York Times columnist John Herbers noted, “The suburbs were assured of their whiteness for some time to come.”15 The administration would continue to be criticized over the next three years, but it did move aggressively in some respects. Several days after the president’s statement, the attorney general filed a lawsuit against Blackjack, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, for changing zoning regulations to thwart an integrated low-income housing project. This was the first time the federal government had brought such a case. From 1971

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 315

integration revisited [ 315 ]

through 1974, the Justice Department filed an average of thirty-five housing discrimination lawsuits against individuals or communities—a level that would not be surpassed until the early 1990s. It did little to alter the status quo, however. Romney left HUD in January 1973, and his successors were not eager to take up the fight. Extensive corruption and other institutional problems also plagued the department.16

Busing Eager to cultivate white southern support, Nixon traveled to Alabama in May. With George Wallace at his side, the president commended the South for its progress on school desegregation. He again criticized northerners for doing little about racial problems in their own region while preaching to the South. Meanwhile, HEW and Justice Department officials had crafted a busing plan for Austin, Texas, that exceeded court requirements. John Tower, up for reelection in 1972, was livid, as were southern party leaders. Nixon was furious. “I want you personally to jump Richardson & Justice & tell them to knock off this crap,” he ordered Ehrlichman. “I hold them personally accountable to keep their left wingers in step with my express policy—Do what the law requires and not one bit more.” By fall, approximately half of the forty largest school districts in the South had received busing orders from federal judges. Thurmond and other southern Republicans told Nixon that school integration was jeopardizing his reelection and hurting the party across the region. Dent feared that Swann would bring busing to the southern suburbs. He and other conservatives in the White House advised the president to challenge the courts directly by seeking to have Swann reversed or to propose an antibusing constitutional amendment.17 Nixon hoped to prove his antibusing credentials without moving too far to the right. He repudiated HEW’s plan for Austin and ordered Richardson and Mitchell to cooperate with local leaders “to hold busing to the minimum required by law.” Conversely, he disclosed that Mitchell would appeal a district court judge’s approval of a plan to allow busing to only a few “cultural” events in Austin. That approach, the administration concluded, was too weak. Nixon directed Richardson to craft an amendment (for an education aid bill pending in Congress) that would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 316

[ 316 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

prohibit the use of federal funds for busing. “I have consistently opposed the busing of our nation’s schoolchildren to achieve a racial balance,” Nixon declared, “and I am opposed to the busing of children simply for the sake of busing.” A week later the White House press secretary announced that administration officials who did not follow the president’s orders in this area might be reassigned or even fired.18 Critics again charged Nixon with undermining desegregation and grossly distorting the issue. Busing was not being used to achieve racial balance or for its own sake, they pointed out; it was implemented to desegregate schools. Critics also observed that more students had been bused to preserve Jim Crow than to achieve desegregation; the number of students bused for the latter purpose was minuscule. Some private allwhite academies bused students greater distances than nearby public schools did. Garment lobbied the president to resist conservatives’ “suicidal” advice to take on the courts and dismissed the idea of a constitutional amendment as “an obvious hoax.” He warned that any attempt to revive freedom of choice “would tear this country apart.”19 When schools opened that fall, antibusing fervor was evident nationwide. A Gallup poll found that 76 percent of the public opposed busing, with just 18 percent in favor. In Tampa, Florida, black students bused into a predominantly white school were met with a sign that read, “Go Home Nigger—KKK.” Fights ensued, and attendance plummeted for several days. In Evansville, Indiana, white students protested a judge’s integration order by enrolling in the school they had attended the previous year. Busing was more than simply a white-black issue; Chinese American students in San Francisco voiced opposition too.20 Conflict was especially intense in metropolitan Detroit. In August bombs destroyed ten school buses in Pontiac, where a federal judge had ordered busing. The head of the local antibusing group condemned the attack but blamed it on those who sought integration. She insisted that busing violated her “right to associate with people I choose to.” In Ferndale, a nearby suburb, fights between blacks and whites led to temporary closure of the schools. White parents in Warren staged a boycott in which 40 percent of students stayed away from some public schools. Later that fall, federal judge Stephen Roth ruled that federal, state, and local lawmakers had deliberately segregated Detroit’s schools, and he

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 317

integration revisited [ 317 ]

gave state education officials four months to devise a metropolitan-wide integration plan. Suburban whites feared that the district lines separating whites and blacks were on the verge of disappearing. While insisting they were not racist, whites worried that their children would receive an inferior education and be placed in physical danger if they attended school with African Americans. Some hung Roth in effigy, and others displayed bumper stickers that said “ROTH IS A CHILD MOLESTER.” The judge even received death threats.21 Lawmakers from both parties scrambled to show that they, too, opposed busing. In the Senate, William Brock (R-Tenn.) forwarded an antibusing petition to the White House and led efforts for a constitutional amendment that prohibited assigning students to a school on the basis of race. These and other antibusing proposals stalled. The main showdown occurred in the House, which added several antibusing amendments to an education bill. One, offered by William Broomfield (R-Mich.), postponed the implementation of court desegregation orders until all appeals had been exhausted. Another, sponsored by John Ashbrook (R-Ohio), forbade the use of federal funds for busing. A third, offered by Edith Green (D-Ore.), prohibited federal authorities from compelling local officials to use state or local money for any purpose for which the use of federal funds was not permitted. House Republicans, often with a substantial number of allies among northern Democrats, voted overwhelmingly in favor of each amendment. Nixon called Gerald Ford to congratulate him on the outcome.22 Southern whites were still unhappy with the administration. Dent reported that white South Carolinians were angry that the NAACP and other organizations were trying to enroll black students in their private schools. Whites also worried that the IRS ruling on tax-exempt status threatened fund-raising. Dent feared a Palmetto State revolt against Nixon and other Republicans in 1972. Some advisers urged the president to force a vote on an antibusing constitutional amendment; they could at least score some political points, even though the odds of enactment were slim. Garment cautioned that doing so might provoke “a furious reaction” among blacks.23 Nixon turned to Moynihan, asking him if integration actually enhanced blacks’ educational achievement. Moynihan said he doubted that

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 318

[ 318 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

education experts knew how to substantially improve African American students’ performance, and he feared that busing would only exacerbate school violence. Integration, he told Nixon, would happen only after blacks’ social and economic status improved.24 Integration also figured prominently in the Senate debate that winter over one of Nixon’s two nominees to the Supreme Court. Lewis Powell Jr., a Virginian who had been president of the Richmond school board during the 1950s, generated no controversy. Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist faced stormier waters. In 1964 he had opposed a public accommodations law in Phoenix, where he practiced law. Three years later he had denounced efforts against de facto segregation. Rehnquist, who had served as an adviser to Goldwater in 1964, echoed the senator’s rhetoric by declaring, “We are no more dedicated to an ‘integrated’ society than we are to a ‘segregated’ society.” The supreme goal was “a free society” that maximized individuals’ choices. Civil rights groups were also troubled when Newsweek unearthed a 1952 memo in which Rehnquist, then a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, contended that Plessy was “right and should be reaffirmed.” The nominee, who had testified that he favored school and neighborhood integration, claimed that the document reflected Jackson’s views, not his. Civil rights leaders accused Rehnquist, and Nixon, of trying to turn back years of progress.25 Rehnquist’s philosophy was not the only source of controversy. Several individuals claimed he had been heavily involved in efforts to suppress voting by nonwhites in Phoenix. He firmly denied the accusations, although he admitted to serving on a committee that offered legal advice to those who challenged voters. He also claimed he had urged GOP candidates to refrain from demanding that voters prove their literacy as they stood in line to cast their ballots. Both Rehnquist and Powell were confirmed in December, with each receiving near-unanimous Republican support.26 Meanwhile, prominent administration officials met with outside experts to find alternatives to busing. Several participants worried that the metropolitan-wide solution developing in Detroit would spread. Noting that Congress was “ready to meat-axe the courts on this issue,” Ehlrichman advocated that the administration refrain from supporting strong antibusing legislation in an election year. Busing was not popular, but he

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 319

integration revisited [ 319 ]

and others feared that some of the antibusing forces on Capitol Hill were ready to pursue extreme measures that would escalate the conflict with the courts to an unacceptable level. Participants hoped to redefine the issue as one of providing equal opportunity by boosting federal funding for poorer schools.27 The courts continued to move more aggressively than the administration liked. In January 1972 a federal district judge ruled that state and local authorities had intentionally created segregated schools in the Richmond, Virginia, metropolitan area. He ordered consolidation of the city school system with two suburban districts, as well as the busing of white students into city schools and the busing of black students to the suburbs. Racial tensions escalated substantially when whites claimed, like the residents of Detroit, that tyrannical judges were trampling on their freedoms. In February a motorcade of more than 3,000 vehicles traveled to Washington to protest the decision. The angry demonstrators denounced Linwood Holton, the racially liberal Republican governor, when he refused to lead the procession.28 Nixon called the decision “terrible.” Secretary of the Treasury John Connally told a Richmond audience in late January that Nixon believed no judge or bureaucrat should tell people how to live their lives. The crowd, Connally informed the president, “just came unglued” and offered “wild, sustained applause.” “That’s good,” Nixon replied. “Now that’s the way to get it across. You don’t have to spell it out, do you?” “No, no, and you know, I didn’t refer to any issue, no names, no nothing,” Connally added. “Just a general proposition.” “That’s right. That’s great,” the president noted.29 Nixon was keen to use busing for political gain without appealing directly to racial prejudice, but he also read and thought a great deal about the policy aspects of the issue that winter. He expressed his views in a detailed memo to Ehrlichman in late January. The terrain, he believed, was shifting in ways that would harm the country and hurt him politically unless he took bolder steps. Nixon reiterated his opposition to legally enforced segregation but sternly objected to “too great a degree of integration of inferior black students with the white students.” The president fondly recalled attending school with black and Mexican children

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 320

[ 320 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

who had “a reasonable chance to do about as well as their white colleagues.” Integration offered no help to unprepared black students and impeded the more advanced whites. Such a view, he acknowledged, contradicted Brown’s emphasis on integration as a benefit to both races. Nixon was also responding to developments in Michigan, Virginia, and elsewhere, which showed that white hostility to busing was broad and deep. (Between January 1 and February 28, the White House received 11,150 letters opposing busing and just 269 favoring it.) “But we simply have to face the hard fact,” he informed Ehrlichman, “that the law cannot go beyond what the people are going to support.”30 Fearing that the school issue would “explode all over the landscape during the next year,” the president decided he “must act now before the [Supreme] Court acts and puts it to us.” Nixon worried that even the justices he had appointed would go soft on the issue. He predicted that the Court would soon declare all segregation, including de facto, unconstitutional. That would mean consolidating metropolitan schools and massive busing. The answer was to preempt the Court with a constitutional amendment—a move Nixon endorsed somewhat apologetically but with a firm conviction that it was necessary. “There is nothing that disturbs me more than to have to appear before the country as a racist, a Wallace type, etc.,” he wrote. “My feelings on race, as you know, are, if anything, ultra-liberal. But I cannot duck the responsibility for coming down on the side which is right.”31 Nixon soon publicly signaled his interest in a constitutional amendment and named a cabinet committee to study the issue. In mid-February the president invited several antibusing Republicans to the White House and reached out to southern Democrats. Roy Wilkins charged that Nixon “would return segregation to this country.” The president was convinced that he faced a choice: fight an unpopular battle for integration, which would undermine social order and worsen education, or improve educational opportunities for all students within a segregated setting. He directed Mitchell and Richardson to analyze the amendment issue closely while he made his historic trip to China in late February.32 Getting an amendment through Congress, which required a twothirds vote in each house, was far from assured. The White House’s congressional staff concluded that even with a strong push from Nixon, the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 321

integration revisited [ 321 ]

vote in the House, where Democrats had a seventy-five-seat advantage, would be close. Although school integration was causing enormous political trouble for northern Democrats, who felt pressured to choose between their African American and white working-class supporters, few would back an amendment.33 There were similar problems in the Senate. Democratic leader Mike Mansfield had reservations, and Republican leader Hugh Scott thought it would be almost impossible to craft language that did not “tear pieces out” of the Fourteenth Amendment or reverse Brown. Scott worked with civil rights groups and with a bipartisan team that included Mondale, Javits, and Brooke to soften the antibusing language in the education bill passed by the House the previous November. Javits acknowledged that liberals were ceding ground to head off a constitutional amendment. The defensive strategy worked: their amendments to the education bill passed in late February. Opposition came mostly from conservative Republicans and southerners, who complained the changes failed to stop busing that was already occurring in their region yet temporarily protected suburban whites outside of Dixie.34 Nixon was still struggling to get ahead of the issue politically. “The courts don’t understand the folks,” he complained to William Safire. He instructed the speechwriter to prepare an address that clearly denounced busing but did not make him sound like Wallace. “Be sure to say we’re not turning back the clock,” Nixon added. In a nationally televised speech on March 16, he conceded that a constitutional amendment was not achievable. Declaring that the courts had “gone too far,” Nixon called on Congress to approve a moratorium on new busing orders and to spend $2.5 billion to improve educational opportunities for poor children. He also announced that the Justice Department would become involved in efforts to appeal some pro-busing decisions by lower-level courts. Busing was “a bad means to a good end,” Nixon proclaimed; it hurt the education of white and black students alike and exacted too heavy a toll on parents and communities. Nixon contended it would take years to implement comprehensive busing plans, thus “leav[ing] a lost generation of poor children in the central cities doomed to inferior education.” A better plan, he emphasized, was to invest in schools so that urban students’ opportunities matched those of their suburban peers.35

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 322

[ 322 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

The president also affirmed the virtue of suburban whites. Though acknowledging that some busing opponents were bigots, Nixon said that equating opposition to busing with racism was “dangerous nonsense.” Most suburban parents rejected segregation and favored equal education for all, the president declared. But they also made tremendous sacrifices to buy homes in good school districts and “do not want their children bused across the city to an inferior school just to meet some social planner’s concept of what is considered to be the correct racial balance or what is called progressive social policy.” Highlighting several personal stories of hardworking parents, he stressed that busing opponents were rightly concerned about the health and safety of their children and the potential disruption of family life.36 Nixon offered specific proposals the following day. The moratorium on new busing would last until July 1, 1973, or until Congress devised alternative measures, whichever came first. In other respects, the legislative plan was stricter than that outlined in the president’s address. It would grant Congress the authority to restrict new busing and limit the jurisdiction of the courts. It would also allow districts operating under busing orders to petition the courts to reopen their cases and bring them into compliance with new regulations; this would apply mostly to the South. By early April, the administration had taken other steps that did not require congressional approval: it filed appeals in several court cases to reverse or delay busing and, in the Richmond case, to prevent the consolidation of suburban and city districts.37 Nixon originally intended to deliver his policy prescriptions in writing, but he opted for television after Wallace used a strong antibusing message to win the Democratic presidential primary in Florida, where nearly half the state’s districts were under busing orders. Moreover, nearly 90 percent of white voters in the Sunshine State had backed a nonbinding referendum calling for a constitutional amendment to forbid busing and guarantee the sanctity of neighborhood schools. These outcomes exacerbated tensions within the Democratic Party, as even liberal presidential candidates Hubert Humphrey and Senator George McGovern (S.D.) were waffling on the issue. Events in Florida reinforced the results of White House polling, which showed that Wallace was a danger to the president. The administration was focused on positioning Nixon for

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 323

integration revisited [ 323 ]

the fall campaign. “Whether Congress passed the busing moratorium was not as important as that the American people understood that Richard Nixon opposed busing as much as they did,” Ehrlichman later noted.38 Nixon correctly predicted he would draw fire from both left and right. The normally diplomatic Clarence Mitchell excoriated the president for interfering with the courts and precipitating a “constitutional crisis.” Nixon, he charged, stood with “Wallace [and] KKK bus burners” and wanted to restore the concept of separate but equal. The Black American Law Student Association drafted a resolution condemning Nixon’s policy as “racist,” while the NAACP accused him of stirring “passions of hate and bitterness.” Mitchell and other integrationists continued to believe that isolating black students condemned them to an inferior education and limited their opportunities later in life. The White House responded by pointing to an antibusing resolution passed earlier in March by the National Black Political Convention, a group of several thousand African Americans that had denounced both major parties and called for full employment and other economic reforms.39 Thurmond and other southern conservatives thought the president had not gone far enough. They still favored a constitutional amendment and complained that the moratorium would do nothing to stop busing already under way in the South, while insulating the North and the West. Nixon had once again found the political sweet spot, however. Polls and congressional mail that spring showed that the public opposed both legal segregation and busing.40 The moratorium plan stalled on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan coalition doubted its constitutionality, worried about interfering with the courts, and feared a reversal of desegregation that had already occurred. “What message are we sending out to black people?” asked William McCulloch. “Is this any way to govern a country?” On May 17 ten Republican senators marked the eighteenth anniversary of Brown by issuing a “Republican Declaration of Conscience,” in which they denounced “any attempt to abandon or impede school desegregation.”41 House and Senate conferees included several antibusing provisions in an education bill. Senate liberals from both parties fended off efforts to retain some of the more restrictive House language, but civil rights

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 324

[ 324 ] ch ap t e r e l e v e n

groups were deeply disturbed by a provision delaying new busing orders until all appeals had been exhausted or until January 1, 1974. The LCCR held an emergency meeting on May 25, after which Wilkins called the legislation “the greatest threat to this country’s pursuit of equality . . . since the end of the Reconstruction Period.” Civil rights activists saw the bill as a precursor to rolling back the previous decade’s legislative victories in employment, housing, public accommodations, and other areas. Nixon signed the legislation in June but chastised Congress for offering busing relief that was only “temporary” and “illusory.” A month later the Congressional Black Caucus held four days of “lawlessness hearings” to bolster its claim that the White House was violating civil rights statutes.42 Congress was not done. That August the House, with strong Republican support, added several busing restrictions to the president’s legislation to boost spending on poor schools. One, sponsored by Republican Albert Quie, forbade busing across district boundaries. This clearly was intended to protect the suburbs. Another, offered by a Democrat, prohibited busing beyond the next closest school to a student’s home and allowed the reopening of existing court orders to bring them into compliance with the law. Civil rights activists and their Senate allies in both parties were deeply troubled, especially by the reopener provision. Hugh Scott warned of “chaos” in more than a thousand districts if it became law. The bipartisan coalition used various delaying tactics, which some observers described as a filibuster. Although Nixon and other administration officials lobbied for cloture, three such votes failed in October. GOP lawmakers voted roughly two to one in favor of cloture, but in each case about a dozen Republicans, largely from the Northeast, voted to keep the delay going and thus sink the bill.43

Conclusion During the final two years of Nixon’s first term, civil rights activists, the courts, and a few lawmakers pushed for school integration that would include the suburbs nationwide. Policy outcomes resembled those of Nixon’s first two years. The president, as well as congressional Republicans (and most Democrats), worked to keep federal authority at bay—a politically popular move. Nixon continued to worry about social disor-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 325

integration revisited [ 325 ]

der and fought to treat the South like the rest of the nation. But Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially in the Senate, preferred to keep reform efforts focused on Dixie and were instrumental in defeating several proposals to restrict federal power or apply it to other regions. Questions of regional distinctiveness were much less significant, however, when lawmakers turned their attention to economics.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 326

Economic Policy: Nixon’s First Term

12

When Richard Nixon took office, the black middle class was expanding, yet African American poverty and unemployment rates remained high. Several items from the 1960s, including a higher minimum wage, increased welfare payments, job training, a guaranteed income, and a mass public employment program for the jobless, remained on civil rights leaders’ agenda. All involved a substantial role for the federal government, with funds provided largely by white middle- and upper-class taxpayers. A few black leaders, including CORE leader Roy Innis, denounced capitalism as inherently racist or called for less reliance on white-controlled institutions.1 Nixon’s first term was marked by sharp policy conflicts over race and economics. In several respects the debate and policy outcomes resembled the battles over integration and voting. Republicans remained deeply concerned about violence. Liberals, especially in the Senate, again allied with Democrats to defeat several conservative initiatives. Reforms from the 1960s not only survived; in some cases they were expanded. Viewing these as paltry efforts that offered no real improvements, most African Americans retained an overwhelmingly negative impression of the Republican Party.

Nixon’s Stormy First Year In some ways, Nixon could empathize with the struggles of the poor, both white and black. As the son of a small-town grocer, he knew that [ 326 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 327

economic policy [ 327 ]

life could be financially precarious. Early on he developed a resentment of big business. His Quaker upbringing fostered respect for the dignity of work and independence. As chair of the President’s Committee on Government Contracts during the 1950s, he recognized the employment challenges African Americans faced because of poor training and discrimination, intentional and unintentional, by employers and unions. Nixon had long believed that poverty, not segregation, was the chief problem facing blacks.2 Yet Nixon remained sharply at odds with civil rights leaders regarding the role of government. Black leaders believed Johnson’s War on Poverty had been severely underfunded. To them, government could be a beneficent force. Nixon disagreed. Soon after taking office, he became the first president to tour the ghettos of Washington, D.C. After viewing a compendium of photographs of riot-torn areas that spring, Nixon condemned the destruction as evidence of the “incompetence of modern government at all levels.” He insisted that “black capitalism” offered a better alternative than direct government assistance. Improving African Americans’ economic standing was a necessary precursor to integration. “Better jobs, better housing, that’s the only way Negroes are going to be able to move to Scarsdale,” he told Safire.3 On March 5, 1969, Nixon signed an executive order creating the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE). Lodged in the Department of Commerce, the OMBE was designed to build on efforts begun during the Johnson administration. It was tasked to work with government agencies as well as private groups to remove barriers, such as a lack of credit, insurance, or knowledge, that inhibited entrepreneurship among racial minorities. Business ownership would boost income, Nixon declared, as well as “encourage pride, dignity, and a sense of independence.” Privately, he lamented there would be no political gain for the GOP. Well aware that small businesses had an extraordinarily high failure rate, Nixon doubted the initiative would lead to much improvement, but he insisted that the effort was necessary “because it’s right.” The OMBE, which soon became mired in corruption, scandal, and infighting, helped few African Americans.4 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was another area of focus. Since its creation in 1965, the EEOC had been buried

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 328

[ 328 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

under a tremendous backlog of cases. The interval between filing a complaint and completing a hearing averaged eighteen months. The Justice Department had initiated just twenty-two lawsuits in four years. Private employment suits were difficult to win and typically took one to three years to resolve. Activists contended that cease-and-desist authority, possessed by several other federal regulatory agencies, would improve the EEOC’s efficiency, reduce discrimination, and bolster African Americans’ economic situation. Congress had rejected cease-and-desist proposals several times between 1965 and 1968.5 The outgoing Johnson administration had sent Congress legislation that would grant cease-and-desist authority and expand Title VII coverage to employees of state and local governments as well as educational institutions. Liberal Republicans, such as Javits and Richard Schweiker (Pa.), favored cease and desist, but most GOP lawmakers did not. Republicans argued, as they had since the 1940s, that cease and desist would turn the EEOC into another NLRB—arguably, the federal agency most despised by corporations. Many employers just wanted to be left alone; others complained that regulations were cumbersome, confusing, and even contradictory, as many were subject to several federal, state, and local laws. They called for clear and consistent guidelines on how to define “discrimination” and questioned whether counting employees by race was legal. Everett Dirksen voiced some of their resentments. The Illinois senator warned in late March 1969 that he would “get somebody fired” unless the EEOC halted its “punitive harassment” of several industries in Southern California. Likewise, Strom Thurmond was irate over federal investigations into the hiring practices of southern textile firms. The two joined forces to aggressively question EEOC chief Clifford Alexander Jr. during Senate hearings.6 The White House proposed that the EEOC be allowed to sue employers directly. This would keep enforcement in the courts, which Republicans had long preferred, and (as with school desegregation) would presumably insulate Nixon from criticism by those who resented federal authority. The administration’s bill did not extend Title VII protection to state and local government workers or those employed by educational institutions.7 The employment debate did not occur in a vacuum. In late August new

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 329

economic policy [ 329 ]

EEOC chair William Brown III announced internal reforms to boost efficiency. He hoped to head off complaints by establishing task forces to work with businesses and unions to increase black employment. The goal was actual jobs, not an abstract commitment to equal opportunity. Brown pointed with alarm to Pittsburgh, where efforts to boost the hiring of African Americans by construction unions (whose membership was only 2 percent black) had resulted in several days of unrest. Protesters who demanded jobs engaged in sit-ins, snarled traffic, and violently clashed with construction workers as well as police. Then, when city leaders halted work on numerous projects to negotiate with the activists, white workers demonstrated. Some shouted “Wallace in ’72.” Union leaders threatened a countywide walkout and lawsuits over lost wages. Herbert Hill, the NAACP’s labor director, countered that activists would shut down every publicly financed construction project in the nation unless blacks received more jobs. “If this country does not wake up we will have very serious problems, problems that may lead to bloodshed,” Brown predicted. “Pittsburgh is another indication that we’d better do something and do something fast.” He warned that similar incidents might arise in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, and other cities.8 Union discrimination also lay at the heart of another administration initiative. On June 27, 1969, Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher, a black Republican who had been a professional football player before entering public service, announced that Philadelphia contractors working on large federal construction projects would be required to submit “affirmative action” programs that included “goals” and “targets” for the hiring of nonwhites. Black unemployment in Philadelphia stood at twice the white rate. With plans to spend $600 million on thirtyeight projects in the city over the next two years, the federal government was a potential source of new jobs. Philadelphia’s labor unions, Fletcher charged, had “a deplorably low rate” of minority employment. According to one federal study, African Americans constituted just 1.6 percent of the membership of the six highest-paying construction unions in the city, even though there was a sizable population of skilled black workers. Unions sometimes deliberately excluded blacks, but they also did so unintentionally by hiring friends or relatives of their white members.9 The Philadelphia Plan (as it became known) cut against the grain of

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 330

[ 330 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

the color-blind rhetoric that had dominated policy discussions over the past two decades. It demanded race consciousness, and it offered a compensatory model of justice rooted in the belief that whites’ discriminatory actions in the past had helped create African Americans’ present economic problems. This differed markedly from the belief, popular among whites, that individual effort and character determined economic success. The Philadelphia Plan required a set of concrete actions by unions and employers that would be overseen by Washington officials.10 This way of thinking was not new. Race and ethnic consciousness, as well as statistical measurements, had been woven into numerous policies far back into the nation’s history. Policy makers had often done so to preserve the power and status of whites or other dominant groups. Quotas were used to restrict immigration in the 1920s, and veterans received special consideration in hiring for state and federal civil service jobs. The Public Works Administration used quotas to promote the hiring of blacks during the Great Depression, and some civil rights activists had long favored racial proportionalism in employment. Several New Deal policies, such as those involving various forms of social insurance, were rooted in the philosophy of an activist government demanding particular behavior from economic actors. Government officials had rejected quotas throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but the color-blind ideal existed alongside beliefs that statistical measurements and conscious outreach to black workers were necessary to improve economic conditions for African Americans. Good intentions and improved hiring procedures were insufficient; what mattered was the number of high-paying jobs.11 Hoping to preserve social order, some business elites were already moving in this direction. In the wake of the Newark and Detroit riots, Henry Ford II and other corporate titans had formed, with prodding from Lyndon Johnson, the National Alliance of Businessmen. The group aimed to encourage businesses to hire thousands of ghetto residents. “If they want jobs,” Ford proclaimed, “we’ll give them jobs.” By the end of 1968, the Ford Motor Company boasted it had hired 21,700 “hard core” unemployed, most of whom were African American. But many of the newly hired blacks claimed the company discriminated against them, while executives were frustrated by the workers’ lack of basic skills, such as the ability to read, and their failure to show up on time or at all.12

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 331

economic policy [ 331 ]

The Philadelphia Plan, which had been crafted and then shelved by the Johnson administration, seemed to address many of the Nixon administration’s pressing concerns. Secretary of Labor George Shultz was an early and avid supporter. Shultz, former dean of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, believed employers needed to adopt bolder strategies to reduce black joblessness. The plan’s emphasis on work also appealed to Nixon, who opposed massive increases in federal spending on social welfare. Nixon also revived the plan for nonracial reasons. The president saw fighting inflation as his chief economic priority, and he was deeply troubled by rising costs in the construction industry. Broadening union membership offered a way to increase the supply of labor and thus reduce wages. There is little evidence that in the spring of 1969 Nixon viewed the Philadelphia Plan as a political masterstroke to stir enmity between blacks and unions, two core Democratic constituencies.13 The plan soon accomplished that, but it also divided Republicans. National Review editor William F. Buckley Jr. endorsed “pro-Negro discrimination” as a way to avoid violence and preserve the legitimacy of society’s institutions. Javits and some congressional Republicans supported the plan, but Dirksen and others joined conservative Democrats in sharply denouncing it. They expressed concern over the growth of executive power but concentrated on defending business leaders’ freedom to make hiring decisions and their preference for color-blind models. Shultz tried to assuage their concerns by stating that firms would not lose contracts as long as they made a “good faith effort” to meet the targets. “The law says you can’t make any preference as to race,” Dirksen adamantly declared, and the Philadelphia Plan amounted to a quota. “How do we open up the labor supply otherwise?” the secretary of labor retorted. “What we have reaped from not wanting to make people do things—through temporizing—hasn’t worked,” Nixon added. He again pointed to “soaring construction costs” and emphasized the need “to get some people into the unions.”14 The administration also ran into opposition from Comptroller General Elmer Staats, who, in response to a request from Senator Paul Fannin (R-Ariz.), ruled that the plan was a blatant violation of Title VII. The difference between a “quota system” and a “goal system” was “largely a

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 332

[ 332 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

matter of semantics,” Staats announced. That decision provided ammunition for Dirksen, who threatened to torpedo the plan by denying the funding to implement it.15 The White House dug in for a fight. Declaring that he was speaking with the approval of Attorney General Mitchell, Shultz held a press conference in August to defend the legality of the Philadelphia Plan and to accuse Staats of meddling in an area where he had no authority. Mitchell followed up six weeks later with a twenty-page defense of the plan. Noting that “the legal definition of discrimination is an evolving one,” he insisted that a growing body of case law affirmed that policy makers could consider the “racial consequences” of “the application of outwardly neutral criteria.” Nixon signaled his support by issuing an executive order in early August that directed agencies to implement “an affirmative program” in recruitment, placement, promotion, and training—the goal being to boost nonwhite federal employment.16 Abstract legal questions meant little to the everyday people who quarreled over jobs in several communities that summer and fall. Here again, violence was central to policy debates. African American protesters in Chicago brought work to a standstill on twenty federal projects when they pressed unions to reform their hiring practices. One group called on unions to open 10,000 on-the-job-training positions for blacks within ninety days. Union leaders countered that these and other demands were unrealistic and potentially harmful. “Would you want your house wired by an amateur?” one official asked. Fletcher went to the Windy City to bring calm and shed light on union practices, but he abruptly canceled hearings when union protesters refused to let witnesses enter the venue. Police showed their sympathy for the unions by doing little to aid Fletcher. The White House pledged to send either the National Guard or federal troops to ensure that the hearings took place. Fletcher, who vacated his hotel room due to threats to his safety, held the hearings on federal property under federal protection.17 These outbreaks did not deter the administration from announcing in late September that versions of the Philadelphia Plan would be implemented in New York City, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Labor vehemently objected; AFL-CIO head George Meany, who had begun his career in the con-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 333

economic policy [ 333 ]

struction industry, crudely charged that the Nixon administration was wielding a “horsewhip” at unions. As far as workers were concerned, federal hiring goals undermined the collective bargaining process, unions’ customary power over hiring, and seniority rights. Some revived claims, deeply rooted in the history of labor-management conflict, that corporations used black workers to weaken unions.18 Whites’ objections to the Philadelphia Plan involved more than workplace procedures. The plan challenged what they believed about themselves, the nation, and race. Many attributed their achievements to their own efforts; there had been no government programs to help them. Often citing their immigrant ancestors, they contended that anyone could escape poverty through hard work. Poor blacks, in their view, did not want to work. Whites felt no guilt about the problems of destitute African Americans, and they thought allegations that the nation was deeply marred by racism were vastly exaggerated. Opponents of the plan flatly rejected notions of compensatory justice and endorsed a standard of “equal opportunity.” To them, discrimination meant a conscious act of exclusion—behavior they condemned. Some opposition also stemmed from a sense of economic insecurity. Poor whites outnumbered poor blacks, and other whites lived just above the poverty level. “Goals” and “timetables” struck many of them as a zero-sum game in which the government would redistribute jobs to African Americans at a time when whites were struggling to preserve gains achieved in the post–World War II era. There was also a strong element of class resentment. As with school integration, opponents contended that elite whites found it easy to endorse compensatory efforts because they would not be affected.19 These objections appeared to confirm the thesis of Pete Hamill’s 1969 essay “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class.” According to Hamill, many working-class whites who had supported Wallace were racists, but even more troubling were their feelings of victimhood, powerlessness, and alienation. These voters, Hamill contended, felt that politicians, especially liberals, ignored or dismissed their economic struggles, offered them no respect or even despised them, and preferred to spend money on African Americans. They were “on the edge of open, sustained, and possibly violent revolt,” Hamill warned. “I find this to be very disturbing,” Nixon wrote to Moynihan after reading the piece.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 334

[ 334 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

“What is our answer?” Moynihan replied that Hamill was essentially correct, and if these whites became more estranged, “things could go very badly indeed.” He urged Nixon to take attention off the black poor, which fueled white anger, and to change the approach to poverty, shifting from the provision of services to the boosting of income.20 That strategy lay at the center of the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), Nixon’s proposal to transform the welfare system. By the late 1960s, welfare rolls were growing dramatically, despite low unemployment rates. The poor, often encouraged by welfare rights activists, were signing up for whatever benefits they were legally entitled to receive. Even though most welfare recipients were white, many considered it a black program (a higher percentage of the black population was on welfare). White voters, as well as Moynihan and other policy makers, thought the system encouraged a host of behavioral problems they identified with ghetto life, such as single-parent families and indolence. Welfare, these critics charged, also sustained a large, wasteful bureaucracy that was interested only in perpetuating the demand for its services. Nixon shared this view. In addition, he was being pressured by northern Republican governors whose states were becoming magnets for poor blacks from the South, where welfare benefits were considerably lower.21 Unveiled in August, FAP aimed to encourage work and to help those with low-wage jobs. Its provisions included a guaranteed annual income of $1,600 for a family of four, plus a food stamp allotment; it also subsidized day care for the children of welfare mothers. Individuals who accepted benefits would be required to work or to enroll in job training; mothers of preschoolers and the disabled would be exempted.22 FAP immediately came under fire. Conservatives were troubled by the guaranteed income. Some civil rights groups welcomed certain aspects of FAP and hoped to amend it in Congress; others sharply denounced it. George Wiley, head of the National Welfare Rights Organization, demanded a guaranteed income of $5,500 for all Americans. He dismissed FAP as “anti-poor and anti-black”; claimed it would condemn blacks to the same low-wage, dead-end jobs they had held for decades; and warned it “would promote civil disorder by forcing poor people into the streets.” Nixon found such talk alarming, and FAP stalled in Congress that fall.23

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 335

economic policy [ 335 ]

Lawmakers focused instead on the Philadelphia Plan. A proposal by Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) would forbid the use of funds for any program that contradicted a decision by the comptroller general. Byrd’s plan enjoyed support from southern Democrats, southern Republicans, and conservative Republicans from across the nation, some of whom relished the chance to attack unions. Allied against them were liberal Democrats, northern and midwestern Republicans, and the White House. Percy argued that the plan would mean “a payroll above a relief roll.” Brooke contended that “overt acts of discrimination . . . were never the heart of the problem to begin with.” According to the Massachusetts senator, remedying “systemic” discrimination, such as poor education and union bias, required “positive action.”24 Much to the White House’s surprise, the Senate approved Byrd’s proposal. Nixon and his aides then moved aggressively to save the Philadelphia Plan. The president told GOP congressional leaders that the plan would undermine union power and divide labor and civil rights activists, thereby exacting revenge for their roles in Haynsworth’s defeat. The White House also launched a public relations campaign. Many mainstream civil rights leaders, including the NAACP’s Clarence Mitchell, opposed the plan. Some accused Nixon of insincerity, while others charged him with advocating quotas. African American congressman Augustus Hawkins (D-Calif.) predicted the plan would be ineffective; he preferred to give the EEOC cease-and-desist authority. Strong pressure from the White House and Gerald Ford proved crucial in rallying House Republicans to strike out the Byrd rider on December 22. The GOP backed Nixon by a three-to-one margin. The Senate followed suit later that day.25

Reform Moves Forward The administration expanded affirmative action programs over the next several months. In February 1970 Shultz issued an order requiring all federal contractors (not just those in the construction industry) with more than fifty employees and contracts worth at least $50,000 to file an affirmative action report identifying goals and timetables for nonwhite hiring. Contractors were instructed to count employees by race and

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 336

[ 336 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

make a “good faith” effort to correct the “underutilization” of nonwhites. Several days later Shultz announced that the Philadelphia Plan would be extended to eighteen additional cities. Recognizing that the federal government lacked the capacity to police the entire nation, Shultz urged local communities to reach their own agreements. The secretary praised a recent settlement in Chicago, where unions, contractors, and Mayor Richard Daley agreed that African Americans would receive 4,000 jobs per year over the next five years. The administration also got a boost in April when a federal district judge in Pennsylvania dismissed a suit against the Philadelphia Plan.26 Civil rights activists, meanwhile, continued to fall short in their drive to obtain cease-and-desist authority for the EEOC. In September 1971 the House passed, with overwhelming Republican support, a bill that would grant the EEOC power to seek court enforcement, which was still the White House’s favored approach. The administration, which earlier in the year had come under fire from business groups for doing too little to head off cease and desist, helped forge a winning coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats.27 The Senate took up EEOC reform early the following year. Civil rights groups again argued that cease and desist would help reduce African American unemployment and improve the agency’s efficiency. In January 1972 black joblessness stood at 10.7 percent, roughly twice the rate for whites; the EEOC had a backlog of 23,000 cases.28 Senate liberals invoked their long-standing claim that social disorder stemmed from economic deprivation. “We know that the feelings of injustice, in being discriminated against, have erupted in what was tantamount to a revolution, and that the United States had a hard time dealing with it, and may again,” Javits warned.29 Most Senate Republicans rejected such apocalyptic talk. They invoked the enormous backlog of cases to defend court enforcement as a better method of helping those who filed complaints. More important, they exhibited a strong determination to minimize federal oversight of business by reviving arguments they and southern Democrats had been making since the 1940s. Several insisted that employers would not get fair hearings before the EEOC because it had become biased in favor of civil rights organizations. Cease and desist, Thurmond predicted, “would

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 337

economic policy [ 337 ]

bring a flood of new complaints, many of which would be intended for pure harassment.” William Saxbe recalled his days as attorney general of Ohio, when the state fair employment board had been dominated by people with “an ax to grind.” He noted that “in their zealousness to try to protect the civil rights of some people, they were also eager to violate the civil rights of others.” Fannin saw cease and desist as another item in a rapidly expanding list of regulations that would undermine the nation’s economic competiveness and drive large businesses overseas. Small businesses, Republicans alleged, would be especially vulnerable to crusading federal officials needlessly meddling into their affairs.30 Republicans also predicted that cease and desist would lead to racial quotas, and they sometimes did so with a clever twist. Senator Norris Cotton (R-N.H.) spun a hypothetical tale of a successful black business owner: “I cannot image whoever enforces [cease and desist] . . . going in and saying to the black man, ‘You have got to employ two white people.’” Given the paucity of African American business owners, white entrepreneurs were likely the chief object of his concern. Cotton also assumed that whites and blacks were not eager to mix and posited that the black business owner would understandably employ “people of his own race.”31 When two attempts to shut down a southern filibuster failed, the bipartisan liberal coalition retreated to court enforcement as an improvement over the status quo. Unlike the House, the Senate extended equal employment protections to state and local government workers, employees of educational institutions, and workers at firms and unions with more than fifteen employees. Republican support was crucial in securing these changes, which brought millions of workers under federal protection. GOP votes were also key to turning back Ervin’s efforts to ban quotas, percentages, and other race-conscious employment policies. A handful of southern conservative Republicans, including Thurmond and Tower, as well as Goldwater and other conservatives, joined Ervin. The House went along with the Senate legislation, which Nixon signed in late March.32 From one vantage point, conservatives had reason to cheer. Civil rights activists had failed to win cease and desist. One White House aide privately observed that the “business community is well aware of the ef-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 338

[ 338 ] ch ap t e r t w e lv e

fective work done by the Administration in ensuring that the bill is reasonable.” Yet liberals could also take heart: civil rights laws had been expanded. Some conservatives found the outcome worrisome, however; Patrick Buchanan feared the EEOC would become “home of the militants—as soon as we depart.”33 Federal officials soon filed dozens of lawsuits against large corporations, including General Electric, General Motors, Ford, and Goodyear, as well as powerful unions such as the United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers. A 1974 settlement with nine steel companies and the steelworkers’ union included $30.9 million in back pay and new hiring and promotion policies. By the mid-1970s, many businesses, especially large employers, were developing their own affirmative action plans. Such policies stemmed in part from shifting views about how to manage a business and direct action protests by civil rights activists, but the threat of a time-consuming, expensive, and potentially embarrassing legal fight with the federal government also influenced corporate behavior.34 Even so, the EEOC remained beset by troubles. A 1976 General Accounting Office report charged that the agency had “made only limited progress” and failed to use all its powers. By early 1977, it had a backlog of 130,000 cases; complaints usually took about two years, but sometimes as long as seven, to resolve. Incoming head Eleanor Holmes Norton lamented that the EEOC suffered from mismanagement and low employee morale. Similar problems would continue well into the future.35

Conclusion With the Philadelphia Plan, black capitalism, FAP, and EEOC reforms, the federal government had undertaken initiatives that few lawmakers, liberal or conservative, would have thought possible or desirable in the 1940s and 1950s. Results were decidedly mixed, but there was no rollback of civil rights policy. As with school integration, violence was an ever-present part of these discussions. This time, however, the Nixon administration did not let violence thwart federal action. The president and other prominent officials, notably Shultz, prioritized jobs over school and housing integration, and promoting the hiring of black workers

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 339

economic policy [ 339 ]

merged with other administration goals, such as fighting inflation. Meanwhile, civil rights groups’ push for substantially more federal spending on the poor was a nonstarter. Republicans in the White House and Congress were crucial in shaping both sets of developments. Race was not just a policy question, however. It would play a prominent role in debates over the GOP’s identity and in the president’s 1972 campaign.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 340

13

A New Republican Majority?

Richard Nixon took office determined to change American politics. The turmoil of the 1960s, he believed, offered an opportunity for the GOP to reclaim its position as the dominant party. The Democrats were sharply divided over race and the Vietnam War; they were also dealing with generational conflict. Even more troubling for the party, which had long trumpeted the efficacy of state power, was the electorate’s growing belief that government was incapable of solving problems at home and abroad.1 Five years later, Nixon’s dream lay in ruins. His role in the Watergate scandal shocked the public and led him to resign in disgrace in 1974. Watergate badly tarnished the Republican Party too. That November, voters turned to a new generation of Democrats who promised to clean up Washington. Two years later, Democrats regained control of the White House. From the vantage point of 1977, nearly a decade after Nixon’s ascent to the presidency, a Republican majority seemed far-fetched indeed. Long-standing intraparty disputes over race and region continued during the Nixon years, although the pitch was less intense compared with the previous decade. Liberals still made their case for a more racially inclusive party, but as before, they were powerless. Nixon and party leaders charted a course in which blacks played only marginal roles. Like earlier generations of Republicans, they considered the African American vote largely unwinnable and irrelevant. At times, that strategy paid dividends; at other times, most notably the 1970 elections in the South, it backfired. When Nixon left office, a large majority of African Americans despised him and continued to hold the Republican Party in low regard. The GOP’s abysmal standing with blacks was due to both its policy [ 340 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 341

a ne w republican majority? [ 341 ]

initiatives and its political strategies. The president’s liberal critics accused him of pursuing a “southern strategy” that played to white racial resentment, but that term was misleading. Nixon and the GOP aimed to build a nationwide coalition with suburban voters at the core. Nixon also sought to win over the northern white working class, which had overwhelmingly backed the Democrats since the New Deal. His envisioned majority included the traditional Republican constituencies of rural and small-town whites and corporate leaders.2 These constituencies differed in important respects, but they shared similar views on a host of issues, including race. They favored many of the changes that had occurred since World War II. They did not want to go back to Jim Crow laws or deny blacks the right to vote. Negative views, especially regarding blacks’ innate abilities, had weakened considerably. The principle of “equal opportunity” had developed strong roots in the law and in the broader culture. Likewise, many of these voters preferred civility when it came to racial politics. They were turned off by Wallace’s pugnacious tone.3 Yet these voters also opposed federal initiatives that would impact them directly. They did not want the federal government pushing to integrate their neighborhoods and their children’s schools, and they resisted workplace reforms that would open jobs to African Americans on the basis of compensatory justice. They objected to their tax dollars financing substantial new government programs to aid the black poor; they saw America as a free, open society where ambition and talent were rewarded and where government played a minimal role in shaping socioeconomic outcomes. Certain stereotypes, such as that African Americans preferred welfare to work and were less moral than whites, remained prevalent.4 The Republican Party did not create these beliefs, but Nixon and others regularly reinforced them in their drive for power. These divisive efforts helped ensure that race continued to be a salient campaign issue in the early 1970s.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 342

[ 342 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

Seeking a New Majority When Nixon took office, political pundits debated whether the nation was in the throes of fundamental changes that would benefit the GOP. Kevin Phillips’s book The Emerging Republican Majority quickly became a focal point of discussion. Phillips, who had worked for Nixon’s 1968 campaign and then briefly joined the administration as an aide to Attorney General John Mitchell, was only twenty-nine years old when his book was published in 1969. He confidently proclaimed that an era of Republican dominance was imminent and that race was central to this transformation. Phillips’s upbringing in the Bronx and his close study of American history had convinced him that racial, religious, and ethnic animosities lay at the core of politics. He believed that any sympathy whites had developed for African Americans began to dissipate as urban crime rates rose, cities erupted in riots, and Democrats lavished attention and money on blacks. Demographics constituted a second engine of change, according to Phillips. The urban Northeast, long the center of American politics, was in eclipse. The future belonged to the “Sunbelt,” a term he coined to describe the states from Virginia south to Florida and west to California. Sunbelt residents, especially those in the suburbs, preferred low taxes and championed the market and corporate capitalism as engines of progress.5 Liberals, Phillips claimed, had become too ensconced in academia, think tanks, government agencies, and the media. They were so focused on the problems of blacks that they were woefully out of touch with the everyday struggles of working- and middle-class whites. He saw a nation in the midst of a populist revolt: whites had come to resent liberalism for encouraging moral permissiveness and redistributing their hard-earned money to the undeserving, especially the black poor. Republicans, he argued, needed to retain middle-class white suburbanites and woo Wallace’s working-class supporters in the North and the South. The way to do so was to move to the right on race and other social issues while protecting popular government programs such as Social Security (Phillips was no Goldwater). There was little room for African Americans in his vision of the Republican future. “From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 343

a ne w republican majority? [ 343 ]

don’t need any more than that,” Phillips declared. The GOP could win white support, he suggested, by ensuring black voting rights. As African Americans became more prominent in state and local Democratic parties, more whites would become Republicans.6 Nixon found Phillips’s argument appealing, although he publicly distanced himself from it. Some Republicans heralded it as a blueprint for the future. Not surprisingly, Republicans in the so-called declining areas disagreed. “I can’t believe we are going the route of the southern strategy,” commented the head of the Michigan GOP. “It killed us in 1964. It will ruin us in 1970. It will destroy us in 1972.” The Ripon Society was still lobbying the GOP to pursue the “future” of the South—suburban and urban white moderates, African Americans, and youth. “Those who await mass conversions of racist Democrats to Republicanism have a long wait indeed,” the group forecast.7 Nixon was indeed focused on Dixie. The president had come under considerable fire from white southerners soon after taking office, but by the fall of 1969, he was riding high. Some of the president’s popularity was tied to his Vietnam and civil rights policies, but Nixon also reached out to white southerners through symbolic gestures. When the president traveled to Mississippi in September to examine damage inflicted by Hurricane Camille, a military band played “Dixie,” and the large, enthusiastic crowd cheered him. He also used Agnew to woo the South. The vice president sharply condemned busing in a speech to the Southern Governors’ Association, and in October he told a receptive audience in Jackson, Mississippi, that the region had too long been “the punching bag for those who characterize themselves as liberal intellectuals.”8 Not all southern Republicans were cut from the same cloth. That November, Linwood Holton became the first Republican governor of Virginia elected since Reconstruction. Holton, who had called on the “old, the young, and the black” to join the GOP, ran well in the Old Dominion’s rapidly expanding suburbs. He also won an estimated 37 percent of the African American vote. Holton told Virginians in his inaugural address that the era of massive resistance was over. He would make national headlines in August 1970 by personally escorting his daughter to the mostly African American school in Richmond to which she had been assigned as part of a court-ordered busing plan, even though she was

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 344

[ 344 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

technically exempt from the ruling. Developments in Virginia politics over the next several years would show that Holton’s triumph, much like John Lindsay’s 1965 victory in New York City, was an aberration. At the time, however, he was a young, energetic figure who seemed to demonstrate that a progressive, racially inclusive brand of Republicanism was possible in the South.9 The mounting strength of the southern GOP was evident when 1,000 Republicans from across the region gathered in New Orleans a month later. That group was three times the size of any other regional party meeting held in 1969. Agnew received a hero’s welcome for his denunciation of the media, antiwar protesters, and “liberal intellectuals,” who, he alleged, made excuses for violent criminals, mocked the South, wasted taxpayer money on welfare programs, and provided comfort for America’s enemies abroad.10 The New Orleans crowd celebrated impressive gains in fund-raising and organization. Five Georgia and five Mississippi Democrats had recently become Republicans. Most state parties were showing little to no interest in courting blacks or poor, rural whites—constituencies that were declining as a share of the electorate and, in any case, were assumed to be strong Democrats or Wallace supporters. Party leaders preferred to woo suburbanites, who tended to be put off by Wallace. “Standing in the schoolhouse door is not a very popular position anymore,” Mississippi GOP chief Clarke Reed astutely noted.11 Nixon continued to reach out to white southerners with highly visible gestures. The same weekend as the New Orleans conference, he attended a football game between Arkansas and Texas, the top two college teams in the nation. An avid football fan, the president reaped positive press coverage after analyzing the teams’ play during a televised interview at halftime and visiting each locker room after the contest had ended.12 The 1969 elections demonstrated that racial polarization remained intense in the North. Although Lindsay was reelected mayor of New York City, he benefited tremendously from a divided opposition. He did well among African Americans, but black turnout was much lower than it had been in 1965. Working-class whites’ voting patterns revealed substantial racial tensions over housing, crime, and other matters. Similar trends were evident in New Jersey, where Republican Albert Cahill became governor.13

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 345

a ne w republican majority? [ 345 ]

Nixon, meanwhile, was recovering from a rocky first year in office. On November 3, 1969, the president gave a televised address in which he asked “the great silent majority” to show their patriotism by rallying behind his approach to Vietnam. The speech was an enormous success. Nixon had managed to isolate congressional critics and the antiwar movement. He hoped to extend the Silent Majority concept to domestic issues and make it central to the 1970 elections.14 The Silent Majority had little room for African Americans. To be sure, Nixon supported quiet efforts to woo blacks in the South, and he believed that winning 10 to 20 percent of the southern African American vote would be a tremendous boost to the GOP. Yet, as the year ended, the White House was pessimistic about its relationship with blacks. Nixon resented Ralph Bunche’s criticisms and wondered if the prominent black intellectual knew about the Philadelphia Plan. Haldeman asked Leonard Garment, the administration’s point person with minority groups, to inform Bunche of the president’s “deep disappointment + growing discouragement” over African Americans’ response to his programs.15 Another book, Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg’s The Real Majority, soon captured the attention of the White House and leaders in both parties. Scammon, a political analyst, and Wattenberg, who had worked in the Johnson administration, were Democrats trying to reform their party. They argued that “the social issue” now rivaled economic concerns as the driving force in American politics. Crime, civil rights, the antiwar movement, and the sexual revolution threatened to destroy the New Deal coalition unless Democrats found a way to address white voters’ concerns about these and other matters. To Scammon and Wattenberg, the electorate was primarily “unpoor, unyoung, and unblack.” The typical voter was a forty-seven-year-old machinist’s wife who lived in suburban Dayton, Ohio. She valued Social Security and other forms of government assistance, but her loyalty to the Democrats had weakened due to crime and moral decay. She did not see law and order as a racist concept. Their analysis overlapped with Phillips’s in some respects, but whereas Phillips regarded the Republican era as almost inevitable, Scammon and Wattenberg saw the future as wide open; whichever party won the allegiance of that Dayton housewife would dominate politics for the next generation. Here, too, blacks were largely irrelevant.16

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 346

[ 346 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

With the economy sputtering, Nixon hoped to use the social issue to the GOP’s advantage. He had spent much of his first year in office courting white union members, sometimes dubbed “the hard hats,” by appealing to their cultural conservatism and asking for their support on Vietnam. White working-class attitudes about race, the war, and other matters were by no means monolithic, but Nixon saw an opening. After a violent confrontation between hawkish construction workers and antiwar protesters in New York City in May 1970, Nixon ordered aides to develop additional strategies to bring working-class whites to the GOP. On Labor Day he hosted a dinner at the White House for AFL-CIO head George Meany and sixty other labor leaders. Recalling how Dem ocrats had been able to tie Republicans to the John Birch Society in the early 1960s, Nixon aimed to tar Democrats as “left-wing radical liberals” by linking them with more extreme elements of the antiwar movement. He also wanted GOP candidates to push their opponents hard to take a stand on busing. Republicans would gain, no matter what Democrats did; opposing busing would upset blacks and other liberals, but endorsing it would alienate whites.17 Race figured prominently in several contests that fall. Southern Republicans tended to run sharply conservative campaigns. In the Florida Senate race, William Cramer denounced busing; so did William Brock in Tennessee. In South Carolina, Albert Watson’s gubernatorial campaign ran television ads featuring the Watts riot and asking, “Are we going to be ruled by the bloc?” In Texas, George H. W. Bush privately lamented that federal desegregation efforts under a Republican administration had allowed Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, a busing opponent, to rally conservative support.18 Nixon stoked white southern pride and emphasized social issues such as crime and permissiveness. Though not reducible to race, these issues had a racial element; many white voters thought blacks were violent and immoral. Nixon also allied with racial conservatives in his drive to boost the southern GOP. Earlier in the year, he had failed to persuade Senator Harry Byrd Jr. (D-Va.), whose father had led massive resistance against segregation, to become a Republican. The president campaigned that fall for several southern Republicans, including Florida governor Claude Kirk Jr., who had tried to stop court-ordered integration by taking con-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 347

a ne w republican majority? [ 347 ]

trol of the Manatee County school system. Not surprisingly, black voters across the region found the Republican Party’s message and its political style repulsive.19 The November returns brought disappointing news for the GOP. Republicans gained only two seats in the Senate and lost nine in the House of Representatives; Democrats remained in control of both houses of Congress. Nixon’s “new majority” had not arrived. A substantial number of voters still trusted the Democrats to protect their economic interests.20 Race figured prominently in Republican Senate victories in Maryland, Tennessee, and New York. In Maryland, J. Glenn Beall enjoyed strong support in areas that had backed Wallace in 1968; low black turnout hurt his Democratic opponent. In the Volunteer State, Brock substantially improved on Nixon’s 1968 totals in every white precinct in Memphis and its suburbs. In New York, conservative James Buckley (brother of William F. Buckley Jr.) ran up large majorities in parts of New York City that had overwhelmingly voted to repeal the police civil review board in 1966. Interviewing Buckley supporters, journalist Samuel Lubell encountered intense criticism of the welfare system, often followed by “disparaging remarks about blacks.” Like the crime issue, white attitudes toward welfare were not reducible to race, but they were not devoid of race either. “The colored want everything for nothing,” one Buckley supporter commented. These voters, Lubell noted, were not Goldwaterites; they favored Medicare and other government programs to assist those who were deserving—notably, themselves.21 Results from several southern contests revealed the limits of a racially conservative strategy. Democratic gubernatorial candidates who championed compliance with court-ordered desegregation built successful coalitions that included African Americans, working-class whites, and white suburbanites who were turned off by racially charged appeals. Georgia’s Jimmy Carter emerged as the most prominent new type of southern Democrat. Both Kirk and Watson lost their races for governor, and in Florida, Cramer went down to defeat partly because of high black turnout for his Democratic rival. Republicans discovered that the Nixon and Wallace constituencies did not readily mix; dynamics of class and race revealed that the white electorate in Dixie was more varied and complex than Phillips and others realized.22

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 348

[ 348 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

The 1972 Election Nixon faced strong headwinds as the 1972 campaign began. The economy was in poor shape, and he was still pursuing the unpopular war in Vietnam. Alabama governor George Wallace was a candidate for the Democratic nomination, and although he was unlikely to succeed in that quest, he would hurt Nixon in the South and among working-class whites in the North if he ran as an independent. Busing was not the most important issue across the nation, but in several states where the policy was being implemented—most notably, Florida and Michigan—it was paramount. During the Democratic primaries that spring, Nixon and the GOP worked surreptitiously to convince whites that the Democrats and civil rights activists were close allies. Nixon campaign workers placed pro-busing posters in white areas of Miami, for example. The goal, one participant later confessed, was to sow “confusion, disruption, and malcontent” among potential Democratic supporters. They also tried to undermine the campaign of Senator Edmund Muskie (Maine), whom Nixon regarded as his strongest rival, with subtle appeals to whites’ racial resentments.23 Intense white opposition to busing propelled Wallace to victory in the Florida and Michigan primaries. To Nixon, those results vindicated his belief that the public did not want busing. He planned to call for an antibusing constitutional amendment no later than September 1. Doing so would enable him to draw a sharp contrast between himself and the eventual Democratic nominee, giving him a chance to carry Michigan and other northern industrial states. “Blue collar vote will decide election,” he wrote. “Fed. Courts will reelect RN. . . . Busing may be the ‘crossing bridge’ for Blue Collars. Cannot muddle this issue; have to be clear.” Nixon directed Ehrlichman to develop a public relations campaign in Michigan and wherever else busing was hotly contested. The issue had to be hit “hard, clear, and clean,” the president stressed, two months before the election. “Forced integrated housing must also be hit and hit hard,” he added.24 The stakes soon escalated. In June federal judge Stephen Roth ordered the busing of more than 300,000 students in Detroit and its fifty-three suburban districts by fall 1973. Vowing to leave “no stone unturned” in

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 349

a ne w republican majority? [ 349 ]

his quest to stop busing in the Motor City, Nixon dispatched Ehrlichman to meet with the governor. At the president’s behest, Ehrlichman also tried to persuade the Justice Department to settle several school desegregation cases, some of which involved the North. Nixon was loath to be associated with any court ruling that required busing.25 Busing and other racial issues presented challenges for the Democrats as well. Senator George McGovern of South Dakota won the Democratic nomination that July. McGovern had spent the previous three years trying to claim the mantle of the “new politics” advocated by Robert Kennedy and others in 1968. He had cochaired a commission that fundamentally altered party rules. One such reform was intended to ensure that more blacks, women, and youth became convention delegates, and another sought to expand the primary system for the selection of presidential nominees. These two changes reduced the influence of traditional power blocs—urban politicians from the North, white southerners, and union leaders—and as a result, the Democratic convention in Miami was filled with acrimony over who ruled the party.26 Democrats were also divided over policy. McGovern was the most liberal candidate in party history. His calls for peace in Vietnam, a 40 percent cut in defense spending, and amnesty for draft evaders won strong support from youth and many in the antiwar movement. McGovern tried to straddle the busing issue, but given Nixon’s firm opposition, many white voters tended to see the senator as the pro-busing candidate. His welfare reform proposal involved paying every man, woman, and child in the nation, rich and poor alike, $1,000 per year. Democratic leaders worried that McGovern was so far out of the mainstream that he would lose to Nixon and take many other Democrats down with him.27 Concerned that African Americans might stay home on Election Day, McGovern aggressively courted blacks. He told black delegates he would boost the African American presence on the Supreme Court, in the cabinet, and in regulatory agencies. He also promised more federal patronage and financial aid for poor blacks. The SCLC abandoned any pretense of nonpartisanship and began to cooperate with McGovern’s campaign on voter registration drives.28 Working-class whites and white southerners, in contrast, viewed McGovern as someone who would not stand up for America abroad, did

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 350

[ 350 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

not understand the realities of race, and wanted to give taxpayers’ hardearned money to the undeserving poor. McGovern left Miami a wounded candidate.29 Nixon was ecstatic. By nominating McGovern, he believed, the Democrats had opened the door to a big win for him. The president soon had more reason to celebrate when the AFL-CIO chose not to endorse a presidential candidate—the first time the union had failed to rally behind the Democratic nominee. Nixon’s courtship of labor, based largely on the war and conservative cultural values, was paying dividends.30 The potential fly in the ointment was Wallace. The governor had been shot while campaigning in May and was now paralyzed and suffering from other serious health problems. Nevertheless, he had not officially ruled out a third-party run. Some of his staffers, as well as his wife, hinted that he might still seek the presidency. Nixon authorized payments to the governor’s aides to encourage them to dissuade Wallace. The president also wanted their help in his own campaign in the South. On July 25 Nixon dispatched John Connally, who had recently stepped down as secretary of the treasury to head Democrats for Nixon, to meet with the hospitalized Wallace. The governor did not close the door on running and told Connally he would not endorse the president. What thrilled Nixon, however, was Wallace’s pledge not to help McGovern.31 Republicans held their convention in Miami in late August. There were fifty-six black delegates, the highest total in party history. The GOP still badly trailed the Democrats, who had 452 black delegates at their gathering. Black Republicans had little influence in decision making but stirred media curiosity. “You can’t go to sleep at the convention for fear you’ll get on TV in their effort to show a mixed convention,” one black delegate joked. Another, who was running for office himself, welcomed the free publicity. “I’ve never been interviewed so much in my life,” he commented. African American delegates demanded increased funding for education, lower unemployment (black joblessness stood at 9.4 percent, compared with 5 percent for whites), and the appointment of more blacks to federal posts. They loyally supported Nixon, but when Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the president’s daughter, told a gathering of black delegates, “My dad has done everything possible for your people,” some attendees had to be restrained.32

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 351

a ne w republican majority? [ 351 ]

The convention featured extensive discussions of African Americans’ role in the party. In 1968 the GOP had established the Delegates and Organization (DO) Committee to propose rule changes that would broaden the party’s appeal to nonwhites and youth. One of its initial recommendations, revealed at a 1971 RNC meeting, was to allocate delegate slots to minority groups in proportion to their percentage of a state’s population. The RNC nixed this idea. The DO Committee also proposed an expansion of convention committees to include a “minority ethnic group” member and one person under age twenty-five from each state. Conservatives attacked this as a “quota” plan. Several Republicans appeared before the Rules Committee in Miami to support the DO Committee’s suggestions, but others sharply denounced them. Bill Brock warned the GOP not to follow the Democrats, whose party had been “subverted by radicals who play blacks against whites, minorities against majorities, men against women, and old against young.” Blasting “these calls for quotas,” James Buckley urged the GOP to use “individual merit as the sole criterion for judging persons.”33 The Rules Committee voted down the idea of guaranteed representation on convention committees, but it did recommend that the party “take positive action” to include more women and nonwhites. Republicans decided to place one African American on the party’s Executive Committee but turned down a proposal to add several blacks to the National Committee. They also rejected a plan that would have given larger, more urban states greater influence at the 1976 convention; thus, the power to choose the presidential nominee would remain centered in the smaller, more conservative states of the South and West.34 Black Republicans had been complaining for years that the Democrats did a far better job of including African Americans in leadership roles. Choices made by each party in 1972 widened that gap. Later that summer, Democrats appointed an African American to the second highest position on the Democratic National Committee. In the decades to come, the black presence in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party would continue to grow, but it would remain nominal in the GOP.35 Liberal Republicans suffered other defeats in Miami. The platform touted Nixon’s increased spending on civil rights enforcement efforts, extension of the Voting Rights Act, black capitalism, and progress on de-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 352

[ 352 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

segregation in the South, but the party announced it was “irrevocably opposed to busing for racial balance” and proclaimed busing a massive failure that had exacerbated racial tensions. Fledgling efforts by the Ripon Society to replace Spiro Agnew with Edward Brooke as the vice presidential nominee flopped badly.36 Nixon sounded racially conservative themes in his acceptance speech. Commending the delegates for demonstrating “to the nation that we can have an open convention without dividing Americans into quotas,” the president vowed to fight “every vestige of discrimination” without “discrimination against others.” According to Nixon, quotas were “totally alien to the American tradition.” Americans “don’t want to be part of a quota,” he proclaimed. “They want to be part of America.”37 The speech also reflected Nixon’s retreat from the Philadelphia Plan. The president had never trumpeted it loudly, but over the previous year, there had been strong white opposition from unions and some Jewish organizations, as well as complaints from civil rights leaders that he had not done enough for blacks. White critics continued to argue that the plan’s emphasis on “goals” and “timetables” amounted to a quota. In addition, union resistance inhibited black hiring and undermined negotiations over “hometown solutions” in communities across the nation. Many white workers simply refused to work with blacks or harassed them on the job. Union leaders fudged numbers and used other tactics to give the appearance of compliance. By the summer of 1971, Nixon had decided to leave union discrimination to his successors. “Why fight that battle?” he asked his aides. “There’s no votes in it for us.” That fall, Nixon moved Arthur Fletcher, who had continued to be an outspoken advocate of the Philadelphia Plan, out of the Labor Department; Fletcher warned that failure to address black unemployment would bring a repeat of the largescale riots of the 1960s. Working-class whites were not happy with Nixon’s approach to economic matters, but the White House was responding to their desire to maintain the racial status quo in employment, schools, and housing.38 Nixon used his acceptance speech to appeal to working-class and middle-class voters in other ways. The president took credit for an “all-out offensive against crime” and vowed to appoint judges who would align the government with “the peace forces as against the criminal forces.” He

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 353

a ne w republican majority? [ 353 ]

savaged McGovern’s welfare “scheme” and warned it would raise taxes on “the already overburdened taxpayer” while expanding the welfare rolls by 82 million people. Accusing the Democrats of undermining selfreliance in favor of “paternalism,” Nixon promised to “provide incentives for people to get off welfare and to get to work.” He contrasted senior citizens, “the builders of America,” with welfare recipients and promised the former “retirement in dignity and self-respect.” By stoutly defending programs for the elderly, Nixon again signaled his difference from Goldwater. He also extolled “the principle that has made America the world’s most prosperous nation—that here . . . a person should get what he works for and works for what he gets.” In this formulation, Republicans were the party of hardy self-reliance, whereas Democrats were the party that taxed those who worked hard to subsidize the indolent. Democrats, he added, saw the nation as fundamentally flawed and wished to “tear it down.”39 None of these appeals was overtly racial, and Nixon had long believed that middle-class blacks subscribed to these same principles. Yet Nixon affirmed assumptions that many whites had about themselves and about blacks: they saw themselves as industrious and independent strivers, and they saw blacks as prone to violent crime and willing to accept government support rather than work.40 Nixon ran television ads on these issues. The president appeared in one and alleged that busing produced “inferior education” and worsened “hatreds among the kids.” A narrator promised that Nixon “intends to do something about it” while improving education for all children. Similarly, Democrats for Nixon, an ostensibly independent group that actually had ties to the Nixon campaign, ran an ad showing a white construction worker eating his lunch while a narrator stated that McGovern would put 47 percent of the population on welfare, leaving the rest of the nation to pay the enormous bill.41 Nixon was a keen observer of the political landscape. “Welfare is 1972’s code word for anti-Negro,” Samuel Lubell reported after interviewing thousands of voters nationwide. He pointed out that most whites strongly favored Social Security, Medicare, and other federal spending on people such as themselves; they did not consider these programs “welfare.” At the same time, they vehemently opposed initiatives

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 354

[ 354 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

to help those they considered undeserving. Decrying the “middle class squeeze,” they denounced both rich and poor, but most of their anger was directed downward. “We were poor, but we worked our way up and never asked for help,” a New York City voter said. “People on relief want everything for nothing and don’t work for it. . . . I don’t want to hear about their problems any more [sic].” Another complained, “The colored are getting Food Stamps and I have to pay for it.” There was a rich irony here, Lubell noted, because Nixon had favored doubling federal spending on food stamps in 1969 and initially supported higher cash payments as part of his own welfare reform initiative. Nixon’s appeals to blacks touted increased social welfare spending.42 There were other racial issues in the fall campaign. Busing remained front and center in Michigan. “Everybody’s buying shotguns in Warren, in case the colored try to start anything,” said one resident. Republican senator Robert Griffin ran an antibusing ad that featured children leaving for school in the dark at 4:00 a.m. “Is this what you want for your children?” the narrator asked. The spot even ran in the overwhelmingly white Upper Peninsula, where voters worried that a policy affecting Detroit would somehow touch them too. A New York City woman who had once hated Nixon declared she now supported the president because of his opposition to busing. “Before my children got in school, I supported busing because that was the liberal thing to do,” she noted. “Now . . . I’m conservative.” School integration caused tension in several northern communities. In Brooklyn a boisterous white mob confronted thirty-two black students attending a largely white junior high school and assaulted them with assorted racial epithets, including “Niggers, go back to Brownsville.” In Gage Park, Illinois, a white working-class suburb of Chicago, whites protested integration by staging a ten-week boycott against school “overcrowding.” Whites, Lubell found, credited Nixon with preventing a repeat of the large-scale riots of the 1960s, and they welcomed his denunciation of quotas. One New Yorker alleged, “They get jobs just because they’re black.” As in 1968, white voters associated the Democrats with racial change, but they saw Nixon as holding the line against activists’ unjust demands.43 Critics who had accused Nixon of using coded racist appeals in 1968 when he talked of “law and order” made similar charges about busing.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 355

a ne w republican majority? [ 355 ]

Nixon responded as he had four years earlier—by denying any link and reaffirming the goodness of those who stood with him: When a mother sees her child taken away from a neighborhood school and transported miles away, and she objects to that, I don’t think it is right to charge her with bigotry. . . . There is no reason to feel guilty about wanting to enjoy what you get and get what you earn, about wanting your children in good schools close to home, or about wanting to be judged fairly on your ability. Those are not values to be ashamed of; those are values to be proud of. Those are values that I shall always stand up for when they come under attack. . . . This is the land of opportunity, not the land of quotas and restrictions. This is the land that holds all men to be created equal, not the land that demands that all citizens become the same.44 Even though Nixon entered the fall campaign season in good shape in the South, he aggressively courted white southerners. They were increasingly unhappy with the national Democratic Party over several issues, including race, but were not yet solid Republicans. The president continued his effort to collapse notions of southern exceptionalism. “Did you know that busing is a much hotter issue in Michigan today than it is in Alabama?” he asked an Atlanta audience. According to Nixon, parents “all over this country” rightly wanted the best possible education for their children. “It’s a great mistake to go into the South and talk of the South as a region apart,” he told his aides. “The South is finally teaching the Democrats a lesson—not because they think I’m a racist, they know I’m not, but because they’re proud, because they care about a strong national defense, about patriotism, about lifestyles, about morality. I don’t satisfy ’em on race.”45 Recognizing that Republicans still could not compete at the congressional level across much of Dixie, Nixon gave varying degrees of support to incumbent Democrats. Their opposition to busing may have been one factor, but Nixon also clearly wished to reward those who had backed him on Vietnam and other foreign policy matters. Motive, however, mattered less than results, and the White House allied with some congressional leaders, including James Eastland, whom African Americans saw

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 356

[ 356 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

as hostile to their interests. The national Republican Party offered only token assistance to Eastland’s opponent.46 The GOP saw little reason to worry about the black vote. As before, African Americans were essentially unnecessary, especially at the presidential level. Republican researchers noted that black registration in Dixie was climbing, but white registration was up dramatically as well. Blacks in the North were exhibiting little interest in politics; African American voting there had declined precipitously between 1964 and 1968, and it showed no signs of reversing. The black registration rate in Mississippi, for example, was twice that in the heavily African American Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn.47 African Americans, in turn, still rejected the GOP. Gallup reported that just 9 percent of African Americans identified as Republican, down from 23 percent in 1960; few thought of themselves as “strong Republicans.” Other research showed that African Americans were likely to vote Democratic even if the Republican candidate were black.48 Nixon remained convinced that some blacks embraced the GOP’s message of self-reliance. The president’s campaign highlighted recent achievements, including business initiatives that benefited minorities, federal deposits in black-owned banks, aid to black colleges, and research on sickle cell anemia. Nixon had a much stronger record in these areas than his two Democratic predecessors. The Nixon team also pointed to the administration’s African American appointments and the expansion of black employment by the federal government, including more blacks in higher-level jobs. Echoing Eisenhower, the Nixon campaign boasted of “deeds, not words.” Nixon’s ads in black media urged, “Don’t be taken for granted.”49 The Nixon campaign also staged high-profile events. In June approximately 2,000 African Americans attended a two-day gathering hosted by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). Prominent guests at the dinner finale included Betty Shabazz (the widow of Malcolm X) and football hero–turned–actor Jim Brown. Lionel Hampton provided entertainment, and a black minister gushed that Nixon rivaled Jesus in historical significance. Former CORE leader Floyd McKissick, whose economic development project in eastern North Carolina had received millions of dollars in federal subsidies from the Nixon administration, criticized

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 357

a ne w republican majority? [ 357 ]

blacks for “sucking the sugar tit” of the Democrats since the New Deal. Some attendees grumbled afterward that the invitations had failed to specify it was a political rally. African Americans who had organized the gathering were upset that the money raised went to CREEP rather than to efforts to improve the party’s standing among blacks.50 Several African American celebrities, including Johnny Mathis, James Brown, and Sammy Davis Jr., endorsed Nixon and were sharply criticized by the black community for doing so. Five hundred African Americans in Baltimore picketed Brown’s concert and handed out leaflets lambasting the singer. They called Brown, who was affectionately known as “soul brother number one,” a “sold brother.”51 Davis faced the most virulent attacks. The singer, whose relationship with Nixon went back more than a decade, had been involved in several White House initiatives at home and abroad. He told a reporter in October that he believed the president was making quiet progress for blacks. “There’s an honesty about the man I love,” Davis said. Some blackowned stores refused to sell Davis’s records, and the entertainer, who had long been criticized for his “white” lifestyle, received death threats. The audience at Jesse Jackson’s “Black Expo” in Chicago that fall repeatedly booed Davis when he performed. The trigger for this tidal wave of derision had occurred at the Republican convention, where Davis was photographed putting his arms around Nixon’s midsection. The executive editor of Jet noted that the picture drew the largest response the magazine had ever received, and nearly all the comments condemned Davis; one even compared him to a “house nigger.” Moments before the surprise embrace, Nixon had extolled Davis as a symbol of the American dream and an independent thinker who could not be bought.52 Charges that the Nixon administration had bought African American support were rampant that fall. And in fact, many African Americans who rallied around Nixon were businesspeople with economic ties to the government; at least some of the attendees at the June gala admitted they were there to preserve funding for their programs or organizations. Johnny Ford, the mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama, typified this pragmatic approach. He had backed Robert Kennedy in 1968 but now calculated that supporting Nixon, who appeared to be a shoe-in for reelection, was the best strategy to meet the needs of the large, mostly poor African

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 358

[ 358 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

American population in his city. “I have to look for where that money is coming from,” Ford confessed. African Americans who favored Nixon, regardless of the reason, were labeled “Uncle Toms” or “political prostitutes” by fellow blacks. Louis Stokes, an Ohio Democrat who headed the Congressional Black Caucus, declared that black celebrities who supported Nixon had been “duped by . . . one of their greatest oppressors.” A lifelong black Republican lamented, “I have never seen such attacks by blacks on each other as I am witnessing this year; it’s vicious.”53 Nixon easily triumphed in November, winning forty-nine states and nearly 61 percent of the popular vote. He did especially well among several traditionally Democratic constituencies. For instance, the president received 54 percent of the union vote and 52 percent of the Catholic vote—two demographics that often overlapped; the latter figure was nineteen percentage points higher than his 1968 total. Nixon also registered healthy gains among Jews, although a majority still favored the Democrats. There were numerous factors behind these results, but race was clearly one of them. Lubell found that in five large northern cities that had elected mayors since 1968, wards with the greatest opposition to pro–civil rights mayoral candidates voted heavily for the president in 1972. In South Philadelphia, where racial tensions had long simmered, Nixon received 61 percent of the vote, up from 25 percent in 1968. Nixon also ran well among white working-class voters in areas of Detroit where busing was an especially important issue.54 Nixon became the first Republican to carry every state in the South. He received an estimated 80 percent of the southern white vote and lost in only two congressional districts. Nixon remained popular in the suburbs of the peripheral South, the part of Dixie where he had fared best in his two previous presidential campaigns. This time, he also achieved some truly astounding numbers in the heavily rural Deep South, long considered Wallace’s base. Nixon received 79 percent of the vote in Mississippi (his highest percentage in the nation), 75 percent in Georgia, and 72 percent in Alabama. Among rural whites in the Deep South, Nixon won 92 percent of the vote. “The South will never go back,” an exuberant Harry Dent predicted.55 Clearly, a sizable number of voters who had supported Wallace in 1968 backed Nixon in 1972. That shift proved temporary. Wallace was

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 359

a ne w republican majority? [ 359 ]

not the bridge by which white southern Democrats crossed over to the GOP. A majority of the southern congressional districts carried by Wallace in 1968 and then by Nixon in 1972 reverted to the Democrats in 1976 and 1980. Nixon built a strong presidential base among the region’s white middle and upper classes, and they would become the core of Ronald Reagan’s southern support (in 1980 Reagan would win 93 percent of the districts where Nixon had triumphed in 1968, but just 42 percent of those carried by Wallace). These voters favored Nixon’s (and then Reagan’s) approach to race, but it was only one of several issues that drew them to the GOP.56 Nixon’s success did not extend to his party, as Democrats retained control of Congress. Even in the South, Democrats remained strong. The GOP gained Senate seats in Virginia and North Carolina but lost one in Kentucky. The vast majority of incumbent southern Democratic senators and representatives, as well as state lawmakers, won reelection rather easily. African Americans lost two of their strongest Republican allies, William McCulloch and John Sherman Cooper, both of whom retired. Over the next decade, other Republicans who had allied with nonsouthern Democrats on civil rights policy would retire, lose to Democrats, or, as in the case of Javits, be defeated by more conservative Republican challengers. Brooke easily won reelection in 1972 but lost six years later. Black Republican lawmakers at any level remained few and far between; an estimated 98 percent of African American state and local officials were Democrats.57 Nixon won roughly 13 percent of the nonwhite vote nationwide. There were a few pockets of black support for the GOP. In the African American wards of Chicago, Charles Percy received slightly more than twice the black ballots Nixon did. Class politics was also evident, as wealthier blacks were more inclined to support the incumbent senator.58 More important, black turnout was especially low. The Republicans’ calculations that the black vote mattered little proved correct. One postelection study noted the “devastatingly” low level of blacks voting compared with white ethnics. “The black vote,” the report concluded, “came close to being scarcely any vote at all.”59

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 360

[ 360 ] ch ap t e r t h i r t e e n

Conclusion Nixon’s 1972 campaign was a personal triumph, but the Republican Party remained a minority party nationwide. Nixon courted white voters by denouncing welfare, busing, crime, and employment “quotas.” Welfare and quotas may have been new issues, but in many respects, they were just new vehicles by which old ideas, such as the “bought vote,” were expressed. Republicans continued to deem the African American vote unwinnable and unnecessary. Nixon encouraged whites to believe they had been victimized by federal officials who cared more for poor ghetto dwellers. He understood that most whites were not eager for federal authorities to integrate their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, and they were not willing to pay higher taxes to boost the incomes of poor blacks. Republican voters saw America as a nation where hard work would be rewarded; the black poor, by this definition, lacked initiative. The nation remained deeply divided along racial lines. A Harris poll in late November found that 87 percent of African Americans wanted school integration, compared with only 46 percent of whites. Likewise, 81 percent of whites but only 36 percent of blacks opposed busing. Twothirds of African Americans had a negative view of Nixon—the mirror opposite of white attitudes. Similarly, blacks had little faith in other government leaders or in business. Revelations about the president’s political activities, as well as his policy proposals, would soon reinforce African Americans’ pessimism.60

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 361

14

Denouement: The GOP and Race, 1973–1974

Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term on January 20, 1973. An African American minister said a prayer, while jazz vocalist Ethel Ennis broke precedent (and stirred controversy) by performing the national anthem a capella. There were few black faces among the estimated 300,000 people who watched the inaugural parade. “I went to Kennedy’s,” said one black resident of the District of Columbia, “but I thought he had my interests at heart.” Lionel Hampton performed at the Kennedy Center ball; Sammy Davis Jr. was supposed to appear but cited a case of the flu to explain his absence.1 Meeting in Washington to celebrate Nixon’s triumph, the RNC welcomed the first black member of the party’s Executive Committee. New RNC chief George H. W. Bush lauded black Republicans for “sticking out your necks” to back Nixon. He vowed to “vigorously seek more black input into the party” and expressed hope for “some Republican black faces in the House of Representatives.” Linwood Holton inverted the Scammon and Wattenberg thesis when he told the committee that the GOP “cannot be the party of the un-young, the un-black, and the unpoor” if it wished to regain majority status. One of Nixon’s top aides assured black Republicans that federal patronage would soon flow. Although several African American participants expressed optimism about the future, others were less enthusiastic. When one black attendee at an inaugural ball took some plastic souvenir cups, a white bartender asked him to put them back. The man obliged, prompting an African [ 361 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 362

[ 362 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

American standing nearby to quip, “Man, you’re chicken, that’s about all you’ll get out of the Nixon years.”2 Federal appointments materialized slowly or not at all over the next several months. “Black Republicans feel frustrated, as though we are being given the run-around,” complained one D.C. official in mid-February. “We’re convinced that white conservatives are closing ranks and will be freezing us out, and also white liberal Republicans, over the next four years.” African American publisher William Walker, a longtime Republican from Cleveland, criticized the White House for naming blacks to low-level positions. That May, Jet reporter Simeon Booker declared that Republican outreach efforts were “in shambles.” Robert Brown, the highest-ranking African American in the Nixon administration, told RNC leaders that blacks felt unwelcome in the party and that the GOP did a poor job of promoting its black candidates. Bush indicated he would develop new initiatives but insisted the party avoid “the pitfalls of quotas.” Stressing that the relationship was a two-way street, Bush contended that black leaders needed to encourage African Americans to think more broadly about politics.3 That was bound to be a difficult task. Although one survey found that African Americans’ identification with the Democratic Party had shrunk by sixteen percentage points since 1968, that did not translate into support for the GOP. Instead, it reflected a deepening pessimism and a belief that politics did not matter. A similar study in August indicated that blacks were losing confidence in the government four times faster than whites.4 Developments in the final two years of Nixon’s presidency reinforced these trends. There were few new civil rights policies from the White House. Conflict between Nixon and black leaders, often sharp, focused primarily on economic matters. Demonstrations and other protests failed to move the White House or Congress; the high point of direct action had come and gone. Yet important continuities were evident. Fear of violence still figured prominently in racial debates, and Senate Republicans allied with Democrats to turn back several conservative antibusing initiatives. School segregation remained entrenched when the Supreme Court issued a decision in 1974 that foreclosed any possibility of integrating suburban and urban schools.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 363

denouement [ 363 ]

Nixon, Race, and Poverty Nixon’s policy goals for his second term were bound to disappoint African Americans. Too much faith in the federal government’s ability to solve problems, he declared in his inaugural address, had led to unrealistic expectations and then a harvest of disappointment. Turning John F. Kennedy’s 1961 call for public service on its head, Nixon urged, “Let each of us ask, not just what will government do for me, but what can I do for myself?” Nixon proposed substantial budget cuts in areas he had long considered wasteful—job training and other employment initiatives, youth programs, aid to the handicapped, economic development in poor areas, and education. He announced a moratorium on all federal housing subsidies for 1973 as well as urban renewal funding, a move Romney worried “could inflame the central cities.” The president also put forward a program of “new federalism” whereby Washington would transfer some authority to state and local governments.5 Nixon wanted to eliminate the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) by shifting some of its operations to other federal agencies and halting others altogether. The OEO employed thousands of African Americans and aimed to help poor whites and blacks through programs such as Head Start, the Job Corps, and the Neighborhood Youth Corps. The administration needed to move judiciously, however. Those who would lose their jobs, Nixon worried, might turn to “blowing up cities.”6 The Congressional Black Caucus, which continued to call for national health insurance and full employment, denounced the cuts as “repressive and inhumane.” Black leaders pointed to high defense spending and federal subsidies for large corporations as proof of misplaced national priorities. “It’s socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor,” charged one black minister. Twelve bishops from the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, some of whom had supported Nixon in 1972, issued a statement lambasting the president’s budget as “cruel and callous.” Coretta Scott King declared that her “husband’s dream of a just society . . . [was] now on the verge of being destroyed.”7 Blacks emphatically rejected Nixon’s argument that the cuts would help the poor by taming inflation, which had risen substantially since the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 364

[ 364 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

1960s. To them, the antipoverty programs offered a path to a better life. One participant in a job training initiative in Pittsburgh remarked, “This was my first exposure to the so-called ‘American dream,’ but now the whole thing is turning into a nightmare.” A program director there pointed out that job training showed black youth they could be successful without “selling dope or robbing banks.” Similarly, an eighteen-yearold called potential reductions in the Neighborhood Youth Corps “just another form of racism designed to keep black people down.” These comments reflected the larger economic context. Some African Americans were gaining economically, but large numbers remained in low-skill, low-wage jobs. Economic challenges for black youth were especially acute—their unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 1972 stood at 35.9 percent, compared with 13.2 percent for white youth.8 Black objections were also rooted in a deep distrust of state and local authority. “There has never been a single initiative on behalf of the poor that has succeeded except on the federal level,” Bayard Rustin insisted. Aaron Henry, who had fought for decades in Mississippi, worried that the president’s approach meant trouble for the state’s blacks. “After they hear Nixon’s code words, the whites in Mississippi say they won’t have to obey the law anymore,” he asserted. “We used to be able to call Lyndon [Johnson] or John [Kennedy] when things got bad, but now we’ve lost the White House and the attorney general.” The NAACP’s field director in Mississippi noted, “Everyone knew that local governments, especially in the South, have always been insensitive to your needs. The reason for the war on poverty in the first place was that local governments had failed.”9 Some black leaders saw an opportunity to revive direct action protests. Since the late 1960s, the SCLC and other prominent civil rights organizations had focused on negotiating with corporations to boost black hiring or with foundations to obtain charitable donations. (In contrast, the NAACP retained its long-standing faith in lawsuits and lobbying government officials.) Now, the SCLC, the National Welfare Rights Organization, Operation PUSH (founded by Jesse Jackson in 1971 after a falling-out with SCLC leaders), and other groups announced plans to make April 4, the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the beginning of a “national spring offensive” that would in-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 365

denouement [ 365 ]

clude lobbying, marches, and nonviolent civil disobedience in at least 100 cities. “We plan to put this movement back into the streets where it belongs,” proclaimed SCLC head Ralph Abernathy. “There must be massive upheaval from the local communities,” Jackson observed.10 The “spring offensive” flopped badly. An estimated 25,000 people gathered in Washington to lobby Congress to preserve the antipoverty programs, and 3,000 marchers turned out in Atlanta in mid-April. There was no sustained protest movement that spring or summer: 1973 was not 1963.11 Talk of violence was common that spring. One black minister alleged that Nixon’s budget cuts were part of a “nationally designed program to exterminate minorities.” Other black leaders warned of widespread disorder if the cuts were implemented. AME bishops insisted that if Nixon did not heed the moderate voices in the African American community, “the radicals will take to the streets in the summer and there will be bloodshed.” Richard Hatcher, the African American mayor of Indianapolis, chastised Nixon for “taking a reckless gamble with the stability of this nation.” He implored Congress “to prevent an urban Vietnam.” Urban League director Vernon Jordan talked of cities as “free fire zones doomed to destruction” if the cuts were adopted. Idle youth “frighten the hell out of me,” said a Neighborhood Youth Corps official. Percy Sutton, a former Freedom Rider who was now borough president of Manhattan, predicted blacks would “carry the disorders . . . into the white community and to the downtown banks where the power structure is,” rather than confine the destruction to their own neighborhoods. But there were no race riots that spring or summer. Black leaders’ fear that the OEO would be gutted eased in mid-April, when a federal judge ruled that Nixon could not dismantle the agency without congressional approval.12 Nixon, meanwhile, abandoned the Family Assistance Plan, which had passed in the House in 1970 and 1971 but then died in the Senate. As early as 1970 the president had hoped to see it killed by the Democrats because, as he told his staff, the nation “can’t afford it.” Although FAP had undergone several revisions since 1969, it continued to draw fire from liberals and conservatives alike. The Urban League opposed it, and the National Welfare Rights Organization charged that FAP was based on “the racist premise that people are poor and need assistance because

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 366

[ 366 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

of their personal failures or anti-social behavior.” Southern lawmakers in both parties objected that FAP was too generous. Congress eventually approved legislation to provide supplemental security income (SSI) for the elderly, blind, and disabled—a program that would greatly aid African Americans as well as whites. SSI offered further proof that the 1960s reform impulse had not disappeared.13 African Americans nevertheless continued to see the Nixon administration as harmful to their economic interests. The NAACP filed a lawsuit in the fall of 1973 charging that the “hometown plans,” which were intended to boost black employment, had failed. In Chicago only 245 blacks had been hired by October, whereas the original agreement between the Urban League and the construction union had called for 1,467 new minority workers by the end of the year. Black leaders also criticized Nixon’s minimum-wage proposal, which would raise the rate from $1.60 to $2.30 over three years; however, it would exclude government employees and establish lower pay levels for service workers and youth—three groups with substantial numbers of African Americans. Civil rights organizations lobbied intensely for an alternative, and that summer, Congress passed a broader minimum-wage plan. Citing concerns over inflation, Nixon vetoed it. The White House and Congress eventually forged a compromise bill, which brought an additional 7.4 million workers under federal minimum-wage protection, and Nixon signed it the following spring.14 The Nixon administration’s black capitalism program was another source of controversy. Critics acknowledged that Nixon had done more for black businesses than any previous president; federal purchases from nonwhite firms had grown from $17 million to $394 million since 1969, and Small Business Administration (SBA) loan guarantees to nonwhites stood at $258 million. The White House regularly touted these and other figures to rebut charges that Nixon did not care about African Americans, but black business leaders and civil rights activists questioned the program’s effectiveness. Given the economic deprivation in black communities, they argued, federal spending was still too low. Few new jobs had been created in black neighborhoods, and many businesses that received federal assistance had folded or suffered from high debt. A New York Times investigation revealed that black participants were often just

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 367

denouement [ 367 ]

“fronts,” and money intended for African American entrepreneurs ended up in the hands of whites. Black Enterprise surveys in 1973 and 1977 similarly showed that the vast majority of the most successful black-owned businesses had received little or no aid from the initiative.15 There were internal problems as well. Many of the original staff members at the Office of Minority Business Enterprise were veterans of the civil rights movement, but they lacked the necessary skills or experience to help businesspeople. The OMBE had few if any ways to gauge the effectiveness of its programs. “There was a general desire to throw the money out,” director Alex Armedaris acknowledged. Unstable leadership (the OMBE had five directors in its first nine years) and infighting among black, Latino, and Native American staff inhibited efforts. By the fall of 1973, several African Americans had charged that the administration was abandoning black projects in favor of Latinos because it had written off the black vote. Two years later the House Appropriations Committee concluded that the OMBE had been largely ineffective and recommended it be disbanded. The SBA, meanwhile, was a decentralized agency, which meant that staff across the nation often became allied with local members of Congress and followed their wishes when awarding federal money. Little aid flowed to black communities.16

Watergate The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Sam Ervin, held hearings in May 1973 to determine whether the White House had illegally used federal power and money to aid the president’s reelection campaign. Five men with ties to CREEP had been arrested in June 1972 for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. A black security guard, Frank Wills, called the police when he discovered taped door locks, starting the investigation that would eventually take Nixon down.17 Individual testimony and subpoenaed White House documents revealed a complicated web. Administration aides and officials at various agencies doled out federal money to black businessmen and black activists; in return, they sought campaign contributions, help in touting the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 368

[ 368 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

president among African Americans, or, at a minimum, silence. John Mitchell, who ran the president’s reelection drive, observed in the summer of 1972, “I believe that by . . . making better use of grants and loans, we can . . . make some inroads on Black voters in November.” Charles Wallace, an African American businessman who had received a federal oil import permit, sent 2,000 form letters to minority business owners who had received SBA contracts and stressed the need to support Nixon, who understood the importance of economic development in the ghetto. “It is essential that we do not concern ourselves with busing or other minute problems,” Wallace wrote. Other White House efforts influenced personnel decisions. Harry Dent boasted that he had delayed the promotion of one individual at the OEO “until he demonstrates proof-positive that he is rechanneling money from Democrats to [Richard Nixon] blacks.” A few federal officials, such as OMBE head John Jenkins, refused to cooperate or offered only cursory compliance with demands from the White House or CREEP.18 The administration rebutted charges of misconduct by stressing that politicians in both parties had always sought to help their supporters. And in this case, the White House was trying to aid historically marginalized groups. Dent defended himself and the president by noting that some African Americans had complained that the OEO was heavily politicized in favor of Democrats or radical blacks, and he wanted to extend the grant process to a broader swath of the black community. African Americans who had received aid or other favors, including James Farmer and Jesse Jackson, vigorously denied any quid pro quo. The Ervin Committee, however, concluded a year later that the White House had engaged in “flagrant abuses of proper governmental procedures” that may have violated federal statutes and undermined the bedrock principle of “equal treatment under the laws.” The committee believed the administration had used taxpayer money to buy votes.19 The Watergate hearings also revealed the existence of a White House “enemies list.” The original list, compiled in 1971, consisted of twenty names, including those of two black Democratic congressmen: John Conyers of Michigan and Ronald Dellums of California. The list was expanded a year later to more than 200 politicians, reporters, business and labor leaders, Hollywood celebrities, academics, and assorted organiza-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 369

denouement [ 369 ]

tions. Twenty-three African Americans were named, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Huey Newton and the Black Panthers, Carl Rowan, Dick Gregory, Bayard Rustin, and Ralph Abernathy and the SCLC. Congressman Louis Stokes called being on the list “a badge of honor.” Comedian Bill Cosby quipped that Nixon had been on his enemies list long before he was on the president’s.20

School Integration Even though school integration was proceeding peacefully in many communities across the South, racial tensions persisted and sometimes led to violence. High schools in Pensacola, Florida, were closed for much of January 1973 due to racial conflict; an estimated 14,000 black students boycotted the city’s schools over the use of Confederate symbols and the singing of “Dixie” at some events. A month later there was disagreement over whether the African American students should be allowed to make up exams they had missed during the protest. In Boca Raton, Florida, black students found “White Power” spray-painted on some buildings. Thirty police officers used tear gas to halt an interracial fight that involved knives and rock throwing.21 Battles also occurred in the courts. The Supreme Court ruled against the White House that June in Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1. Civil rights groups welcomed the decision, which indicated the Court’s inclination to look at conditions outside the South, but they were disappointed by the Court’s ruling that the mere existence of de facto segregation did not warrant busing. The Court also set a burden of proof that was difficult for civil rights activists to meet—they would have to show that state or local officials had acted with intent. The administration achieved a clear-cut victory in another case when the Court prevented the merger of city and suburban schools in Richmond.22 Gallup, meanwhile, reported that whites favored integration but rejected busing as a means to achieve it. Sixty-three percent of northern whites opposed sending their children to schools that were more than half black—up from 51 percent in 1970. In the South 69 percent of whites objected—unchanged from three years earlier. Integration had occurred more extensively in the South than in the North, but many

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 370

[ 370 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

white southerners were eager to opt out of public education if they could. White enrollment in Memphis public schools dropped by 20,000 in response to the city’s busing plan.23 The complexities of race, class, and education were evident in Chicago. The board of education noted that although whites continued to move to the suburbs, the rate of increase in African American flight out of the city was greater. Affluent blacks wanted to escape urban schools just as their white counterparts had.24 Lawmakers from both parties again scrambled to show their antibusing bona fides. Conservatives were regularly defeated, usually in the Senate. In November the Senate tabled an amendment by Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to ban school busing. Three weeks later the House approved an amendment by John Dingell (D-Mich.) to combat the Arab oil embargo by banning the use of gasoline for busing, but a Senate conference committee removed it.25 A bigger battle erupted in the spring of 1974, when Congress debated extending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Billions in federal aid for districts across the nation were at stake. The House overwhelmingly passed a bill in March with several antibusing provisions. An amendment from Marvin Esch (R-Mich.) permitted busing only after other attempts at desegregation had failed, allowed students to be bused only to the school closest or next closest to their homes (thereby maintaining a line between suburban and urban schools), and enabled districts to reopen existing busing cases. Esch and his allies were obviously responding to the situation in Detroit, where the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld Roth’s decision about a metropolitan solution to segregated schools. John Ashbrook’s (R-Ohio) amendment forbade the use of federal money for busing. Citing integration progress in the South as proof that “excessive forced busing is neither necessary nor desirable,” Nixon supported the measure.26 The Senate’s bipartisan liberal coalition that had resisted conservatives’ antibusing efforts in 1972 prevailed again, albeit narrowly. Brooke worried that the House approach would take the nation “back to the age of Jim Crow” and “invite chaos.” The Senate approved some antibusing amendments, including one that would make cross-district busing unlikely, but it rejected Ervin’s proposal to prohibit the courts (except for

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 371

denouement [ 371 ]

the Supreme Court in cases of original jurisdiction) from ordering busing. It also defeated the North Carolinian’s effort to revive freedom of choice, as well as William Scott’s (R-Va.) attempt to give state (rather than federal) courts jurisdiction on public school matters. A sufficient number of Republicans, primarily from the Northeast, allied with liberal Democrats to defeat the conservatives.27 As House and Senate conferees negotiated over the education bill, the Supreme Court, which now included four Nixon appointees, issued a crucial decision. It voted 5–4 in Milliken v. Bradley to overturn busing for the Detroit metropolitan area. The Court acknowledged that segregation existed in Detroit’s schools but concluded that the suburbs bore no responsibility for it and thus should not be included in any solution. The first Supreme Court decision since Brown that restricted rather than expanded desegregation remedies, Milliken signaled a turn toward greater judicial restraint. It ensured that mostly white suburban schools and nearly all-black city schools would remain separate not just in Detroit but across the nation. Most white suburbanites in the Detroit area were relieved that their children would not be bused to, in the words of one parent, “bad and dangerous” city schools. African American opinion in Detroit was more divided. Although some blacks considered the decision a grave setback, others saw it as an opportunity to focus on strengthening schools in the black community. By 1974, African American support for integrated schools had started to wane. Years of partial victories or outright defeats had taken their toll.28 Several days later, Congress passed the school aid bill. The busing language reflected the Senate’s moderating influence, and most important, the reopener provision had been greatly weakened. Congressman Marion Snyder (R-Ky.) rallied 145 House members to call on Nixon to veto the legislation, but the Milliken ruling had defused some of the antibusing fervor. Conservatives nonetheless expressed disappointment at the compromises. Senator Edward Gurney of Florida called the bill “a paper umbrella against a hurricane,” while a Republican congresswoman from a Maryland district embroiled in a busing dispute dismissed it as “nearly worthless.” Once again, the bipartisan liberal coalition had defeated conservatives, and few lawmakers in either party showed any inclination to push for changes that promoted integration outside Dixie.29

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 372

[ 372 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

Meanwhile, grassroots activism remained muted. The second National Black Political Convention, held in Little Rock that April, was a nonstarter. Few black elected officials participated, and attendance was less than half that predicted by one of the cochairs. SCLC head Ralph Abernathy vowed a month later that his group would soon “confront the nation . . . on the whole economic issue,” but there was little direct action in the months ahead.30

A New President Under the threat of imminent impeachment over Watergate, Nixon stepped down in August 1974. When Vice President Gerald Ford (appointed after Spiro Agnew’s resignation) assumed the presidency, African American leaders took little comfort. Though Ford had voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, civil rights leaders disagreed with his positions on housing, education, and poverty. “You can put all the black and brown folks Gerry Ford knows in the trunk of a Pinto and still have room for the GOP elephant,” one detractor said.31 The new president, befuddled by the criticism, reached out to black leaders through a series of meetings and speeches. “My civil rights record is anything but negative,” he insisted, “and it is a long way from standing in the doorway of a schoolhouse in defiance of a federal court order in an attempt to deny black children a quality education.” To Ford, being antiblack meant being George Wallace.32 Ford clashed with civil rights leaders over several policy matters. He rejected calls from black mayors for a public works employment program to help the poor. He called Milliken a “victory for reason,” and although he signed the school aid bill, he criticized the antibusing provisions as too weak. When whites in Boston engaged in violence against black students in the fall of 1974, African American leaders called on Ford to federalize the National Guard. He refused. Ford urged whites there to “respect the law” but added that busing was “not the best solution to quality education in Boston.” Over the next two years, Ford resisted civil rights activists’ demands for federal action to promote school or neighborhood integration. “I would not use [open housing] to de-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 373

denouement [ 373 ]

scribe any of my policies, period,” he bluntly stated. In 1975, however, the president signed a seven-year extension of the Voting Rights Act.33

Conclusion Nixon, Ford, and congressional Republicans charted several policy directions in the early 1970s that would shape the GOP for decades to come. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act remained secure, as did the 1972 reforms that brought more workers under EEOC protection and expanded that agency’s authority. Nixon’s affirmative action initiatives would influence employment policies in both government and the private sector. Republicans’ notions of southern exceptionalism did not disappear, but for the GOP, the more important racial divide was now between mostly black inner cities and largely white suburbs. That division was evident nationwide, not just in the South. Nixon and other Republicans offered rhetorical affirmation of integration but assured suburbanites that the GOP would resist civil rights leaders’ demands that Washington break down those barriers. Republicans also refused to tax suburbanites to pay for substantial new antipoverty initiatives for the black poor. These were winning political messages. Whereas Johnson and the Democrats had carried the suburbs in 1964, Republicans would hold a commanding advantage there for the next forty years. That political dynamic was not reducible to race, but to argue that race had nothing to do with it would be naïve. Nixon’s fall prompted African Americans to place him in a broader context. The vast majority of blacks saw the early 1970s as a time of great disappointment. Preserving existing policies was essential, they agreed, but racism remained a serious problem that required more vigorous federal action than the GOP was willing to take. A headline in Jet read, “Blacks Lost Gains Won under the LBJ Administration.” Blacks felt marginalized by the president and his administration. Nixon, the magazine alleged, was more interested in the company of black sports heroes and celebrities than that of “the sound and progressive leaders of our people.”34 African Americans also opposed much of Nixon’s domestic agenda. He did little, Jet contended, to address persistently high black unem-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 374

[ 374 ] ch ap t e r f o ur t e e n

ployment. Several prominent black leaders initially opposed the Philadelphia Plan; they prioritized reforming the EEOC and other efforts to boost black employment. The Philadelphia Plan and the ideas underlying it did not receive nearly as much attention from the president as they would in future years. Nixon focused much more heavily on schools, but here, Jet charged, he “almost succeeded in setting back the court system and the Justice Department to pre-1954 days of segregation.” As the Watergate scandal mushroomed during the summer of 1974, the magazine interviewed Mary Moody, a 119-year-old woman. Born a slave, she had lived under twenty-three presidents. “I don’t think nothing of [Nixon],” she observed. “He ain’t like the good ones, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.”35

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 375

Epilogue

Between 1945 and 1974, Republicans made policy and political decisions that had far-reaching consequences for African Americans. In an era marked by contentious, even violent, disputes over schools, employment, voting rights, and housing, Republicans sometimes backed reforms that undermined white supremacy, particularly in the South. The United States was a more egalitarian society when Richard Nixon left office than at the end of World War II. The GOP had helped make that possible. Yet the party’s relationship with African Americans during the midtwentieth century was also marked by considerable acrimony. Republicans often ignored racial injustice. When they did engage directly, they frequently dismissed blacks’ complaints as unfounded or exaggerated, rejected civil rights leaders’ requests for policy changes, or modified policy in ways that limited or prevented federal regulation of the workplace and the racial status quo outside the South. Republicans and African Americans approached racial questions with sharply contrasting histories, beliefs, and interests. Whereas blacks saw federal authority as a necessary counterweight to persistent and intense discrimination, Republicans contended that an expanded federal role would be ineffective, would exacerbate racial tensions and thereby increase the likelihood of violence, or would undermine the rights of others, particularly business, parents, and home owners. The GOP regarded the United States as a fluid, open society that rewarded hard work. Success came largely through personal initiative, not government programs and policies. [ 375 ]

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 376

[ 376 ] e p i l o gue

Believing that federal spending on social welfare programs had permanently tethered blacks to the Democratic Party, Republicans devoted scant attention and resources to wooing African Americans. Republicans calculated, usually correctly, that they did not need black support to win the White House and many congressional races. Republicans sought primarily white votes across the nation, not just in the South. That courting sometimes included appeals to whites’ racial resentments as well as assurances that the GOP would resist pressure for more extensive reforms. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, the GOP was an overwhelmingly white party. These trends have continued to characterize the relationship between the GOP and African Americans since the mid-1970s, even though, in many ways, the post-Nixon era is different. New issues, most notably affirmative action, have come to the fore, and several old controversies have receded or disappeared. Nevertheless, much of the divide between blacks and the GOP is familiar territory. Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others, would readily understand the sharp differences that remain. The GOP’s nomination of Ronald Reagan in 1980 sparked grave concern among blacks. Reagan was not a bigot, and he had reversed his position after initially opposing the major civil rights laws of the 1960s. Still, African Americans sharply disagreed with Reagan on numerous issues during his tenure as governor of California. They also believed he pandered to white racial animosity for political gain. For example, while seeking the GOP nomination in 1976, he regularly denounced a Chicago “welfare queen” for defrauding taxpayers. Although race was not an explicit element of that anecdote (which he greatly exaggerated), and although Reagan likely did not intend to stir racial animosity, as far as blacks were concerned, intent did not matter. Given the sizable percentage of whites who associated African Americans with laziness and public assistance programs, the story had racial meaning.1 Reagan’s poor standing with blacks also stemmed from more recent pronouncements. Describing Washington as “overgrown and overweight,” he blamed the federal government for the nation’s enormous economic problems. Reagan called for a freeze in federal hiring, an end to wasteful spending, and the termination of unnecessary programs. In

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 377

epilogue [ 377 ]

early August he informed a nearly all-white audience at a fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, that he favored “states’ rights” and wanted to shift some federal programs to the state level. During another speech, he lamented that the Voting Rights Act had caused “humiliation” for the South.2 Reagan tried to counter the widespread perception among both African Americans and whites that he was antiblack. Two days after the Mississippi fair, he addressed the annual convention of the National Urban League. Reagan insisted that his conservative philosophy had much to offer African Americans. Democrats, he maintained, had promised blacks “economic heaven” but given them misery—14.2 percent unemployment, high inflation, and high interest rates. Democrats took African Americans’ votes for granted and had a mistaken faith in federal power, he added. The Republican Party’s message to blacks was essentially the same message it offered to the rest of the nation—conditions would improve when the tax and regulatory burdens on business owners and investors were reduced.3 Reagan rolled to victory in November, despite receiving just 12 percent of the black vote. African American turnout, which had been declining since 1964, increased slightly but remained low. White southerners and blue-collar workers in the North, two core elements of the New Deal coalition, showed considerable movement toward Reagan. Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1953.4 African Americans felt alarmed and isolated. During the campaign, former SCLC official Andrew Young had commented that a Reagan victory would signal it was “okay to kill niggers.” Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, observed that blacks were “buying pistols and ammunition and rifles and . . . preparing for overt violence.” Such acts were undoubtedly atypical, but the sense of gloom among blacks was palpable. An African American official in Detroit said blacks in that city were “in mourning.” During the summer, Detroit mayor Coleman Young had declared that, for blacks, the Democratic Party was “the only game in town.” There were, he said, “a whole lot of bastards in the Democratic Party,” but “a whole lot more in the GOP.” Mayor Young also boasted that hundreds of millions of federal dollars (“Jimmy Carter’s money”) were helping his economically depressed city. The Republican

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 378

[ 378 ] e p i l o gue

triumph appeared to signal a new era of reduced federal attention and resources for African Americans.5 The chasm that existed between blacks and the GOP in 1980 continued well into the twenty-first century. Between 1980 and 2008, usually less than 10 percent of African Americans identified themselves as Republicans. The black vote for GOP presidential candidates during that same period never exceeded 12 percent. Few Republican congressional candidates received more than 20 percent of the black vote. Only once did African Americans account for more than 5 percent of the delegates at a Republican national convention. In 2012, 2 of the 165 members of the Republican National Committee were African American (1.2 percent). The GOP fielded few black candidates for national office; between 1980 and 2012, four black Republicans served in Congress. Blacks’ partisan identity was so strong, future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in 1987, that conservative African Americans such as himself felt “ignored at best . . . [or] treated with disdain, regularly castigated, and mocked” by other blacks.6 Having forged their political identities during the 1950s and 1960s, many black voters retained fond memories of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and other Democrats. To them, the GOP meant Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. In addition, since the 1970s, the Democratic Party had deliberately placed African Americans in positions that transcended their traditionally peripheral roles in minority outreach. Blacks felt included, and they used their expanded influence to bring money and attention to their local communities. African Americans and the GOP also clashed over policy matters. Since 1980, Republicans have denounced government spending while emphasizing free markets, lower taxes (especially for the wealthy), and individual initiative as the engines of progress. In practice, most Republicans have exhibited little or no objection to spending on the military and senior citizens; however, the GOP has routinely blasted federal efforts to help the poor, particularly the black poor, as ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst, and an unjust transfer of wealth from the deserving to the unworthy. Calling on African Americans to “hitch up a fresh horse,” Reagan told the NAACP in 1981 that “hard economic facts” demonstrated that robust economic growth, not government, had im-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 379

epilogue [ 379 ]

proved blacks’ lives. Vice President Dan Quayle responded to the 1992 Los Angeles race riots—the largest in the nation’s history—by accusing ghetto residents of having dysfunctional family structures and a “welfare ethos.” According to Quayle, they could escape poverty by dedicating themselves to “family, hard work, integrity, and personal responsibility.” Congressional Republicans echoed these views when they argued on behalf of the 1996 welfare reform law. In 2005 President George W. Bush contended that his plan to allow citizens to divert part of their Social Security taxes into private investment accounts would benefit blacks financially. Republicans, moreover, regularly charged that Democrats deliberately used federal largesse to serve their political interests and keep blacks dependent.7 African Americans, who were generally less wealthy and had lower incomes than whites, saw Republicans as a threat to their economic wellbeing. A high percentage of blacks worked in the public sector, particularly in departments and agencies that Republicans wanted to cut or eliminate. Many of those jobs had lifted African Americans into the middle class. Blacks also favored aid to the poor as a necessary supplement to a private-sector job market characterized by low wages, few or no benefits, and high unemployment. African Americans relied more heavily than whites on Social Security for financial support in their old age, and they benefited disproportionately from its disability provisions and its aid to children whose parents had died. They worried that Bush’s plan to shift some Social Security funds into stocks and bonds carried too much risk of loss.8 Debates over taxes and spending reflected substantially different conceptualizations of society. A 2005 poll found that nearly 75 percent of African Americans viewed their individual well-being as closely tied to that of blacks as a group. That number had remained essentially unchanged for two decades, the pollsters noted. Other evidence indicates that these communitarian values had even deeper roots. They contrasted sharply with an ethos—long present within the GOP, but especially pronounced during the post-1980 period—that celebrated individualism and considered economic inequality to be the just rewards of the marketplace.9 African Americans and the GOP also battled over affirmative action.

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 380

[ 380 ] e p i l o gue

Encompassing a range of efforts (including outreach, training initiatives, and “goals and timetables”), affirmative action had come to the fore in the 1970s primarily through the courts and federal agencies. Affirmative action meant counting by race and thinking in terms of groups, not individuals. It focused on the results of policies, not their intent, and required a vigorous enforcement role for government. Believing that America was still a land of widespread discrimination, despite the changes since the 1960s, blacks overwhelmingly supported affirmative action as a way to boost their presence in the workforce, in the government, and at universities.10 Most Democrats defended the policy, whereas most Republicans condemned it. GOP critics regarded affirmative action as an unconstitutional and immoral betrayal of the color-blind rhetoric and policies espoused by civil rights leaders during the 1950s and 1960s. They advocated a society of “equal opportunity” in which talent determined one’s fate. Republican critics labeled affirmative action “quotas,” “special treatment,” or “reverse discrimination.” This was good politics; although whites favored some forms of affirmative action, they were strongly opposed to making race a factor in the awarding of jobs, admission to universities, and other matters.11 Particularly notable were two 1990 spots from Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. One featured a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter while a narrator explained that, because of a racial quota, a less qualified minority applicant had been hired. The other alleged that Helms’s black opponent had used his race to gain governmental favors that made him wealthy.12 Republicans sometimes limited affirmative action. Reagan cut the budgets of federal agencies that enforced the policy, and they shifted their efforts away from class-action lawsuits and toward individual cases, which affirmative action supporters decried as a return to the failed approaches of the 1950s and 1960s. African Americans were also alarmed when, over the course of several Republican administrations, the Justice Department filed legal briefs opposing affirmative action. Republican presidents nominated Supreme Court justices and appointed federal judges who denounced the policy. By the early 1990s, the federal courts had begun to narrow affirmative action’s reach.13

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 381

epilogue [ 381 ]

Nevertheless, the policy endured. Civil rights activists, bureaucrats in various federal agencies, large corporations, and Democrats put up an effective resistance. Some Republicans also helped ensure that affirmative action survived. As in many of the civil rights battles of the mid-twentieth century, a sufficient number of Republicans allied with liberal Democrats to thwart conservatives’ wishes. These Republicans believed that affirmative action worked, and they did not want the GOP to appear antiblack. Reagan and other Republican presidents were usually reluctant to press the fight when faced with strong opposition.14 Republicans also embraced affirmative action by supporting the minority set-aside program. Begun in 1977, the initiative aimed to ensure that a certain proportion of federal contracts was awarded to minorityowned businesses. Reagan boasted about such awards, and in 1998 the GOP-controlled Congress approved a set-aside requirement of 10 percent of the entire federal procurement budget. The George W. Bush administration continued these set-asides. This program represented Washington maneuvering, however. What caught African Americans’ attention was Republicans’ rhetorical attacks on affirmative action.15 Republicans took other high-profile steps that troubled African Americans. Faced with vigorous criticism from liberal members of the Civil Rights Commission, Reagan tried to replace them with conservatives. In 1982 his administration announced that it was reversing the 1970 IRS ruling denying tax-exempt status to private schools that discriminated. A year later he opposed the drive to establish a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Reagan also vetoed legislation to ban trade with the racist government of South Africa and an attempt to overturn a 1984 Supreme Court decision permitting federal aid to institutions that discriminated in some of their programs. George H. W. Bush similarly vetoed a measure intended to reverse several recent Supreme Court rulings that had restricted the impact of affirmative action. Either Congress (often with sizable GOP support) overrode the vetoes or the president backed down in the face of strong resistance from civil rights leaders and legislators from both parties. Once again, racial reforms proved durable.16 Similar patterns were evident during George W. Bush’s presidency. The South, which had seceded and gone to war rather than accept a Re-

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 382

[ 382 ] e p i l o gue

publican president, now dominated party affairs. During the crucial 2000 South Carolina primary, Bush positioned himself as a stronger defender of the Confederate flag than his chief rival. Later, Bush nominated two cabinet members who had publicly praised the Confederacy and Confederate leaders during the 1990s. In 2002 Republican Senate leader Trent Lott of Mississippi expressed pride in southern support for Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat campaign and observed, “If the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.” Given that Thurmond’s candidacy had been based on a defense of white supremacy, Lott’s remarks struck blacks and others as a yearning for the racist past. Bush and other Republicans condemned Lott, who apologized and resigned his post.17 These controversies played out in familiar ways. When faced with blacks’ criticism, Republicans insisted they had no racial animosity but were merely upholding abstract ideas, such as regional heritage and the principle of limited government, or identifying with the courage of Confederate leaders. To African Americans, however, whites had long invoked such concepts to justify an oppressive social and economic order. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 also revealed and exacerbated a vast racial divide. Black neighborhoods in New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf coast were devastated by the storm, the most destructive natural disaster in the nation’s history. Federal aid materialized slowly, in sharp contrast to the administration’s rapid mobilization of assistance in 2004 for hurricane victims in the politically important state of Florida.18 Whereas whites were inclined to attribute the administration’s failures to incompetence, blacks saw racial animus. Popular musician Kanye West spoke for many African Americans when, during a nationally televised fund-raiser for storm victims, he declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!” Bush later said he was “deeply insulted” by West’s remarks and insisted that although he did not mind objections to his handling of the crisis, accusations of racism were out of bounds. “I resent it,” he told one reporter. “It’s not true.”19 Eisenhower, Dirksen, Goldwater, and others had acted similarly when faced with black criticism. So, too, had Reagan, who claimed he harbored no racial malice and remained convinced of his good record with regard

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 383

epilogue [ 383 ]

to blacks. For example, black unemployment fell from 20 percent in 1983 to 11 percent five years later. Inflation receded. Reagan also expanded the earned income tax credit, which reduced federal taxes on the working poor and removed many of them from the tax rolls altogether. He was hurt and mystified by African Americans’ rejection: a 1983 poll found that 56 percent of blacks blamed him for the recession; another survey three years later noted that the same percentage considered him a racist. Reagan frequently phoned black journalists who had written negative stories about his racial policies. “One of the great things that I have suffered is this feeling,” he said after leaving office, “that somehow I’m on the other side of the civil rights movement.”20 Questions of racial intent also played a role in politics. This was especially evident during the 1988 presidential campaign. An independent group produced an advertisement portraying George H. W. Bush’s opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, as too sympathetic to criminals. The spot featured William Horton, an African American prison inmate who had fled captivity while on furlough, broken into a white couple’s home, beaten and then stabbed the man twenty-two times, and raped the woman twice. Another ad crafted by the Bush campaign showed nineteen criminals, two of them black, walking to freedom through a revolving prison door. Both ads helped convince voters, particularly women, that Bush would keep the public safe.21 Critics charged Bush and the GOP with stoking long-standing white fears that black men were violent criminals. Democrats’ allegations of racism, Bush responded, were “ridiculous” attempts to deflect voters’ attention from the real issue: crime. Nixon had made essentially the same argument in 1968. Noting that the Dukakis campaign subsequently ran ads featuring a Latino drug dealer who had raped a mother of two after escaping from a federal treatment program, Bush asked reporters why no one thought that was racially offensive. Republicans felt that their critics and the media eagerly cast the GOP in the most racially negative light possible.22 The Bush team, however, was well aware that race remained central to American politics. The racial gap in party identification widened during the 1980s, largely because of white movement to the GOP. Race was one of several factors causing the shift, as whites tended to see the Democrats

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 384

[ 384 ] e p i l o gue

as too eager to spend money on poor blacks and too willing to make excuses for black criminals. Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, was not involved in the Horton ad, but he had tried to exploit whites’ racial resentments while working in South Carolina politics during the 1970s and 1980s. Atwater told an interviewer that although naked bigotry hurt a candidate, Republicans could woo whites through “coded” promises to get tough on crime, reduce taxes, and limit the power of the federal government. Whites, he explained, viewed these and other issues at least partly through a racial lens.23 Blacks and the GOP also quarreled over voting rules and procedures. Civil rights groups argued that although conditions had improved since the 1960s, significant problems remained. In 1982 reformers hoped to modify the Voting Rights Act to ensure that more nonwhites were elected to office. Conservative Republicans and the Reagan administration objected to what they considered affirmative action. But liberal and moderate Republicans allied with Democrats in Congress and prevailed. Nearly all congressional Republicans voted in 2006 to extend provisions of the Voting Rights Act for an additional twenty-five years, but as in the 1960s, the final tally masked the extent to which conservatives, who wanted to end preclearance and modify other parts of the law, quarreled with civil rights leaders.24 Civil rights groups also worked to make voter registration easier. Reviving long-standing GOP concerns about fraud, George H. W. Bush had vetoed such a measure in 1992, but Democrat Bill Clinton renewed the push soon after taking office. Congressional Republicans stripped provisions from the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that would have permitted voters to register at unemployment offices, but their attempts to prohibit registration at other federal offices serving the poor failed. Republicans knew that few of the indigent supported the GOP.25 The 2000 presidential election brought electoral procedures into the national spotlight. George W. Bush lost the popular vote but captured the White House through a controversial victory in the Electoral College. Florida lay at the center of the dispute. Although official tallies showed that Bush had won the state by a few hundred votes, African Americans charged that the Republican Party had stolen the election through numerous efforts, including purging blacks from voting rolls

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 385

epilogue [ 385 ]

and intimidating voters on Election Day. The design of some ballots and the failure of voting machines in many black neighborhoods also fueled the controversy. “Whether in the East, South or far west,” the NAACP asserted, “voter suppression is a favorite tactic of Republican strategists.” The entire Congressional Black Caucus, all Democrats, walked out in protest when Congress certified Bush’s victory.26 Allegations of GOP suppression were not new. Notable Republican attempts to restrict or intimidate black voters had occurred during the 1981 New Jersey governor’s race, the 1986 Senate election in Louisiana, and the 1990 Senate contest in North Carolina. Republicans justified their undertakings as necessary to combat fraud, as they had done with Operation Eagle Eye in the 1960s. Undoubtedly, some in the GOP were sincerely concerned about fraud, but others saw these efforts in racial terms. One prominent party official in Louisiana approvingly noted that antifraud steps “could keep the black vote down considerably.” The New Jersey and Louisiana cases led to two consent decrees, with the RNC pledging to refrain from challenging black voters and to seek judicial approval for any future ballot security initiatives; state parties were exempt from these requirements. Republican intimidation and harassment of blacks were reported in several other states from the 1980s through the early 2000s.27 The suppression issue did not go away in 2004, when George W. Bush faced a tough reelection fight. One GOP lawmaker in Michigan told a reporter, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.” Small gains among blacks helped Bush narrowly carry Ohio and thus eke out a triumph in the Electoral College. Blacks and others charged that the GOP had deliberately used assorted means to undermine African American voting in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere. Republicans again defended their actions as necessary to preserve the integrity of the electoral process.28 Civil rights groups got little help from Republicans in Washington. Under Bush, the Justice Department transferred personnel and funds away from investigating complaints of voting discrimination and toward the investigation of fraud. In 2005 the Republican Policy Committee in the Senate released a report claiming that fraud was rampant. In fact, the incidence of fraud was minuscule.29

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 386

[ 386 ] e p i l o gue

The gulf between blacks and the GOP grew even more pronounced when Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) became the first African American president. Obama tried to downplay race and enfold blacks’ concerns within a universalist framework. That approach reflected his personality and ideology, but it also stemmed from a political calculation that whites resented overt attempts to aid blacks. “Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan coalition,” Obama observed. Indeed, surveys showed that whites opposed efforts targeted at blacks and were much more likely than blacks to believe that racial equality had been achieved.30 Obama’s historic victory in 2008 resulted from a coalition of whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Black voter participation reached record levels. Obama’s opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona, received just 4 percent of the black vote, an all-time low for a Republican. If the 2008 electorate had been demographically identical to the 1992 electorate, Obama would have lost. The Republican base of white, married Christians was now shrinking as a percentage of the population.31 With the Obama coalition having the potential to make the GOP the minority party, Republicans immediately stepped up efforts to reach out to nonwhites. More symbol than substance, these initiatives mirrored the clumsy, short-lived attempts of the past. In January 2009 Michael Steele became the first African American chair of the RNC. That fall, the RNC debuted a new web page emphasizing the party’s commitment to racial equality. Most of the content focused on the nineteenth century. Steele, who ran up large debts and made numerous enemies during his two-year tenure, told a black audience in 2010 that there was no reason for African Americans to vote Republican. Steele dropped out of the 2011 race for RNC chair and disappeared from party activities. He was not invited to the 2012 Republican convention.32 African Americans were more concerned about the economy than developments at the RNC. Obama’s presidency occurred during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Black unemployment and poverty rose substantially. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, African Americans suffered greater loss of employer-provided health insurance than did whites or Latinos. By 2011, the gap in wealth

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 387

epilogue [ 387 ]

between whites and blacks had reached a record high. Obama rejected civil rights leaders’ calls for specific steps to assist blacks. Instead, he offered an economic stimulus package that consisted of tax cuts and spending increases, including aid to state and local governments to protect public-sector jobs. He also led a successful fight for reforms intended to broaden access to health insurance.33 After expanding debt greatly during the Bush years, Republicans now preached an urgent need for austerity. Obama and the Democrats, they alleged, were driving the nation to fiscal ruin through profligate spending. Republicans demanded tax cuts (primarily for the wealthy), deep budget cuts for social welfare programs, and repeal of much of Obama’s health care initiative. Blacks, who were twice as likely as whites to support Obama’s health program, saw the GOP as a direct threat to their economic well-being.34 Racial polarization was evident in other respects. Sizable percentages of Republican voters believed that Obama had not been born in the United States, was a Muslim, and favored socialism. They were also likely to think that Obama was taking their tax dollars and redistributing them to undeserving blacks and other nonwhites. A majority of Republicans responding to a 2010 poll thought that discrimination against whites was just as significant as that suffered by nonwhites. Congressional Republicans usually preferred to let such talk percolate among grassroots groups and conservative media, although a few openly embraced these sentiments. Republican voters as well as GOP lawmakers vehemently denied that racial malice was involved. A majority of African Americans, however, thought that racial animus was a significant factor among the president’s opponents.35 Numerous states, almost all of them under GOP leadership, adopted assorted electoral reforms in the wake of Obama’s victory. These included requiring voters to show photo identification, reducing early or absentee voting, and making it more difficult for convicted felons to restore their voting rights. Republicans insisted that such efforts were necessary to preserve honest elections. Civil rights groups considered them an ominous return to Jim Crow–era restrictions, many of which had also been ostensibly race neutral and heralded by supporters as necessary to

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 388

[ 388 ] e p i l o gue

combat fraud. The 2012 Republican platform endorsed antifraud initiatives, and as the November election neared, some GOP officials publicly stated that they had no objection to making it harder for blacks to vote.36 Republicans were confident that the economic crisis would make Obama a one-term president. They nominated Willard (“Mitt”) Romney, who, like his father George, had enjoyed a successful business career before entering politics. Romney had few ties to blacks, however. The GOP, meanwhile, had grown more heavily dependent on white voters since 2008. Eager to boost white turnout, Romney accused Obama of undermining work requirements for welfare recipients and taking money from Medicare to fund health care for the poor. Republicans vigorously denied charges of racism and accused critics of injecting race into matters where it was irrelevant. The real issue, they insisted, was the unjust transfer of money to an indolent, dependent underclass.37 Obama nevertheless triumphed by reassembling his 2008 coalition. African American turnout was strong; 93 percent of black voters backed the president. Romney easily defeated Obama among whites, although this was largely driven by overwhelming support in the South. Republicans had now failed to capture a majority of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Democrats, moreover, enlarged their majority in the Senate.38 The nation’s shifting demographics, not the troubled economy, was the most important story of the campaign. “Republicans have run out of persuadable white voters,” two GOP pollsters warned a month later. Relying almost solely on whites—a viable GOP strategy for much of the post-1945 era—was now insufficient. The white share of the electorate, in decline since the 1990s, would almost certainly continue to shrink. Although Republican leaders agreed that their party needed to become more diverse, they made no serious bid to win over black voters. As Obama began his second term, Republicans focused on Latinos, a group that was growing at a much faster rate than the African American population.39 Republicans also showed little inclination to rethink long-standing attitudes about race, politics, and the role of the state. Stung by his defeat, Romney consoled supporters by telling them that Obama had used the

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 389

epilogue [ 389 ]

Democrats’ “old playbook” by offering “gifts” to blacks and others in return for votes. A two-term African American president, elected largely by women, youth, and nonwhites, indicated that much had changed since the New Deal. Yet as far as Republicans were concerned, nothing had changed.40

02-Thurber_main matter 7/5/13 3:04 PM Page 390

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 391

notes abb reviations CQ CR DDE DDEL LBJ LCCR NP, LN NPP NYT PPS

Congressional Quarterly Congressional Record Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans. Lyndon B. Johnson Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Richard Nixon Papers, National Archives, La Guna Nigel, Calif. Richard Nixon Papers Project, National Archives II, College Park, Md. New York Times Pre-Presidential Series, Richard Nixon Papers, Richard Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Calif. WHCF White House Central Files WP Washington Post WSJ Wall Street Journal

introduction 1. NYT, July 11, 2000; “George W. Bush’s Speech to the NAACP,” July 10, 2000, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/onpolitics/elections/bushtext071000.htm (accessed August 8, 2012); “Bush Takes up Civil Rights in Rare Speech to NAACP/ GOP Chided for Doing Too Little to Fight Racism,” http://www.sfgate.com/politics /article/Bush-Takes-Up-Civil-Rights-In-Rare-Speech-to-2713838.php (accessed August 6, 2012); Tasha S. Philpot, Race, Republicans, and the Return of the Party of Lincoln (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007). 2. “Gore Scorns Bush Talk,” http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-07-13/news /0007130115_1_gore-president-george-bush-confederate-flag (accessed August 5, 2012); “Demographics of How Groups Voted in the 2000 Presidential Election,” http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_00.html#.U CKgpUSYRQM (accessed August 5, 2012). 3. Alan Abramowitz, The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010), 71–75; Thomas Edsall, The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 35–45. 4. Thomas Edsall and Mary Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001); Dan Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Revolution, 1963–1994 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995); Kevin Williamson, “The Party of Civil Rights,” http://www .nationalreview.com/articles/300432/party-civil-rights-kevin-d-williamson (accessed July 25, 2012); Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past [ 391 ]

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 392

[ 392 ] not e s to page s 3 – 9

(New York: Macmillan, 2008); Gerard Alexander, “The Myth of the Racist Republicans,” http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.928/article_detail.asp (accessed November 7, 2008); William Voegeli, “Civil Rights and the Conservative Movement,” http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1543/article_detail.asp (accessed May 9, 2010). 5. Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith, Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8–14; Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York: Free Press, 2001), 53–77.

chapter 1. fair employment practices commission, voting rights, and racial violence 1. NYT, February 1, 2, and 4, 1945. 2. CR, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 782; Robert Taft to Nathan Wright, May 5, 1943, series II, box A628, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 3. John Robert Moore, “The Conservative Coalition in the United States Senate, 1942–1945,” Journal of Southern History 33 (August 1967): 368–376; James Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933–1939 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1967); Clyde Weed, The Nemesis of Reform: The Republican Party during the New Deal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 175–185; James Patterson, Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), 189– 202. 4. Wendy Wall, Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 59–62; Weed, The Nemesis of Reform, 62 –68, 165–166. 5. CR, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 782. 6. Matthew Jacobson, Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post–Civil Rights America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 30–33; Richard King, Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940–1970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 3–6; Congressional Digest, June–July 1945; Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008), 83–84; Jennifer Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 1940–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 6–8. 7. Anthony Chen, The Fifth Freedom: Jobs, Politics, and Civil Rights in the United States, 1941–1972 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 8–10; CR, 79th Cong., 1st sess., A1966–1967. 8. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 92–93; Donald Kryder, Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State during World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 90–98, 256. 9. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 37–45. 10. Risa Goluboff, The Lost Promise of Civil Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 35–39, 51–80, 174–175. 11. CR, 79th Cong., 1st sess., 782. 12. Senator Taft Talks for the Afro, May 6, 1944, and The Case against Mr. Taft, n.d., both in series II, box A628, NAACP Papers.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 393

notes to pages 10–14 [ 393 ]

13. Stephen Tuck, We Ain’t What Ought to Be: The Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 213– 216. 14. James Wolfinger, Philadelphia Divided: Race and Politics in the City of Brotherly Love (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 113–141; James Wolfinger, “World War II Hate Strikes,” in The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History, ed. Aaron Brenner, Benjamin Day, and Immanuel Ness (Armonk: N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2009), 126–137. 15. Julian Zelizer, On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, 1948–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14–29. 16. Cincinnati Branch, NAACP, to Robert Taft, February 5, 1945, series II, box A264, NAACP Papers. 17. Roy Wilkins to Robert Taft, February 7, 1945, Cincinnati Branch, NAACP, to Robert Taft, February 5, 1945, Robert Taft to Roy Wilkins, March 6, 1945, Robert Taft to Theodore Berry, February 8, 1945, and statement of William Hastie, n.d., all in series II, box A264, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to Robert Taft, March 29, 1945, box 605, Robert Taft Sr. Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; statement of Roy Wilkins, March 14, 1945, series II, box A255, NAACP Papers. 18. Crisis, March 1945; Julia Baxter to Louis Johnson, July 14, 1950, series II, box A628, NAACP Papers. 19. Will Maslow, “The FEPC: A Case Study in Parliamentary Maneuver,” University of Chicago Law Review 13 (June 1946): 420–433. 20. NYT, February 8, 1946. 21. Collier’s, June 15, 1946; NYT, February 16 and March 1, 1946; Maslow, “The FEPC,” 440; cloture vote on S. 101, February 9, 1946, series II, box A264, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to Herbert Brownell Jr., March 7, 1946, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; Crisis, March 1946. 22. William Leuchtenburg, The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 165. 23. Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 25–79; Robert C. Lieberman, Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001). 24. “Boss of the Waterfront: Wayne Morse and Labor Arbitration,” http://libweb .uoregon.edu/ec/exhibits/morse/intro.html (accessed May 25, 2011); NYT, January 21, 1946; CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 344; Collier’s, June 15, 1946. 25. Anthony S. Chen, “‘The Hitlerian Rule of Quotas’: Racial Conservatism and the Politics of Fair Employment Legislation in New York State, 1941–1945,” Journal of American History 92 (March 2006): 1255–1257; Irving McNeil Ives, http://bio guide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=i000050 (accessed May 26, 2011); CR, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 55; statement by U.S. Senator Irving Ives, February 27, 1948, series 1913A, box 45, Irving Ives Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 26. Jacob Javits, Order of Battle: A Republican’s Call to Reason (New York: Atheneum, 1964), 6–18. 27. New York Post, June 12, 1947; CR, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 2687–2688.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 394

[ 394 ] not e s to page s 1 4 – 2 0

28. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 376–382, 494; press release, NY Council for a Permanent FEPC, June 10, 1947, series II, box A205, NAACP Papers. 29. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 711, 1130–1132; U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Fair Employment Practices Act, 81st Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), 18–20; Joe William Trotter Jr., Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915–1945 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985). 30. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 496, 711–713; Chen, Fifth Freedom, 67–78. 31. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 709–712; Congressional Digest, June–July 1945; Kimberly Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 6–33. 32. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 1037–1038, 1130–1132, 1211; Donald Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 7–10. 33. Congressional Digest, June–July 1945; WP, June 7, 1945. 34. Paul Moreno, From Direct Action to Affirmative Action: Fair Employment Law and Policy in America, 1933–1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 30–65; Chen, “Hitlerian Rule of Quotas,” 1255–1257. 35. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 86, 186, 1037–1038, 1059, 1130, 1193–1195, 1211– 1212, 3960–3963. 36. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 711–713, 1130–1132, 1211–1212; U.S. Congress, Fair Employment Practices Act, 18–20. 37. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 713, 1193–1195; transcript of Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Hearings on Fair Employment Practice Commission, January 16, 1947, box 606, Taft Papers; Clarence Mitchell to Walter White, February 4, 1947, series II, box A258, NAACP Papers. 38. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 186, 496, 711–712, 1037–1038, 1211–1212, 1239; Critchlow, Conservative Ascendancy, 8–9; Keith Finley, Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 92–93; Chen, Fifth Freedom, 150–151; Allen Lichtman, White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008), 59–61. 39. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 376–382, 1050–1055, 1059; Naomi Murakawa, “The Origins of the Carceral Crisis: Racial Order as ‘Law and Order’ in Postwar American Politics,” in Race and American Political Development, ed. Joseph Lowndes, Julie Nokov, and Dorian T. Warren (New York: Routledge, 2008), 234–255. 40. CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 84–86, 174–199, 806; Finley, Delaying the Dream, 85–87. 41. Carl Murphy to Robert Taft, February 17, 1945, box 606, Taft Papers. 42. David J. Garrow, Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 7–9; Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 55–85; Patricia Sullivan, Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Free Press, 2009), 282–283. 43. Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the Struggle for

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 395

notes to pages 20–23 [ 395 ]

Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 105; Glenda Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Origins of Civil Rights, 1919–1950 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1950), 338–339; Robert Norrell, The House I Live In: Race in the American Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 116–119; John T. Eliff, “The United States Department of Justice and Individual Rights, 1937– 1962” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1967), 222; Frederic Odgen, The Poll Tax in the South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1958), 57, 77, 176, 242–252. 44. NAACP press release, April 1, 1946, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; Finley, Delaying the Dream, 100–102. 45. NYT, July 30, 1946; Lawson, Black Ballots, 77; Louis Kesselman, The Social Politics of FEPC: A Case Study in Reform Pressure Movements (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 170–175; Larry Berman, The Politics of Civil Rights in the Truman Administration (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1970), 59; Howard Shuman Oral History, Senate Historical Office Oral History Interviews, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; NYT, October 18, 1946; press releases, October 17 and 31, 1946, both in box 34, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 46. Lewis Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans (New York: Random House, 2004), 310; James Boylan, The New Deal Coalition and the Election of 1946 (New York: Garland, 1981), 48–56, 138; Chen, Fifth Freedom, 131; “The 1946 Elections: A Statistical Analysis,” April 1947, in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1986), reel 1, part 2; Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 19. 47. “The 1946 Elections: A Statistical Analysis”; Boylan, New Deal Coalition, 160. 48. Robert L. Fleegler, “Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938–1947,” Journal of Mississippi History 68 (Spring 2006): 1–27. 49. Water White to Wallace White, November 11, 1946, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; CR, 79th Cong., 2nd sess., 10,258. 50. Time, May 26, 1947; New York Herald Tribune, April 20, 1947; Crisis, August 1947. 51. Crisis, February 1947; NYT, June 12, 1947; A. Philip Randolph to Members of the National Council for a Permanent FEPC, July 29, 1947, series II, box A259, NAACP Papers; transcript of Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Hearings on Fair Employment Practices Committee, January 16, 1947, and memorandum on new FEPC bill, January 20, 1947, both in box 606, Taft Papers; Paul Sifton to Kenneth Keating, April 25, 1947, series I, box 38, Kenneth Keating Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; Louis Ruchames, Race, Jobs, and Politics: The Story of FEPC (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 206. 52. Press releases, February 6 and April 17, 1947, box 34, Wilkins Papers; NYT, June 25 and July 22, 1947; NYT, January 16, 17, and 18, 1946. 53. Robert Reed Church Jr., http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/robert-r-church-jr -1885-1952 (accessed May 31, 2011); statement of the Republican American Committee, August 27, 1947, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 396

[ 396 ] not e s to page s 2 3 – 2 6

54. Leuchtenburg, White House Looks South, 165–183; Alonzo Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 435; Washington Daily News, February 3, 1948; New York Star, February 4, 1948; Berman, Politics of Civil Rights, 89. 55. R. R. Church to Robert Taft, January 15, 1948, and R. R. Church to Irving Ives, February 24, 1948, both in series 1913A, box 3, Ives Papers; press release, December 14, 1947, box 606, Taft Papers; statement by U.S. Senator Irving Ives, February 27, 1948, series 1913A, box 45, Ives Papers; WP, February 6, 1948; NYT, March 7, 1948; New York Post, March 8, 1948; NYT, March 9, 1948; Donald McCoy and Richard Ruetten, Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1973), 115–116; Paula Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 140–141; NYT, February 5 and 28, April 10, and June 30, 1948; Elmer Henderson to Roy Wilkins, January 19, 1948, National Council for a Permanent FEPC to FEPC Friends in Ohio, April 17, 1948, statement of Roy Wilkins, May 11, 1948, and Roy Wilkins to Robert Taft, May 20, 1948, all in series II, box A259, NAACP Papers; Crisis, June 1948. 56. Gould, Grand Old Party, 313–316; Hamby, Man of the People, 435–437. 57. Barry Beyer, Thomas E. Dewey, 1937–1947: A Study in Political Leadership (New York: Garland, 1979), 10, 40–44, 65–67; Hamby, Man of the People, 458. 58. Gould, Grand Old Party, 315–316; Richard Norton Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 349, 445–448, 501; Democratic National Committee Research Division, Files of the Facts, Thomas Dewey, n.d., box 84, Democratic National Committee Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.; Chen, “ Hitlerian Rule of Quotas,” 1254; Crisis, January 1948; Simon Topping, “‘Never Argue with the Gallup Poll’: Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights, and the Election of 1948,” Journal of American Studies 38 (August 2004): 179–185; Negro Statesman, July 1948; press release, March 4, 1948, box 34, Wilkins Papers; New York Herald Tribune, March 2, 1948; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 122. 59. Ed Cray, Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 165–167; Henry Lee Moon, Balance of Power: The Negro Vote (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949), 210–211. 60. NYT, June 25, 1948; Negro Statesman, July 1948, box 30, Additional Papers, Herbert Brownell Jr. Papers, DDEL; statement to Republican Platform Committee by Continuations Committee of 21 National Negro Organizations, June 18, 1948, series II, box A224, NAACP Papers; Republican Convention Hears Spokesmen for Six Million Negroes, June 17, 1948, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; press release, June 24, 1948, box 34, Wilkins Papers; Atlanta Constitution, June 23, 1948; NYT, June 22 and 28, 1948; Donald Bruce Johnson, ed., National Party Platforms, vol. 1, 1840–1956 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 452–453; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 120. 61. New York Post, June 23, 1948; press release, June 24, 1948. 62. Comments Made on the 1944 and 1948 Presidential Campaigns of Governor Thomas E. Dewey, n.d., box 8, Additional Papers, Brownell Papers; Smith, Dewey and His Times, 505; Walter White to Kenneth Keating, July 30, 1948, series I, box 38,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 397

notes to pages 26–28 [ 397 ]

Keating Papers; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 133; John Frederick Martin, Civil Rights and the Crisis of Liberalism: The Democratic Party, 1945–1976 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), 72; NYT, August 4, 1948; C. Wayland Brooks to Walter White, August 12, 1948, series II, box A184, NAACP Papers; CR, 80th Cong., 2nd sess., 9627; Louisville Courier Journal, August 4, 1948; press release, August 5, 1948, series II, box A206, NAACP Papers; Dori Dressander, “The Law and Politics of Civil Rights during the Eisenhower Administration,” box 25, Additional Files, Brownell Papers. 63. Donald Lisio, Hoover, Blacks, and Lily-Whites: A Study in Southern Strategies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Leuchtenburg, White House Looks South, 130–139. 64. Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932– 1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). 65. John Temple Graves, “Republicans in the South,” May 24, 1948, “Stassen Says Dewey Will Consult the South,” n.d., “Taft Predicts GOP Victory Possible in Four Southern States,” n.d., all in box 52, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; WP, September 5, 1948; St. Louis Star-Times, August 9, 1948; New York Herald Tribune, September 5, 1948; NYT, September 4, August 8, September 13, and October 14, 1948; Crisis, December 1949 and December 1950; Robert Taft to Richard Scandrett, March 4, 1946, box 879, Taft Papers. 66. Nation, September 27, 1952; The Colored Vote and the Republican Party in 1948, November 14, 1947, box 24, Wilkins Papers; Simon Topping, “‘Supporting Our Friends and Defeating Our Enemies’: Militancy and Nonpartisanship in the NAACP, 1936–1948,” Journal of African American History 89 (Winter 2004): 26; Topping, “Never Argue with the Gallup Poll,” 184–190; Michael Fauntroy, Republicans and the Black Vote (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 5. 67. Smith, Dewey and His Times, 524; Commentary, October 1948; Crisis, October 1948 and December 1949; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 137; Republican News, October 1948, box 123, Brownell Papers; Hayward Farrar, The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892–1950 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998), 78; Nation, September 27, 1952. 68. Smith, Dewey and His Times, 544–546; campaign flyer, n.d., box 124, Brownell Papers; Why Negroes Should Vote for Dewey for President, n.d., series II, box A232, NAACP Papers; Crisis, December 1949; Ebony, November 1948; Crisis, February 1949; Nation, September 27, 1952; New York Herald Tribune, August 2, 1948; statement by Mrs. Robert Vann, September 17, 1948, series II, box 118, Thomas E. Dewey Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; Francis Rivers to Charles Breitel, July 20, 1948, series V, box 280, Dewey Papers; remarks at Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 22, 1948, series II, box 117, Dewey Papers; Robert Garson, The Democratic Party and the Politics of Sectionalism, 1941–1948 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 308–310. 69. Fauntroy, Republicans and the Black Vote, 56; Farm, Not Labor, Vote Elected Truman, November 9, 1948, box 537, Jay Lovestone Papers, Herbert Hoover Institute, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; Cecelia Van Auken, “The Negro Press in the 1948 Presidential Election,” Journalism Quarterly (December 1949): 431; Crisis,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 398

[ 398 ] not e s to page s 2 8 – 2 9

December 1948 and February 1949; Topping, “Never Argue with the Gallup Poll,” 180, 195–196; NAACP Survey of the Negro Vote in the 1948 Presidential Election, n.d., series II, box A452, NAACP Papers; Nation, September 27, 1952; Berman, Politics of Civil Rights, 130; Minutes of Meeting of the Republican National Committee, January 26, 1949, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 8, part 1, Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series A, 1911–1960; Gabriel Hague to Superintendent Bell, March 2, 1949, box 123, Brownell Papers. 70. “The 1948 Elections: A Statistical Analysis,” May 1949, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 1, part 2; Jules Abels, Out of the Jaws of Victory (New York: Henry Holt, 1959), 220; Berman, Politics of Civil Rights, 130; Alexander Heard, A Two Party South? (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), 64–65; CQ’s Guide to U.S. Elections, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: CQ, 1985), 356–357; Garson, Democratic Party and Politics of Sectionalism, 312; Richard Scher, Politics in the New South: Republicanism, Race and Leadership in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 96–97; Shafer and Johnston, End of Southern Exceptionalism, 166. 71. Crisis, December 1949; press release, February 3, 1949, box 34, Wilkins Papers; Roll Call on Barkley Ruling, March 11, 1949, and Walter White to Arthur Vandenberg, March 11, 1949, both in series II, box A205, NAACP Papers; Edward Thye to Walter White, March 22, 1949, Milton Young to Walter White, March 17, 1949, and Edward Martin to Walter White, March 18, 1949, all in series II, box H1, NAACP Papers; CR, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 2597; NYT, January 26, 1949; Roll Call Vote on Amendment to Senate Rule XXII, n.d., series II, box A195, NAACP Papers; press release, February 3, 1949, box 34, Wilkins Papers; NYT, March 16, 1949; Crisis, December 1949; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 173–176. 72. Chicago Defender, January 21, 1950; NYT, January 4, 1950; Roy Wilkins to Clark Clifford, December 20, 1949, box 1513, Official Files, Harry Truman Papers, Truman Library; RNC press release, January 16, 1950, box 309, Taft Papers; New York Herald Tribune, December 28, 1949; statement of Kenneth B. Wherry on Civil Rights Legislation, January 7, 1950, series II, box A205, NAACP Papers. 73. Press release, February 21, 1950, series II, box A255, NAACP Papers; NYT, February 24, 1950; Crisis, April 1950; Chicago Defender, March 4, 1950; Commentary, May 1950; memo, March 8, 1950, box 20, A. Philip Randolph Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Will Maslow and Joseph Robison, “Civil Rights Legislation and the Fight for Equality, 1862–1952,” University of Chicago Law Review 20 (Spring 1953): 397. 74. NYT, May 21, 1950; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 374–375; memo, n.d., and press release, May 19, 1950, both in box 6, Phileo Nash Files, Truman Papers; Politicians May Underestimate Voters’ Concerns with Civil Rights, n.d., and press release, March 9, 1950, both in box 34, Wilkins Papers; Situation Report Re Senate Cloture Vote on FEPC, May 19, 1950, and Charles Murphy and Stephen Spingarn to Harry Truman, July 3, 1950, both in box 143, President’s Secretary’s Files, Truman Papers; Scott Lucas to Hubert Humphrey, June 15, 1950, box 625, Senate Files, Hubert H. Humphrey Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; CR, 81st Cong., 2nd sess., 9983, 10,134; NYT, July 13, 1950; Roll Call on Senate Vote for Clo-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 399

notes to pages 29–32 [ 399 ]

ture, May 19, 1950, and Minutes of Executive Committee, National Council for a Permanent FEPC, July 20, 1950, both in series II, box A259, NAACP Papers; Clarence Mitchell to Walter White, November 28, 1950, series II, box A185, NAACP Papers. 75. William Knowland to Robert Taft, August 14, 1950, and Robert Taft to William Knowland, August 22, 1950, both in box 917, Taft Papers; CR, 82nd Cong., 1st sess., 110, 440–441, 450, 2843, 7015, 11,525; How They Stand on Civil Rights— The Voting Record of Your Senators and Representatives in the 82nd Congress, 1951–1952, series VI, box 156, H. Alexander Smith Papers, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; NYT, January 19, 1951; Hubert H. Humphrey to Cecil Newman, March 13, 1951, box 5, Max Kampelman Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 287; NYT, April 8, 1952; press release, June 24, 1952, box 322, Senate Files, Humphrey Papers; Timothy Thurber, The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle, 1945–1978 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 79; NYT, June 25, 1952; Senate Subcommittee on Labor and Labor-Management Relations, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Discrimination and Full Utilization of Manpower Resources, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess., 1–18. 76. R. R. Church to Republican National Committee, August 2, 1949, box 7, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; “The 1948 Elections: A Statistical Analysis”; Ernest Collins, “Cincinnati Negroes and Presidential Politics,” Journal of Negro History 41 (April 1956): 135; GOP Groundswell to Left Charted to Pick up Ballots, December 9, 1949, box 52, Workman Papers. 77. Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 82–85. 78. Minutes of Meeting of the Republican National Committee, May 2 and August 4, 1949, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 9, part 1, Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series A, 1911–1960; Pittsburgh Courier, January 21, 1950; Statement of Republican Principles and Objectives, February 6, 1950, box 125, Brownell Papers; Roy Wilkins to Irving Ives, February 9, 1950, series II, box A205, NAACP Papers; Crisis, April 1950; Report of the Acting Secretary for the March 1950 Meeting of the Board, n.d., series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 194. 79. CR, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 10,102; Samuel Lubell, The Future of American Politics (New York: Anchor Books, 1956), 101; McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, 282–283; Robert Mason, The Republican Party and American Politics: From Hoover to Reagan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 48–52; Civil Rights Double Talk—The Egg that Truman Laid, 1950 ed., n.d., box 126, Brownell Papers. 80. Minutes of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee, December 8, 1950, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 10, part 1, Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series A, 1911–1960. 81. Ibid.; Minutes of Meeting of the Republican National Committee, January 26, 1951, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 10, part 1. 82. Collier’s, July 28, 1951. 83. Wall, Inventing the “American Way,” 34–39.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 400

[ 400 ] not e s to page s 3 4 – 3 8

chapter 2. dwight d. eisenhower and reform of the federal government 1. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Penguin, 1963), 20–26, 143. 2. Michael Long, First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 85; E. Frederic Morrow, Black Man in the White House: A Diary of the Eisenhower Years by the Administrative Officer for Special Projects, the White House, 1955–1961 (New York: Coward-McCann, 1963), 215– 216. 3. Ebony, December 1962. 4. NYT, June 5 and 6, 1952; Jennifer Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 1940–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 31; Everett Carl Ladd Jr. and Charles D. Hadley, “Party Identification and Party Differentiation,” Public Opinion Quarterly 37 (Spring 1973): 25. 5. William B. Pickett, Eisenhower Decides to Run: Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), xiii–xvii. 6. David Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 6–10; Michael Mayer, “Regardless of Race, Station, or Calling: Eisenhower and Race,” in Dwight D. Eisenhower: Soldier, President, Statesman, ed. Joann Krieg (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 38; Robert Burk, “Dwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights Conservatism,” in ibid., 51; Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Random House, 1975), 665; Robert Shogan, The Riddle of Power: Presidential Leadership from Truman to Bush (New York: Dutton, 1991), 57; Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 141; Dwight Eisenhower, “Speech to the St. Andrew’s Society, New York City, November 30, 1949,” and “Speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Galveston, Texas, December 8, 1949,” http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/speeches/Eisenhower_speeches.html (accessed August 22, 2008); Kasey Pipes, Ike’s Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality (Los Angeles: World Ahead, 2007), 31–32; C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934–1954 (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 649. 7. Jet, March 12, 1953; Ebony, December 1962. 8. Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), 69, 323, 332, 345; Jet, April 17, 1969; Susan Eisenhower, Mrs. Ike: Memories and Reflections on the Life of Mamie Eisenhower (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1996), 286, 315. 9. Mayer, “Regardless of Race,” 34–38; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 6–11; Shogan, Riddle of Power, 54–57; Burk, “Eisenhower and Civil Rights Conservatism,” 51. 10. Pipes, Ike’s Final Battle, 37–54; Ebony, January 1948. 11. Excerpts from testimony of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 2, 1948, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; press release, January 17, 1952, box 35, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 12; E. Frederic Morrow interview with

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 401

notes to pages 38–41 [ 401 ]

Thomas Soapes, DDEL; press releases, April 1 and 8, 1948, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers. 12. Jet, March 6, 1952. 13. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 9–17; Robert Griffith, “Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth,” American Historical Review 87 (February 1982): 87–122; Life, March 31, 1952. 14. Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932– 1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 227; Thomas Dewey to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., November 23, 1951, box 126, Herbert Brownell Jr. Papers, DDEL; Jerome Nashorn, “Choosing the Candidates—1952” (M.A. thesis, Harvard University, 1974), 89–90, 148–150; Hugh Scott to Arthur Vandenburg, April 30, 1952, box 9, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 15. Gallup poll, November 24, 1951, box 126, Brownell Papers; Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 40–41. 16. Nashorn, “Choosing the Candidates—1952,” 89–90, 148–150; New Orleans Times Picayune, November 7, 1951; Jet, November 22 and December 13, 1951; statement re Senator Taft, n.d., Taft Opposes U.S. Required Race Division, n.d., Note to Editor, n.d., and statement re Senator Taft, n.d, all in series II, box A628, NAACP Papers. 17. Herbert Brownell Jr. Oral History number 362, DDEL; Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt, 121; press release, October 28, 1952, and Joseph and Stewart Alsop column, n.d., both in box 8, Scott Papers; Chicago Defender, June 14, 1952; Joseph Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right: The Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008), 28; John Frederick Martin, Civil Rights and the Crisis of Liberalism: The Democratic Party, 1945–1976 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979), 81; J. R. Colfield to Robert Taft, June 26, 1952, box 366, Taft Papers. 18. Minneapolis Spokesman, June 20, 1952; New York Daily News, June 9, 1952; Walter White to Dwight Eisenhower, June 5 and 19, 1952, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Walter White newspaper column, June 12, 1952, box 35, Wilkins Papers; Note to Editor, n.d., and Walter White to Arthur Spingarn, December 17, 1951, all in series II, box A628, NAACP Papers; Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 192. 19. Press release, January 31, 1952, series II, box A477, NAACP Papers; NYT, June 25, 1952; Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 188. 20. The NAACP Looks at the Democratic and Republican Civil Rights Planks and the Candidates, n.d., series II, box A476, NAACP Papers; NYT, July 6 and 9, 1952; excerpts from letter by Irving Ives, July 21, 1952, series 1913A, box 45, Irving Ives Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 21. Jet, July 17, 1952. 22. Jet, July 24, 1952; NYT, July 11, 1952.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 402

[ 402 ] not e s to page s 4 1 – 4 5

23. Press release, July 10, 1952, series II, box A477, NAACP Papers; Donald McCoy and Richard Ruetten, Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1973), 320; Nation, August 16, 1952 Chicago Defender, July 19, 1952; Walter White newspaper column, July 10, 1952, box 35, Wilkins Papers. 24. NAACP West Coast Regional News, August 4, 1952, series II, box A476, NAACP Papers; press release, September 11, 1952, series II, box A477, NAACP Papers; U.S. News & World Report, August 29, 1952. 25. “Democratic Party Platform of 1952,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws /index.php?pid=29600#axzz1PGJbcUCf (accessed June 14, 2011); press release, August 8, 1952, series II, box A476, NAACP Papers. 26. NYT, August 10, 1952; Herbert Brownell Jr., “Eisenhower and Civil Rights,” speech in Abilene, Kans., June 5, 1990, box 17, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change: The White House Years, 1953–1956 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963), 86–88; memorandum to the Board of Directors from Roy Wilkins, September 8, 1952, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; NYT, August 8, 1952; Eisenhower Campaign Statements, box 6, Sherman Adams Papers, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; NYT, August 28 and 30, 1952. 27. NYT, August 5, 1952; press release, August 28, 1952, series II, box A255, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins (New York: Viking, 1982), 212; Jet, September 18, 1952. 28. Bruce Kalk, The Origins of the Southern Strategy: Two-Party Competition in South Carolina, 1950–1972 (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001), 7; Jet, September 18, 1952; Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right, 38; Robert Burk, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 15; Swede Hazlett to Dwight Eisenhower, August 8, 1952, and Dwight Eisenhower to Swede Hazlett, August 14, 1952, both in box 17, Names Series, DDEL. 29. Analysis of Editorial Comment in Southern Newspapers Supporting Republican Ticket—1952, August 15, 1952, PPS 12.23; David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 512; text of address by Dwight D. Eisenhower, September 30, 1952, and press release, October 14, 1952, both in box 6, Adams Papers. 30. Frank B. Atkinson, The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-Party Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980, rev. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 57. 31. Walter White to Dwight Eisenhower, October 6, 1952, and Sherman Adams to Walter White, October 7, 1952, both in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; memo for Roy Wilkins, n.d., and Sherman Adams to Roy Wilkins, October 7, 1952, both in series II, box A248, NAACP Papers. 32. Jet, October 9, 1952; Walter White newspaper column, November 13, 1952, box 35, Wilkins Papers; Walter White to Lessing J. Rosenwald, November 7, 1952, series II, box A85, NAACP Papers. 33. Jet, November 13, 1952; NYT, October 30, 1952. 34. President Eisenhower’s Campaign Statements on Civil Rights and Immigration, n.d., series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Summary of Policy Statements Made

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 403

notes to pages 45–48 [ 403 ]

by General Eisenhower, n.d., record group 4, series J.1, box 4, Nelson A. Rockefeller Personal Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; The Republican Party and the Negro, n.d., box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Election Issues of 1956, n.d., box 131, Brownell Papers; Lawson, Black Ballots, 141; NYT, October 3, 1952; remarks by Richard Nixon, September 14, 1952, PPS 208 (1952).38; statement at Detroit, October 14, 1952, PPS 208 (1952).84; campaign literature, n.d., PPS 13.14.6; Jet, November 6, 1952; E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, September 20 and October 12, 1952, box 1, E. Frederic Morrow Papers, DDEL. 35. Jet, October 23 and November 6, 1952; Nation, September 27, 1952; Jet, October 30, 1952; Chicago Defender, November 8, 1952. 36. Jet, November 6 and October 23, 1952; Chicago Defender, November 8, 1952. 37. Eisenhower Campaign Statements, n.d., and text of Eisenhower speech, October 17, 1952, both in box 6, Adams Papers; The Republican Party and the Negro, n.d., box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Civil Rights Memo, n.d., PPS 12.43; text of General Eisenhower’s Speech in Harlem, October 25, 1952, box 276, President’s Secretary’s Files, Harry S. Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.; NYT, October 30, 1952. 38. Berg, Ticket to Freedom, 193. 39. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 18; Survey of the Negro Vote in the 1952 Presidential Election, n.d., series II, box A452, NAACP Papers; Larry Berman, The Politics of Civil Rights in the Truman Administration (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1970), 231; Crisis, December 1952; “The 1952 Elections: A Statistical Analysis,” October 1953, in The Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1987), reel 2, part 2; Mark Stern, “Presidential Strategies and Civil Rights: Eisenhower, the Early Years, 1952–1954,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 19 (Fall 1989): 777; Berg, Ticket to Freedom, 193; Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 62. 40. Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt, 230; Donald Strong, The 1952 Presidential Election in the South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1955), 381; Numan Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 47–50; Kalk, Origins of the Southern Strategy, 8–9; Samuel Lubell, Revolt of the Moderates (New York: Harper, 1956), 182–202, 217; Hugh Douglas Price, “The Negro and Florida Politics, 1944–1954,” Journal of Politics 17 (May 1955): 198–220; Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 61–62; Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 30–32, 166–168; Donald Strong, “Further Reflections on Southern Politics,” Journal of Politics 33 (May 1971): 240–241; Donald Strong, “The Presidential Election in the South, 1952,” Journal of Politics 17 (August 1955): 384–388. 41. Report of the Secretary for the month of November, n.d., series II, box A477, NAACP Papers; press release, December 14, 1952, box 35, Wilkins Papers; Jet, December 11 and 18, 1952; NYT, December 25, 1952; Jet, January 8, 1953. 42. Jet, February 5, 1953; Herbert Brownell Jr., Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993),

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 404

[ 404 ] not e s to page s 4 8 – 5 3

186; Dwight D. Eisenhower, “First Inaugural Address,” http://www.bartleby.com /124/pres54.html (accessed September 5, 2008); Jet, January 22, 1953. 43. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “State of the Union Address, 1953,” http://www.pres idency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9829&st=&st1 (accessed September 5, 2008). 44. Roy Wilkins to Walter White, January 1, 1953, series II, box A181, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to Walter White, January 16, 1953, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to Archibald Carey Jr., November 10, 1952, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers. 45. Herbert Brownell Jr., “Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Program: A Personal Assessment,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 21 (Spring 1991): 235; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 186; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 28; Dwight Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 148; Michael Mayer, “Washington Bids Farewell to Jim Crow,” Australian Journal of American Studies 4 (December 1985): 2–3. 46. Mayer, “Washington Bids Farewell to Jim Crow,” 3–7, 12–13; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 7, 28–34; Interview of Maxwell Rabb by Ann Sloane, May 13, 1974, box 270, Brownell Papers; Lawson, Black Ballots, 143; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 49–52; Jet, February 19, 1953. 47. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 52–54; Civil Rights under the Eisenhower Administration, 1953–1954, September 29, 1954, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Jet, April 21, 1955; Eugene Davidson, “The State of the Nation’s Capital,” December 18, 1955, series II, box C30, NAACP Papers; press release, May 26, 1956, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 40–42, 49; Alice Dunigan, A Black Woman’s Experience—From Schoolhouse to White House (Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1974), 374; Ebony, February 1956; Jet, May 21, 1959. 48. Jet, February 19, March 26, and April 9, 1953. 49. Timothy N. Thurber, “Racial Liberalism, Affirmative Action, and the Troubled History of the President’s Committee on Government Contracts,” Journal of Policy History 18, 4 (2006): 446–447. 50. Ibid., 448–449; Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon, September 4, 1953, box 3, Ann Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers, DDEL. 51. Thurber, “Racial Liberalism,” 464. 52. Ibid., 450–451; Walter Jackson, Gunnar Myrdal and America’s Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938–1987 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); David Southern, Gunnar Myrdal and Black-White Relations: The Use and Abuse of an American Dilemma, 1944–1969 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987). 53. Paul Moreno, From Direct Action to Affirmative Action: Fair Employment Law and Policy in America, 1933–1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 30–63; Thurber, “Racial Liberalism,” 453–463; Business Week, October 29, 1955. 54. Thurber, “Racial Liberalism,” 456–463. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 405

notes to pages 53–60 [ 405 ]

58. Ibid., 451–458. 59. Ibid., 464–468. 60. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 71–77; Jet, March 3, 1955; United States Commission on Civil Rights, Employment: 1961 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 19–40. 61. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 42–44; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 37–44. 62. Lawson, Black Ballots, 140–142; Adam Clayton Powell to Dwight Eisenhower, June 3, 1953, and Dwight Eisenhower to Adam Clayton Powell, June 6, 1953, both in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Jet, November 5, 1953; Robert Donovan, Confidential Secretary: Ann Whitman’s Twenty Years with Eisenhower and Rockefeller (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988), 159; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 46– 50; Robert Stevens to James Hagerty, March 25, 1954, box 10, Adams Papers. 63. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 44–45. 64. Ibid., 25–26; Jet, February 26, 1953; Michael Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945–1969 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 79–81. 65. Ebony, April 1961; Jet, August 8, 1994. 66. Ebony, January and June 1955; 67. Ebony, April 1961 and December, 1962; Michael Kahn, “Shattering the Myth about President Eisenhower’s Supreme Court Appointments,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 22 (Winter 1992): 47–56; Michael Mayer, “Eisenhower and the Southern Federal Judiciary: The Sobeloff Nomination,” in Reexamining the Eisenhower Presidency, ed. Shirley Warshaw (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987), 58–59. 68. Civil Rights under the Eisenhower Administration, 1953–1954, September 29, 1954, Walter White to Earl Brown, March 19, 1954, and press release, April 9, 1954, all in series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; NYT, May 6 and June 21, 1955; Republicans Going All Out to Regain Votes of Negroes, n.d., box 52, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; The President and the Negro—A New Era, n.d., box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 69. Press release, October 21, 1954, box 35, Wilkins Papers; Saturday Evening Post, August 21, 1954. 70. Jet, November 18, 1954; Charles Hirschman, “Minorities in the Labor Market: Cyclical Patterns and Secular Trends in Joblessness,” in Divided Opportunities: Minorities, Poverty, and Social Policy, ed. Gary D. Sandefur and Marta Tienda (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1988), 64–67; WSJ, October 25, 1954; diary entry, April 28, 1955, box 8, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers.

chapter 3. “at sea on this”: eisenhower and black protest 1. Diary entry, January 25 1954, box 5, Ann Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers, DDEL. 2. James Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 9–12.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 406

[ 406 ] not e s to page s 6 0 – 6 2

3. Ibid., 12–45. 4. David Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 51–53. 5. Michael Mayer, “With Much Deliberation and Some Speed: Eisenhower and the Brown Decision,” Journal of Southern History 52 (March 1986): 48–49; James Duram, “Whose Brief? Dwight Eisenhower, His Southern Friends, and the School Segregation Cases,” in Dwight D. Eisenhower: Soldier, President, Statesman, ed. Joann Krieg (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 45; memo, August 19, 1953, box 3, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; diary entry, July 20, 1953, box 2, ibid.; diary entry, July 24, 1953, box 9, ibid. 6. Jet, December 18, 1952, and January 1, 1953. 7. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 52–55; memo, August 19, 1953, and diary entries, November 5 and 16, 1953, all in box 3, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Herbert Brownell Jr., “Civil Rights in the 1950s,” Tulane Law Review 69, 3 (1995): 784; Herbert Brownell Jr., Advising Ike: The Memoirs of Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 190–193. 8. Allan Shivers to Dwight Eisenhower, July 16, 1953, and Robert Kennon to Dwight Eisenhower, November 20, 1953, both in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; diary entry, July 20, 1953, box 2, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; diary entry, July 24, 1953, box 9, ibid.; diary entry, November 16, 1953, and James Byrnes to Dwight Eisenhower, November 20, 1953, both in box 3, ibid.; Dwight Eisenhower to James Byrnes, December 1, 1953, box 4, ibid. 9. Victor Kramer, “President Eisenhower’s Handwritten Changes in the Brief on Relief in the School Segregation Cases: Minding the Whys and Wherefores,” Constitutional Commentary 9 (Summer 1992): 224–226; Mayer, “With Much Deliberation,” 48–49; John T. Eliff, “The United States Department of Justice and Individual Rights, 1937–1962” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1967), 394–400; Herbert Brownell Jr., “Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Program: A Personal Assessment,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 21 (Summer 1991): 237. 10. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 57–68. 11. Ed Cray, Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 290–291; Robert Burk, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 144. 12. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 69–71; Roy Wilkins, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins (New York: Viking, 1982), 214; Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 42–43, 128–135. 13. Press release, May 21, 1954, box 37, Phileo Nash Papers, Truman Library, Independence, Mo.; Philip Klinkner and Rogers Smith, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 239; Mary Dudziak, “The Little Rock Crisis and Foreign Affairs: Race, Resistance, and American Democracy,” Southern California Law Review 70 (September 1997): 1641–1644; The Civil Rights Record of Jacob Javits, n.d., series 11, box 8, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y.; diary entry, May 18, 1954, box 1, Diary Entries, DDEL; “Transcript of the Presi-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 407

notes to pages 62–65 [ 407 ]

dent’s News Conference of May 19, 1954,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=9892 (accessed September 12, 2008); “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of August 11, 1954,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php ?pid=9977 (accessed September 12, 2008); Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 144–145; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 66–67, 99–100. 14. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 80–85, Nichols, Matter of Justice, 72–74. 15. Kramer, “Eisenhower’s Handwritten Changes,” 224–229; Herbert Brownell Jr., “Eisenhower and Civil Rights,” speech in Abilene, Kans., June 5, 1990, box 17, Additional Files, Herbert Brownell Jr. Papers, DDEL; Cray, Chief Justice, 294–295; Brownell, Advising Ike, 196–198; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 147; Juan Williams, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998), 233. 16. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 82–85. 17. Ibid., 88–101; Anders Walker, The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007). 18. Brownell, Advising Ike, 196–197; Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 366–368; William E. Leuchtenburg, “The White House and Black America: From Eisenhower to Carter,” in Have We Overcome? Race Relations since Brown, ed. Michael Namorato (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1979), 122. 19. Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press, 1988), 15–35. J. W. Milam’s brother, Leslie Milam, confessed on his deathbed to being involved in the murder. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28 /us/28till.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=emmett%20till%202007&st=cse (accessed October 12, 2008), http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/30 /AR2007033000718.html?hpid=moreheadlines (accessed October 12, 2008); and http://foia.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/till/till.pdf (accessed October 13, 2008). 20. Whitfield, Death in the Delta, 36–57; Gene Roberts and Hank Kilbanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (New York: Knopf, 2006), 86–108. 21. Whitfield, Death in the Delta, 58–62, 85–107; John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 56–58; Jet, October 6, 1955; Rosenberg, Hollow Hope, 132–135. 22. Michal Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 37; A. Philip Randolph to Roy Wilkins, August 31, 1955, and A. Philip Randolph to Dwight Eisenhower, August 31, 1955, both in box 31, A. Philip Randolph Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Mamie Bradley to Dwight Eisenhower, September 2, 1955, Chicago Defender to Dwight Eisenhower, September 1, 1955, J. William Barba to John Sengstacke, September 2, 1955, A. Philip Randolph to

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 408

[ 408 ] not e s to page s 6 5 – 6 8

Herbert Brownell Jr., September 28, 1955, and W. Beverly Carter to E. Frederic Morrow, September 29, 1955, all in box 3113, WHCF, DDEL; Memorandum for the Record, November 22, 1955, E. Frederic Morrow to Maxwell Rabb, November 29, 1955, and E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, December 16, 1955, all in box 10, E. Frederic Morrow Staff Files, DDEL; diary entry, December 8, 1955, box 2, E. Frederic Morrow Papers, DDEL; Maxwell Rabb to Colonel Andrew Goodpaster, January 6, 1956, box 37, Maxwell Rabb Papers, DDEL; E. Frederic Morrow, Black Man in the White House (New York: Coward-McCann, 1963), 18–19; Milton Katz, “E. Frederic Morrow and Civil Rights in the Eisenhower Administration,” Phylon (June 1981): 133–134; Clarence Mitchell to Herbert Brownell Jr., December 2, 1955, box 12, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; NYT, January 4, 1956. 23. Whitfield, Death in the Delta, 74–81; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 116–118; Carl Rowan, Go South to Sorrow (New York: Random House, 1957), 48–49; Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 17–20; Brownell, Advising Ike, 204–205. 24. Cabinet notes, December 2, 1955, box 8, Sherman Adams Papers, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; memorandum, September 12, 1955, box 51, Rabb Papers; Maxwell Rabb to James Hagerty, October 23, 1955, box 3113, WHCF, DDEL. 25. Summary of Meeting between Clarence Mitchell and Herbert Brownell Jr., n.d., box 12, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; diary entry, December 8, 1955, box 2, Morrow Papers; E. Frederic Morrow to Val Washington, December 7, 1955, box 1, Morrow Papers; Maxwell Rabb to Governor Pyle, August 8, 1955, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; WP, August 7, 1955; Dittmer, Local People, 50–54; Rowan, Go South to Sorrow, 38–39; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat,76–82. 26. Diary entries, December 8 and 19, 1955, box 2, Morrow Papers; E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, December 16, 1955, box 704, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 20; diary entry, December 19, 1955, box 2, Morrow Papers. 27. Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 20–21. 28. Val Washington to Sherman Adams, January 4, 1956, box 704, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 29. Ibid. 30. Stewart Burns, ed., Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 1–33. 31. A. Philip Randolph to Dwight Eisenhower, February 2, 1956, box 31, Randolph Papers; Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, February 23, 1956, and Bryce Harlow to Adam Clayton Powell Jr., February 24, 1956, both in box 733, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 3, Birth of a New Age, December 1955–December 1956 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 176–177; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 126–128; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of March 21, 1956,” http://www .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10759&st=&st1= (accessed January 20, 2009). 32. E. Culpepper Clark, The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation’s Last Stand at the University of Alabama (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 36–52, 42–90, 96–104; Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order, 32.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 409

notes to pages 68–72 [ 409 ]

33. “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of February 8, 1956,” http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10726 (accessed January 20, 2009); E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, February 27, 1956, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; diary entry, March 3, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers; Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order, 37. 34. Morrow to Adams, February 27, 1956; Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 32–34; Rowan, Go South to Sorrow, 168–174; diary entries, February 28, March 1 and 3, 1956, all in box 2, Morrow Papers; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, March 1, 1956, box 6, Gerald Morgan Staff Files, DDEL; Bryce Harlow to Charles Diggs, March 12, 1956, box 11, Morrow Staff Files. 35. Diary entry, February 27, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers; Summary of the Congressional Mail, March 3, 1956, box 14, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, March 2, 1956, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, March 14, 1956, both in box 11, Morrow Staff Files; Morrow to Adams, February 27, 1956; NYT, March 29, 1956. 36. Randall Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: Free Press, 2006), 326; Frank B. Atkinson, The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-Party Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980, rev. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 91; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of February 29, 1956,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10742 (accessed January 21, 2009). 37. “The Southern Manifesto,” http://www.strom.clemson.edu/strom/manifesto .html (accessed January 21, 2009). 38. “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of March 14, 1956,” http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10752#axzz1PuxFbmtE (accessed January 21, 2009). 39. Brownell, “Civil Rights in the 1950s,” 787; Brownell, Advising Ike, 203; Anthony Badger, “Brown and Backlash,” in Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction, ed. Clive Webb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 45–52; Anthony Badger, “Whatever Happened to Roosevelt’s New Generation of Southerners?” in New Deal/New South: An Anthony Badger Reader (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2007), 58–71. 40. Diary entry, April 25, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers; Pre–Press Conference Briefing, April 25, 1956, box 8, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 41. Cabinet meeting notes, March 9 and 23, 1956, box 8, Adams Papers; Nixon Quotes on Civil Rights, n.d., box 147, White House Aides Files—Fred Panzer, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Tex. 42. Dwight Eisenhower to Billy Graham, March 22, 1956, box 14, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 43. Martin Luther King Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, August 27, 1956, box 909, General File, WHCF, DDEL. 44. Maxwell Rabb to Martin Luther King Jr., October 25, 1956, box 909, General File, WHCF, DDEL; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 3:365; Pre–Press Conference Briefing Notes, November 15, 1956, box 8, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 410

[ 410 ] not e s to page s 7 2 – 7 5

45. Russell Riley, The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality: NationKeeping from 1831 to 1965 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 189–192; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 135–136. 46. Thurgood Marshall to Dwight Eisenhower, September 6, 1956, box 916, General File, DDE Papers; Brownell, Advising Ike, 204–205; diary entry, September 14, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers. 47. NYT, May 21, 1956; press release, n.d., and Citizens for Eisenhower Advance, n.d., both in series III, box A113, NAACP Papers; Collier’s, August 17, 1956; CQ, May 4, 1956; David Beito and Linda Beito, Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 172–174; “Major Findings of Political Polls,” June 15–August 6, 1956, in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1987), reel 2, part 2; WSJ, April 13, 1956; Des Moines Register, March 18, 1956; Newsweek, April 9, 1956; New York Herald Tribune, March 19, 1956; Christian Science Monitor, May 8, 1956; Jet, May 10, 1956; George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972), 1438–1439. 48. NYT, November 16, 1956; New York Herald Tribune, August 17, 1956; diary entry, August 1, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers; statement of Roy Wilkins, August 16, 1956, series III, box A246, NAACP Papers. 49. Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 19, 1956; J. W. Anderson, Eisenhower, Brownell and the Congress: The Tangled Origins of the Civil Rights Bill of 1956–1957 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1964), 119–121; NYT, August 12, 19, and 20, 1956; Byron Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 89; New York Herald Tribune, August 17, 1956; diary entry, March 21, 1956, box 9, memo, August 1, 1956, box 17, telephone calls, August 19, 1956, box 8, and Pre–Press Conference Briefing, August 8, 1956, box 8, all in Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 50. Text of the 1956 Republican Party Platform, in Donald Bruce Johnson, National Party Platforms, vol. 1, 1840–1956 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 554; press release, August 25, 1956, series III, box A65, NAACP Papers; Crisis, August–September 1956. 51. Diary entry, August 14, 1956, and diary entry, n.d., both in box 2, Morrow Papers; Republican National Committee, Official Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Republican National Convention (Washington, D.C.: Republican National Committee, 1956), 305, 343, 353–354; speech by Hugh Scott to the Republican convention, August 20, 1956, box 34, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 52. “Abe and Ike: In Deed Alike,” n.d., box 1913A, Irving Ives Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Election Issues of 1956, n.d., box 131, Brownell Papers; 1956 Campaign Speech Kit, n.d., box 130, Brownell Papers; From the Eisenhower Blueprint, n.d., series I, box 68, Kenneth Keating Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; Jet, November 8 and 15, 1956; Look, November 13, 1956; Karl Campbell, Senator Sam Ervin: Last of the Founding Fathers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 111; NYT, October 18, 1956; Know the Issues— Civil Rights, box 14, Republican National Committee Papers, DDEL; Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1956; Nixon Quotes on Civil Rights, n.d., box 147, White House

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 411

notes to pages 75–78 [ 411 ]

Aides Files—Fred Panzer, LBJ Library; press release, November 1, 1956, box 3, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 139. 53. Denton Watson, Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws (New York: Morrow, 1990), 352; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 138; NYT, October 18 and November 4, 1956; Karl Campbell, Senator Sam Ervin: Last of the Founding Fathers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 111; Charles V. Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of an American Dilemma (New York: Atheneum, 1991), 266–275; Jet, November 8, 1956; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 3:409. 54. David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 522; Glenn Feldman, “Race, Emotion, and the Rise of the Modern Republican Party in Alabama and the South,” in Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 287–288; diary entry, October 25, 1956, box 2, Morrow Papers. 55. Henry Lee Moon, “The Negro Vote in the Presidential Election of 1956,” Journal of Negro Education 26 (Winter 1957): 219–230; Samuel Lubell, White and Black: Test of a Nation (New York: Harper, 1966), 74; New York Herald Tribune, November 20, 1956; Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 2, 1956; Des Moines Register, November 11, 1956. 56. Moon, “Negro Vote,” 219–230; Atlanta Journal and Constitution, November 11, 1956; Jet, November 22, 1956; William D. Workman Jr. to R. D. Blanding, November 14, 1956, box 33, Workman Papers; WP, November 10, 1956; NYT, November 11, 1956; Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 3 (New York: Knopf, 2002), 843–844; New Republic, December 3, 1956; Crisis, December 1956. 57. Samuel Lubell, “The Future of the Negro Voter in the United States,” Journal of Negro Education 26 (Summer 1957): 408–409; Republican National Committee Research Division, “The Negro Vote,” August 1957, box 909, General File, WHCF, DDEL; CQ Weekly Report, June 7, 1957; NYT, November 11, 1956; Caro, Master of the Senate, 843. 58. Donald Strong, Urban Republicanism in the South (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1960), 2, 32–33, 54–57; Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 235; Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 29–50. 59. Lubell, “Future of the Negro Voter,” 408–409. 60. Jet, April 17, 1969; Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Text of Second Inaugural Address,” January 21, 1957, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10856 (accessed March 9, 2009). 61. Martin Luther King Jr. et al. to Dwight Eisenhower, January 11, 1957, box 912, General File, WHCF, DDEL; Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 4, Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 98–100.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 412

[ 412 ] not e s to page s 7 8 – 8 1

62. Martin Luther King Jr. to Richard Nixon, January 11, 1957, PPS 320.107.1; diary entries, January 10 and 15, 1957, box 2, Morrow Papers. 63. Diary entry, January 15, 1957, box 2, Morrow Papers; Sherman Adams to Martin Luther King, January 18, 1957, box 912, General File, WHCF, DDEL; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:98–100; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference, February 6, 1957,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =10972 (accessed March 9, 2009). 64. Martin Luther King Jr. et al. to Dwight D. Eisenhower, February 14, 1957, and Martin Luther King Jr. et al. to Herbert Brownell, February 14, 1957, both in box 912, General File, WHCF, DDEL; Crisis, February 1957; Negroes to Press Ike to Speak Out, n.d., box 457, Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, March 28, 1957, Maxwell Rabb to Warren Olney, April 1, 1957, and Warren Only to Maxwell Rabb, April 15, 1957, all in box 8, Adams Papers. 65. King et al. to Eisenhower, February 14, 1957; King et al. to Brownell, February 14, 1957. 66. Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, April 17, 1957, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Sherman Adams, April 2, 1957, Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, April 3, 1957, and Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, April 3, 1957, all in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Chicago Defender, April 13, 1957; Paula Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 176–178; David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: Vintage, 1986), 90–94; Kenneth O’Reilly, Nixon’s Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton (New York: Free Press, 1995), 178–181; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, May 8, 1957, Maxwell Rabb to Mr. Toner, May 16, 1957, Maxwell Rabb to Bernard Shanley, May 23, 1957, and Memorandum for the Files, May 23 1957, all in box 912, General File, WHCF, DDEL; NYT, May 5, 1957; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:205–206; diary entry, May 21, 1957, box 2, Morrow Papers. 67. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, 373; Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, 177–179; O’Reilly, Nixon’s Piano, 178; Ebony, August 1957; address by Martin Luther King Jr., May 17, 1957, PPS 320.107.6; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:210–215; Thomas F. Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 95. 68. Diary entries, May 21 and June 25, 1957, box 2, Morrow Papers; E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, June 4, 1957, box 10, Adams Papers; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, June 5, 1957, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; A. Philip Randolph to Dwight Eisenhower, June 10, 1957, and memo, June 20, 1957, both in box 10, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL. 69. Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:8, 16, 222; Martin Luther King Jr. to Richard Nixon, May 15, 1957, PPS 320.107.5; Richard Nixon to Martin Luther King Jr., May 23, 1957, PPS 320.107.8. 70. Notes on meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., June 13 1957, PPS 320.107.69.1-8; memo, June 27, 1957, PPS 320.107.11A; Michael Krenn, Black Diplo-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 413

notes to pages 81–83 [ 413 ]

macy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945–1969 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 93; James H. Meriwether, “‘Worth a Lot of Negro Votes’: Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of American History 95 (December 2008): 743; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 95; Jet, June 27, 1957; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, June 24, 1957, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 218–220; press release, June 6, 1957, series 207, box 65, NP, LN; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:17. Nixon later reported that King and Abernathy had voted for Eisenhower in 1956 and vowed to commence a voter registration drive if civil rights legislation passed. 71. Dwight Eisenhower to Swede Hazlett, July 22, 1957, box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Rosenberg, Hollow Hope, 79. 72. Elizabeth Jacoway and C. Fred Williams, eds., Understanding the Little Rock Crisis: An Exercise in Remembrance and Reconciliation (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999), 6–7; John Kirk, Redefining the Color Line: Black Activism in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1940–1970 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 95–99, 109–111; Roy Reed, “The Contest for the Soul of Orval Faubus,” in Jacoway and Williams, Understanding the Little Rock Crisis, 100–103; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 144–146; Roy Reed, Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997), 163–166, 177–184; Anthony Badger, “The White Reaction to Brown: Arkansas, the Southern Manifesto, and Massive Resistance,” in Jacoway and Williams, Understanding the Little Rock Crisis, 83– 85; Kirk, Redefining the Color Line, 101–105. 73. Karen S. Anderson, “Massive Resistance, Violence, and Southern Social Relations: The Little Rock, Arkansas School Integration Crisis, 1954–1960,” in Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction, ed. Clive Webb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 206–210; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 152; Reed, Faubus, 192–198; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 175–176; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 170–171. 74. Reed, Faubus, 202–207; Anthony Lewis, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), 47; Kirk, Redefining the Color Line, 114–115; Cray, Chief Justice, 342–343. 75. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 177–178; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of September 3, 1957,” http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10877 (accessed May 20, 2009); Nichols, Matter of Justice, 171–172. 76. Cray, Chief Justice, 343; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 159–160; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 172–173; Orval Faubus to Dwight Eisenhower, September 4, 1957, box 10, Adams Papers; Tony Freyer, “The Little Rock Crisis Reconsidered,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 56 (Autumn 1997): 364–365; Dwight Eisenhower to Orval Faubus, September 5, 1957, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 77. Reed, Faubus, 216–271; Brownell, Advising Ike, 207–208; Herbert Brownell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, n.d., box 8, Administrative Files, Whitman Files, DDE Papers. 78. World Reaction to U.S. Racial Integration Incidents, September 12, 1957, and

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 414

[ 414 ] not e s to page s 8 3 – 8 5

Reaction to U.S. Integration Incidents Increases, September 13, 1957, both in box 27, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Staff Notes No. 199, September 24, 1957, box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Mary Dudziak, Cold War, Civil Rights (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 131; John David Skrentny, “The Effect of the Cold War on African American Civil Rights: America and the World Audience, 1945–1968,” Theory and Society 27 (February 1988): 262–263; Michael Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945–1969 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 101–102; Dudziak, “The Little Rock Crisis and Foreign Affairs,” 1664–1665, 1690–1692; Klinkner and Smith, Unsteady March, 250–251; Dwight Eisenhower to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., September 27, 1957, box 24, Whitman Files, Administrative Series, DDE Papers. 79. Roy Wilkins to Dwight Eisenhower, September 5, 1957, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Martin Luther King Jr. to Richard Nixon, September 9, 1957, PPS 320.107.13: Roy Wilkins to Dwight Eisenhower, September 18, 1957, and Thurgood Marshall to Dwight Eisenhower, September 18, 1957, both in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; New York Herald Tribune, September 19, 1957. 80. Notes Dictated by the President, October 8, 1957, box 26, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 180–183. 81. Speech of Herbert Brownell Jr., September 19, 1991, box 10, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; memo for Jim Hagerty, September 19, 1957, box 27, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 186–188. 82. Reed, Faubus, 226–229; Dudziak, “The Little Rock Crisis and Foreign Affairs,” 1675–1676; Terrence J. Roberts, “Fear Is Portable,” in President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights: Eyewitness Accounts by Terrence J. Roberts and Rocco C. Siciliano (Washington, D.C.: Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, 2000), 17. 83. Sherman Adams, Firsthand Report: The Story of the Eisenhower Administration (New York: Harper, 1961), 354; Woodrow Wilson Mann to Dwight Eisenhower, September 23, 1957, box 10, Adams Papers; James Duram, A Moderate among Extremists: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the School Integration Crisis (Chicago: NelsonHall, 1981), 150–153. 84. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 193–196; Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, The Preacher and the Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House (New York: Center Street, 2007), 70–71; Woodrow Wilson Mann to Dwight Eisenhower, September 24, 1957, box 10, Adams Papers; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of July 17, 1957,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10839 (accessed May 22, 2009). 85. Robert Clark Oral History, DDEL; “Text of President Eisenhower’s Speech of September 24, 1957,” http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/historicspeeches/eisen hower/federalcourtorders.html (accessed May 21, 2009); Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 180; Duram, Moderate among Extremists, 155–160; Skrentny, “Effect of the Cold War,” 262–263; Herbert Brownell Jr. Interview on the Analysis of Little Rock, box 24, Additional Files, Brownell Papers. 86. Kirk, Redefining the Color Line, 119; Cray, Chief Justice, 344; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights, 17; Carlotta Walls LaNier, A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School (New York: One World Books, 2009), 100–104.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 415

notes to pages 85–89 [ 415 ]

87. Herbert Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 512; Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1517; Dudziak, “The Little Rock Crisis and Foreign Affairs,” 1664–1665, 1683–1684; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:278, 365–366; Statement by U.S. Senator Alexander Wiley, Little Rock Situation, n.d., series 4, box 8, Alexander Wiley Papers, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; NYT, September 26 and October 7, 1957; Ebony, December 1957. 88. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1517; paper by Richard Ellis, n.d., box 29, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; CQ, September 27, 1957; Richmond Times Dispatch, September 29, 1957; Mobile Register, September 25 1957; Jere Nash and Andy Taggart, Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976–2006 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 39–40. 89. Statement by Governor Theodore McKeldin, September 25, 1957, and press release, October 1, 1957, both in box 10, Adams Papers; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 207–210; Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon, October 2, 1957, PPS 324.110. 90.“Transcript of the President’s News Conference of October 3, 1957,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10920 (accessed May 29, 2009); Duram, Moderate among Extremists, 172. 91. Memorandum of Conference with the President, October 15, 1957, box 27, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 212–213; Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 112. 92. Duram, Moderate among Extremists, 172; David Stebenne, Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 213–214. 93. Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 165–182; Jet, October 30, 1958; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:278; Oscar Eckford Jr. et al. to Dwight Eisenhower, September 30, 1957, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Topeka Capital-Journal, June 6, 1990; WP, June 6, 1990; President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights, 16–17. 94. Riley, The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality, 196–197; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 194–196; Kirk, Redefining the Color Line, 133–137; Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 112–113, 142–146; Adam Fairclough, “The Little Rock Crisis: Success or Failure for the NAACP?” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 56 (Autumn 1997): 372–375. 95. Atkinson, Dynamic Dominion, 105–120; Andrew Buni, The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902–1965 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 195; Feldman, “Race, Emotion, and Rise of the Modern Republican Party,” 280–281; Though Shaken by Little Rock, South Carolina Republicans Will Celebrate, January 18, 1958, and GOP Chairmen Predict Great Gains in South, June 19, 1958, both in box 52, Workman Papers; NYT, September 27, 1957; Richmond Times Dispatch, October 24, 1957; Mobile Register, October 24, 1957; Daniel Galvin, Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 65–66; NYT, October 3, 1957; minutes of meeting of the Republican National Committee, January 30, 1958, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 18, part 1: Minutes of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series A, 1911– 1960. 96. Memorandum, July 8, 1958, box 35, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 416

[ 416 ] not e s to page s 8 9 – 9 2

Papers;“Transcript of the President’s News Conference of August 20, 1958,” http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11178 (accessed June 2, 2009); “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of August 27, 1958,” http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11188 (accessed June 2, 2009); Jet, September 11, 1958. 97. Diary entry, August 22, 1958, box 2, Morrow Papers; Dwight Eisenhower to Ralph McGill, September 3, 1958, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Pre–Press Conference Notes, August, 6, 1958, box 35, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 98. Roy Wilkins to E. Frederic Morrow, September 4, 1958 (emphasis in original), and E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, September 5, 1958, both in box 10, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL. 99. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 195–196; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 230–232; Dwight Eisenhower to J. Albert Rolston, September 24, 1958, and Statement by the Attorney General, September 16, 1958, both in box 42, Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management Papers, DDEL; Dwight Eisenhower to Ralph McGill, October 3, 1958, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:509. 100. George Butler to Jacob Seidenberg, October 25, 1958, box 43, Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management Papers, DDEL; WP, October 26, 1958. 101. A. Philip Randolph to Dwight Eisenhower, October 10, 1958, A. Philip Randolph to Rocco Siciliano, November 19, 1958, Rocco Siciliano to A. Philip Randolph, October 29, 1958, Roy Wilkins to Dwight Eisenhower, November 10, 1958, and memorandum, November 17, 1958, all in box 43, Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management Papers, DDEL; diary entry, November 21, 1958, box 2, Morrow Papers; Jet, November 13, 1958. 102. Dwight Eisenhower to Ralph McGill, February 26, 1959, box 23, Whitman Files, Name File, DDE Papers. In July, Wilkins charged that Eisenhower “doesn’t understand as much about civil rights as any three-year-old Negro child.” The White House saw Wilkins’s remarks as an unfair personal attack on the president. See Jet, July 9 and 16, 1959. 103. Statement of the Youth Delegation to the White House, n.d., box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; press release, April 18, 1959, box 8, Adams Papers; Jet, April 2 and May 7, 1959; WP, April 19, 1959. 104. “Transcript of the President’s News Conference of May 5, 1959,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11723 (accessed June 16, 2009); Nichols, Matter of Justice, 241–242; Dittmer, Local People, 79. 105. Allan Lichtman, “The Federal Assault against Voting Discrimination in the Deep South, 1957–1967,” Journal of Negro History 54 (October 1969): 348–353; memo to Richard Nixon, May 27, 1959, series 320, box 521, NP, LN. 106. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 9–11; Ebony, May 1960. 107. Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984), 192–194.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 417

notes to pages 92–98 [ 417 ]

108. Ebony, May and June 1960; Jet, March 17, 1960. 109.“Text of the President’s News Conference of March 16, 1960,” http://www .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12157 (accessed June 26, 2009). 110. Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 255; Jet, March 24, 1960. 111. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 259–261; William Rogers to Jimmie Davis, November 12, 1960, box 554, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 112. Nichols, Matter of Justice, 259–261; Jacob Javits to Dwight Eisenhower, November 30, 1960, and Dwight Eisenhower to Jacob Javits, December 1, 1960, both in box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 113. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 107–109. 114. Rosenberg, Hollow Hope, 133–140; interview with Herbert Brownell Jr., November 15, 1985, box 270, Brownell Papers; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 127–128.

chapter 4. republicans and civil rights legislation, 1952–1960 1. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks and Discussion at the National Press Club,” January 14, 1959, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11696&st =&st1=#axzz1QhB235ro (accessed June 29, 2011). 2. Mark Stern, “Presidential Strategies and Civil Rights: Eisenhower, the Early Years, 1952–1954,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 19 (Fall 1989): 778. 3. New York Daily News, June 9, 1952; Julian Zelizer, On Capitol Hill: The Struggle to Reform Congress and Its Consequences, 1948–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 33–46; Roy Wilkins to Archibald Carey Jr., November 10, 1952, series II, box A509, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Walter White to Dwight Eisenhower, December 30, 1952, series II, box A9, NAACP Papers; press release, August 28, 1952, series II, box A477, NAACP Papers; WP, January 3, 1953; NYT, January 4 and 6, 1953; Clarence Mitchell, A Summary of the Civil Rights Record of the 83rd Congress, August 24, 1954, series II, box A591, NAACP Papers; Stern, “Presidential Strategies,” 778; NYT, January 8, 1953; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 9, 1953; press release, January 22, 1953, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Jet, January 22, 1953. 4. Robert Taft to M. Francis de Sales, January 24, 1953, box 1220, Robert Taft Sr. Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; A Summary of the Civil Rights Record of the 83rd Congress, August 21, 1954, series II, box A185, NAACP Papers; memo to Mr. Dodge, March 31, 1953, box 1, Legislative Meeting Series, Ann Whitman Files, DDE Papers, DDEL; H. Alexander Smith to Irving Ives, January 7, 1953, series VI, box 156, H. Alexander Smith Papers, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; Walter White to Albert Fitzgerald, May 21, 1953, Irving Ives to Hubert Humphrey, December 4, 1953, Albert Fitzgerald to Walter White, n.d., and NAIRO Reporter, March 1954, all in series 1913A, box 32, Irving Ives Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Civil Rights under the GOP: Statement of Conference of Negro Organizations, n.d., series II, box A453, NAACP Papers; Baltimore Sun, February 24, 1954, NYT, March 4 and 11, 1954; H. Alexander Smith to David Litwin, March

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 418

[ 418 ] not e s to page s 9 9 – 1 0 1

10, 1954, series VI, box 156, Smith Papers; Civil Rights under the Eisenhower Administration, 1953–1954, September 29, 1954, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Jet, March 12, 1953. 5. Civil Rights in the First Session, 84th Congress, September 23, 1955, box 455, Emanuel Celler Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; David Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 114–115. 6. Memo, June 8, 1955, series II, box A248, NAACP Papers; Joseph Rauh to Dwight Eisenhower, June 24, 1955, box 7, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; New York Amsterdam News, July 2, 1955; Civil Rights in the First Session, 84th Congress; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference,” July 6, 1955, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws /index.php?pid=10287#axzz1R9CWI7X3 (accessed July 3, 2011); press release, July 21, 1955, series II, box A111, NAACP Papers. 7. Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, January 10, 1956, Supplementary Notes, box 1, Dwight Eisenhower Papers, Everett Dirksen Congressional Leadership Center, Pekin, Ill.; Press Conference Briefing, February 29, 1956, box 13, Ann Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers, DDEL; Thomas Ashley, James Quigley, George Rhodes to Dwight Eisenhower, February 10, 1956, and Gerald Morgan to Thomas Ashley, March 15, 1956, both in Dwight D. Eisenhower File, Joseph Martin Papers, Stonehill College, Easton, Mass.; Civil Rights in the 84th Congress, October 29, 1956, box 8, AFL-CIO Civil Rights Department Files, George Meany Papers, George Meany Memorial Archives, George Meany Center for Labor Studies, Silver Spring, Md.; Russell Riley, The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality: Nation-Keeping from 1831 to 1965 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 189. 8. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 5, 1956, http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/All_About_Ike /Speeches/Speeches.html (accessed January 19, 2009); Nichols, Matter of Justice, 122; press release, January 5, 1956, series III, box A113, NAACP Papers. 9. Civil Rights in the First Session, 84th Congress, September 23, 1955, box 455, Celler Papers; Robert Burk, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 205–209. 10. Michael Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 34–41; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 126–133; Cabinet Minutes, March 9, 1956, box 14, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Cabinet Notes, March 23, 1956, box 8, Sherman Adams Papers, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; Herbert Brownell to Richard Ellis, June 9, 1988, box 4, Additional Files, Herbert Brownell Jr. Papers, DDEL; Michael Mayer, “The Eisenhower Administration and the Civil Rights Act of 1957,” Congress and the Presidency (Autumn 1989): 139–140. 11. Crisis, April 1956; Washington News, March 6, 1956; New York Post, March 5, 1956; WP, March 5, 1956; Washington Star, March 6, 1956; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, March 6, 1956, box 11, E. Frederic Morrow Staff Files, DDEL. 12. Dori Dressender, “The Civil Rights Act of 1957,” box 25, Additional Files,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 419

notes to pages 102–104 [ 419 ]

Brownell Papers; Lee Minich to Emmet Hughes, March 20, 1956, box 14, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Robert Caro, Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 3 (New York: Knopf, 2002), 781; Mayer, “Eisenhower Administration and Civil Rights Act of 1957,” 142–144; Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 156–157; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, April 17, 1956, box 1, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series, DDE Papers. 13. CR, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., 13,540–13,558, 13,563–13,564, 13,726, 13,735– 13,738. 14. J. W. Anderson, Eisenhower, Brownell, and the Congress: The Tangled Origins of the Civil Rights Bill of 1956–1957 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1964), 92–93; CR, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., 13,562–13,563, 13,728. 15. NYT, July 24, 1956; Lawson, Black Ballots, 160; Anderson, Eisenhower, Brownell, and Congress, 106–107. 16. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union,” January 10, 1957, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =11029 (accessed March 16, 2009); Roy Wilkins to Evan Peters, February 8, 1957, series III, box A246, NAACP Papers; Dori Dressender, “Senate Hearings—1957,” n.d., box 25, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; Caro, Master of the Senate, 856–870; Gayle Montgomery and James Johnson, One Step from the White House: The Rise and Fall of Senator William F. Knowland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 213; Herman Edelsberg and David Brody, “Civil Rights in the 85th Congress, First Session,” December 31, 1957, box 456, Celler Papers; Randall Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: Free Press, 2006), 327; Vote on the Senate Filibuster Rules, January 4, 1957. series III, box A65, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to Jacob Javits, February 5, 1957, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Frank Keenan to John Sherman Cooper, December 11, 1956, Senatorial Series, box 581, John Sherman Cooper Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. 17. Lawson, Black Ballots, 170–173; CR, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 9189, 9372. 18. CR, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 9187, 9193–9195, 9209, 9372, 9377. 19. Caro, Master of the Senate, 873; CQ Weekly Report, June 7, 1957; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference,” May 15, 1957, http://www.presidency.ucsb .edu/ws/index.php?pid=11037 (accessed March 17, 2009); Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 85th Congress, First Session”; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, June 4, 1957, box 2, Legislative Meeting Series, Whitman Files, DDE Papers. 20. Caro, Master of the Senate, 878–881; Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 85th Congress”; CQ, June 7, 1957. 21. NYT, July 3, 1957; Keith Finley, Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 160–164; Caro, Master of the Senate, 853, 865–872; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 154. 22. Caro, Master of the Senate, 913–920; Remarks by Senator H. Alexander Smith on the Civil Rights Bill, n.d., series VI, box 156, Smith Papers; NYT, July 11 and 14,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 420

[ 420 ] not e s to page s 1 0 5 – 1 0 7

1957; John T. Eliff, “The United States Department of Justice and Individual Rights, 1937–1962” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1967), 459. 23. “Transcript of the President’s News Conference,” July 3, 1957, http://www .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10828 (accessed March 27, 2009); Mayer, “Eisenhower Administration and Civil Rights Act of 1957,” 146; Pre–Press Conference Notes, July 3, 1957, telephone call notes, July 3, 1957, and Dwight Eisenhower to James Byrnes, July 23, 1957, all in box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers. 24. Supplementary Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, July 9, 1957, and Dwight D. Eisenhower to E. E. Hazlett, July 22 1957, both in box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; NYT, July 10, 1957. 25. Caro, Master of the Senate, 926–927; Lawson, Black Ballots, 179; E. Frederic Morrow to Sherman Adams, July 12, 1957, box 9, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL: Roy Wilkins to Hubert Humphrey, July 19, 1957, box 136, Senate Files, Hubert H. Humphrey Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; Maxwell Rabb to E. Frederic Morrow, July 13, 1957, box 10, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL; Legislative Leadership Meeting Supplementary Notes, July 16, 1957, box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference,” July 17, 1957, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10839 (accessed April 21, 2009); Michael Long, ed., First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 35. 26. Roy Wilkins to Alexander Wiley, July 19, 1957, series IV, box 7, Alexander Wiley Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; press release, July 22, 1957, box 156, Smith Papers; Caro, Master of the Senate, 900–911; Lawson, Black Ballots, 182; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, August 6, 1957, box 4, Office of the Staff Secretary Files, DDEL. 27. Eliff, “Department of Justice and Individual Rights,” 462; Roy Wilkins to M. L. Knoll Jr., August 8, 1957, series III, box A71, NAACP Papers; Lawson, Black Ballots, 180–181. 28. Eisenhower to Byrnes, July 23, 1957; Supplementary Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, July 30, 1957, box 2, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series Files, DDE Papers; Lawson, Black Ballots, 184–190; “Transcript of the President’s News Conference,” July 31, 1957, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php ?pid=10851 (accessed April 22, 2009). 29. Providence Sunday Journal, July 28, 1957; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 224–226; CR, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 12,087, 13,112, 13,353; telephone calls, July 31, 1957, box 25, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Caro, Master of the Senate, 981–983; Reporter, September 5, 1957; Des Moines Register, August 5, 1957. 30. NYT, August 2, 1957; Caro, Master of the Senate, 988; Woods, LBJ, 329; Lawson, Black Ballots, 186–194. 31. Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, August 2, 1957, box 26, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; press release, August 2, 1957, box 9, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL; NYT, August 3, 1957; Dwight Eisenhower to R. W. Woodruff, August 6, 1957, box 34, Name Series, DDEL; NYT, August 2, 1957; Supplementary Notes of

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 421

notes to pages 107–108 [ 421 ]

Legislative Leadership Meeting, August 6, 1957, box 2, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series Files, DDEL. 32. NYT, August 8, 1957; diary entries, August 7, 12, and 15, 1957, box 2, E. Frederic Morrow Papers, DDEL; Memorandum on the Civil Rights Bill, August 13, 1957, box 21, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; press release, August 7, 1957, and memo to General Parsons from Maxwell Rabb, August 19, 1957, both in box 9, Morrow Staff Files, DDEL; Martin Luther King Jr. to Richard Nixon, August 30, 1957, box 50, William Rogers Papers, DDEL; press release, n.d., Republican National Committee Papers, DDEL; Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 4, Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 17, 263. 33. John Sengstache to Joseph Martin, August 22, 1957, and David Longley to Joseph Martin, August 13, 1957, both in file 136.4, Martin Papers; interview with Kenneth Keating, August 12, 1957, series 10, box 2, Kenneth Keating Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; press release, August 6, 1957, Series 1913A, box 95, Ives Papers; NYT, August 4, 11, and 13, 1957; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, August 13, 1957, box 2, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series, DDEL; Caro, Master of the Senate, 992–995; NYT, August 22, 1957; William Hasenfus, “Managing Partner: Joseph W. Martin Jr., Republican Leader of the United States House of Representatives, 1939–1959” (Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 1986), 390–392; telephone calls, August 23 and 30, 1957, box 26, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; NYT, August 30, 1957; CQ, May 6, 1960. 34. Richard Vallely paper, n.d., box 11, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; Mayer, “Eisenhower Administration and Civil Rights Act of 1957,” 149–150; Richard Ellis study, n.d., box 27, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; Richmond Times Dispatch, July 30, August 3 and 6, 1957; Martin Luther King Jr. to Richard Nixon, August 30, 1957, PPS 320.107.12; Lawson, Black Ballots, 200; Roy Wilkins to M. L. Knoll Jr., August 8, 1957, series III, box A71, NAACP Papers; Roy Wilkins to C. B. Powell, August 22, 1957, series III, box A73, NAACP Papers. 35. Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, September 27, 1957, B. C. Coleman to Dwight Eisenhower, February 23, 1958, and Maxwell Rabb to Tom Stephens, March 25, 1958, all in box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; A. Philip Randolph to Dwight Eisenhower, September 9, 1953, December 29, 1956, and June 10, 1957, all in box 31, A. Philip Randolph Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Long, First Class Citizenship, 48–50; press release, September 19, 1957, series III, box A113, NAACP Papers; Maxwell Rabb to Sherman Adams, October 11, 1957, box 732, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, January 28, 1958, box 2485, Alpha File, DDEL; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:26–27. 36. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Remarks at Meeting of Negro Leaders Sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association,” May 12, 1958, http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11055&st=&st1=#axzz1RLMfmXBa (accessed April 30, 2009); NYT, May 13, 1958; Jet, May 29, 1958; Ebony, April 1961. Prior to the event, White House aide Rocco Siciliano advised Eisenhower to avoid using the words patient and tolerance. Apparently unaware of why African Americans might

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 422

[ 422 ] not e s to page s 1 0 9 – 1 1 2

find those terms disturbing, the president frowned and replied, “Well, do you think I’m going to avoid good English words?” 37. Diary entry, May 13, 1958, box 2, Morrow Papers; Jackie Robinson to Dwight Eisenhower, May 13, 1958, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; NYT, May 31, 1958. 38. Long, First Class Citizenship, 57–58; Ebony, December 1962. 39. Martin Luther King Jr. to Dwight Eisenhower, May 29, 1958, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL; Jet, December 20, 1956; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:26–27, 423; Rocco Siciliano to Sherman Adams, June 10, 1958, box 42, Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management Papers, DDEL; Rocco Siciliano, “Even if Success in This Area Is Built on Sand,” in President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Civil Rights: Eyewitness Accounts by Terrence J. Roberts and Rocco C. Siciliano (Washington, D.C.: Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, 2000), 27; A. Philip Randolph et al. to Dwight Eisenhower, June 23, 1958, and memorandum, June 25, 1958, both in box 33, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; diary, entry, June 23, 1958, box 2, Morrow Papers; Lawson, Black Ballots, 221; Rocco Siciliano, memorandum for the files, June 24, 1958, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 40. Rocco Siciliano, memoranda for the files, June 24 and 25, 1958, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 41. Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:28, 426–428; Randolph et al. to Eisenhower, June 23, 1958; Siciliano memorandum, June 24, 1958. 42. Transcript of Abilene Conference, box 2, Additional Files, Brownell Papers; Jet, July 10, 1958; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 4:28–29. 43. Jet, November 21, March 13, April 24, and May 1, 1958; press release, Public Opinion News Service, May 28, 1958, box 38, Democratic National Committee Papers, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.; Christian Science Monitor, August 26, 1958; NYT, October 17, 1958; New York Post, November 5, 1958; U.S. News & World Report, November 15, 1957; Washington Daily News, October 14, 1958; Edward Carmines and James Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 70. 44. Diary entry, November 21, 1958, box 2, Morrow Papers; E. Frederic Morrow, Black Man in the White House (New York: Coward-McCann, 1963), 188–190; CQ, January 23, 1959. 45. Jet, April 30 and May 14, 1959; Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 203– 204. 46. Jacob Javits to Emmet Hughes, February 6, 1959, series V, subseries II, box 8, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 47. Jacob Javits, “Integration from the Top Down,” Esquire, December 1958, http://www.esquire.com/features/predicting-the-first-black-president-1258 (accessed May 12, 2011). 48. Time, December 1, 1958; Clifford Case and Jacob Javits to Republican Senate candidates, October 8, 1958, series IV, box 20, Wiley Papers; Roy Wilkins to Alexander Wiley, January 7, 1959, and Clinton Anderson to Alexander Wiley, January 7,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 423

notes to pages 112–115 [ 423 ]

1959, both in series IV, box 8, Wiley Papers; NYT, January 13, 1959; press release, January 15, 1959, series III, box A66, NAACP Papers. 49. CQ, January 1, 1960; Robert Mann, The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1996), 243; press release, January 13, 1959, series II, box 1001, Keating Papers; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, February 3, 1959, box 39, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; Dwight D. Eisenhower, “State of the Union Message,” January 9, 1959, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=11685 (accessed June 12, 2009). 50. Roy Wilkins to Richard Nixon, April 21, 1959, series III, box A239, NAACP Papers; memo, July 2, 1959, series 320, box 546, NP, LN. 51. Notes of meeting with Everett Dirksen, August 6, 1959, series III, box A69, NAACP Papers. 52. CQ, March 25, 1959, and January 1, 1960; NYT, March 12 and 19, 1959; press release, July 30, 1959, series III, box A73, NAACP Papers; Notes of Meeting with Senator Dirksen, August 6, 1959, series III, box A69, NAACP Papers; NYT, July 31, 1959; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, July 28 and August 25, 1959, both in box 3, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series, DDE Papers; Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 5, Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 267–268; NYT, August 26 and September 2, 1959; Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to Richard Nixon, September 3, 1959, series 320, box 820, NP, LN; memo to Richard Nixon, May 27, 1959, series 320, box 521, NP, LN; press release, September 8, 1959, series 11:2, Javits Papers; The Civil Rights Act of 1960, n.d., box 9, Legislative Files, Thruston Morton Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. 53. CR, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 18,581; remarks of Senator Thomas J. Dodd, February 15, 1960, box 61, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 247–249; NYT, January 14, 1960; memo for Ann Whitman, January 20, 1960, box 47, Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDE Papers; CQ, May 6, 1960; Paul Douglas, “Trends and Developments: The 1960 Voting Rights Bill,” Journal of Intergroup Relations 1 (Summer 1960): 83–84; Jet, February 11, 1960. 54. Minutes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, February 2, 1960, box 3, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series, DDE Papers; Daniel Berman, A Bill Becomes a Law: The Civil Rights Act of 1960 (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 46–49. 55. Byron Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 122; NYT, February 22, 1960. 56. CQ, May 6, 1960; NYT, March 9, 1960; Notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, March 8, 1960, box 3, Whitman Files, Legislative Meeting Series, DDE Papers; statement of Roy Wilkins, March 9, 1960, box 2, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Lawson, Black Ballots, 235–240. 57. NYT, March 15, 1960; CQ, May 6, 1960; NYT, January 25 and 28, 1960; Berman, A Bill Becomes a Law, 76. 58. Mann, Walls of Jericho, 260; press release, April 14, 1960, series III, box A73,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 424

[ 424 ] not e s to page s 1 1 5 – 1 2 0

NAACP Papers; CQ, May 6, 1960; Berman, A Bill Becomes a Law, 117; statement by Kenneth Keating, April 8, 1960, series II, box 1001, Keating Papers; Douglas, “Trends and Developments,” 82–86; Jet, April 28, 1960. 59. Jet, April 17, 1969. 60. Simeon Booker, Black Man’s America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 210. 61. Ibid.; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 277–278; Carl Rowan, Go South to Sorrow (New York: Random House, 1957), 244. 62. Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:267; William E. Leuchtenburg, “The White House and Black America: From Eisenhower to Carter,” in Have We Overcome? Race Relations since Brown, ed. Michael Namorato (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1979), 122; George C. Edwards III, The Strategic President: Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 1–17. 63. Charles Payne, “‘The Whole United States Is Southern!’ Brown v. Board and the Mystification of Race,” Journal of American History 91 (June 2004): 83–88. 64. Anthony Chen, The Fifth Freedom: Jobs, Politics, and Civil Rights in the United States, 1941–1972 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 70–87; Jet, May 21, 1959, March 17 and September 22, 1960; Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights, 110–127.

chapter 5. the gop, direct action, and racial policy, 1960–1963 1. Nick Bryant, The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 157–158, 188–193. 2. Crisis, December 1960; press release, January 17, 1961, series 2, box 578, Kenneth Keating Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 258–260. 3. Simeon Booker Oral History, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Mass.; New York Amsterdam News, January 30, 1960; Kansas City Call, January 7, 1960; NYT, June 21, 1960; New York Amsterdam News, January 30, 1958; Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 4, Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 482–483; David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: Vintage, 1986), 118–119; Jet, July 7, 1960; Jet, January 30, March 20 and 27, 1958; Rose Mary Woods to Richard Nixon, March 30, 1960, Richard Nixon to Jackie Robinson, April 13, 1960, and Jackie Robinson to Richard Nixon, May 11, 1960, all in series 320, box 649, NP, LN; Minutes of Meeting of the Republican National Committee, June 10, 1960, in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1987), reel 18, part 1, Minutes of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series A, 1911–1960; Jeremy Mayer, Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960–2000 (New York: Random House, 2002), 10–15; New York Post, May 23, 1960; Arnold Rampersad, Jackie Robinson: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1997), 323–345.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 425

notes to pages 120–122 [ 425 ]

4. Richard Nixon, The Challenges We Face (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), 182–185; WSJ, April 27, 1959; New Yorkers for Nixon and Lodge, n.d., box 51, National Republican Committee Series, Thruston Morton Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. 5. Birmingham News, January 7, 1960; John Temple Graves II to Richard Nixon, February 24, 1960, June 17, 1959, and January 28, March 4, 12, and 29, and May 21, 1960, all in series 320, box 301, NP, LN; Shreveport Times, June 10, 1960, Roanoke Times, June 16, 1960, Birmingham Post-Herald, March 31, 1960, Charleston News and Courier, June 13, 1960. 6. Richard Nixon to John Temple Graves II, February 5, 1960, memo, July 2, 1959, and Richard Nixon to John Temple Graves II, July 14, 1960, all in series 320, box 301, NP, LN. 7. Frank Gervasi, The Real Rockefeller: The Story of the Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of the Presidential Aspirations of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Atheneum, 1964), 232–238; Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 56–60; Laura Gifford, The Center Cannot Hold: The 1960 Presidential Election and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009), 38–44; W. J. Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon and the 1960 Election (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 95–109. 8. Gervasi, The Real Rockefeller, 232–233; Gifford, The Center Cannot Hold, 66– 67; A Civil Rights Program for the United States, June 17, 1960, series J.1, box 14, Nelson A. Rockefeller Personal Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; Jet, January 7, 1960; NYT, June 9 and 18, 1960; Jet, April 28, 1960; Karl Lamb, “Civil Rights and the Republican Platform: Nixon Achieves Control,” in Inside Politics: The National Conventions, 1960, ed. Paul Tillett (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1962), 57; Michael Kramer and Sam Roberts, “I Never Meant to Be Vice President of Anything”: An Investigative Biography of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 221–230. 9. James Desmond, Nelson Rockefeller: A Political Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 322–323; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 98. 10. Godfrey Hodgson, The World Turned Right Side Up (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996); Jonathan Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001); Mary Brennan, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995); George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Nancy MacLean, “Neoconfederacy versus the New Deal: The Regional Utopia of the Modern American Right” in The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, ed. Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 308–316. 11. Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) 9; Kimberly Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 118–120.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 426

[ 426 ] not e s to page s 1 2 3 – 1 2 6

12. Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1990), 24–31; CQ, September 20, 1963. 13. Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 34–89; Jet, February 27, 1964; Goldwater’s Good Deeds in Arizona, n.d., box 1, Graham Molitor Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; CQ, September 20, 1963; Goldwater, Conscience of a Conservative, 31; Jet, October 15, 1964; Chicago Defender, October 26, 1964; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 69– 76; Gifford, The Center Cannot Hold, 148–156. 14. WSJ, June 24, 1960. 15. Clayborne Carson, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 5, Threshold of a New Decade, January 1959–December 1960 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 467–469; Wilkins Reveals Rights Program to Be Submitted to Both Parties, July 1, 1960, series III, box A65, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jet, August 4, 1960; Richard Taylor, “Pressure Groups and the Democratic Platform: Kennedy in Control,” in Tillett, Inside Politics, 84–96. 16. Press release, July 21, 1960, series III, box A73, NAACP Papers. 17. NYT, July 10, 1960; Lamb, “Civil Rights and the Republican Platform,” 58– 67; Southerners Ask Breathing Spell of GOP, n.d., box 52, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 79–87; WP, July 21, 1960. 18. Jet, May 12, 1960; Hartford Courant, January 28, 1959; John Andrew, “The Struggle for the Republican Party in 1960,” Historian 59 (Spring 1997): 613–631. 19. Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 108–113; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 88–94; Kramer and Roberts, “I Never Meant to Be Vice President of Anything,” 230–233; WP, July 24, 1960; NYT, July 24, 1960. 20. Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:492–493; Roy Wilkins, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins (New York: Viking, 1982), 277; Paula Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph: Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 200–202; Jet, August 11, 1960; Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 321. 21. Kirk Porter and Donald Johnson, National Party Platforms, 1840–1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), 618–619; Lamb, “Civil Rights and the Republican Platform,” 76–82; NYT, July 25 and 26, 1960; Rights Plank as Far as South Can Go, July 26, 1960, and Dixie Wins Four GOP Victories, July 29, 1960, both in box 52, Workman Papers; WP, July 26, 1960; NYT, July 27, 1960; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 119–121; Ebony, November 1960; press release, July 28, 1960, series III, box A65, NAACP Papers; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, August 5, 1960, series III, box A205, NAACP Papers; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:33. 22. NYT, July 29, 1960; Jet, October 6, 1960; Acceptance Speech, n.d. box 25, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 115–116. 23. Joseph Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right: The Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008), 59; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 114; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 93–95.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 427

notes to pages 126–128 [ 427 ]

24. Jet, August 18 and 25, 1960; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 140–141; Dewey Grantham, The Life and Death of the Solid South: A Political History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 150; David Nichols, A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 259; David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 531–533. 25. Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 87th Cong., 1st sess., The Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences, and Study Papers of Vice President Richard M. Nixon, August 1 through November 7, 1960 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 48–51, 266–269, 400–403, 470–472, 970–972. 26. Robert Burk, The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 258; Emmett Buell and Lee Sigelman, Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Elections since 1960 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 153; Bruce Felknor, Dirty Politics (New York: Norton, 1966), 62–63. 27. Committee on Commerce, Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences, and Study Papers of Nixon, 321, 416, 424–427, 449, 465, 675; The Republican Party and Civil Rights, n.d., box 34, Workman Papers; Ebony, November 1960; NYT, October 6 and 7, 1960; Bryant, The Bystander, 168–169. Both parties used race to try to win the election. Republicans compiled a pamphlet with quotations from Eleanor Roosevelt and other liberal Democrats criticizing Kennedy’s civil rights record. They also trumpeted Eisenhower’s legacy: “The Republican Party is the party of Civil Rights,” the GOP boasted to African Americans. The Young Republicans called on Kennedy to “repudiate his White Supremacist Political Support.” During the final days of the campaign, South Carolina Democrats gave African American voters a picture of Nixon with James Byrnes. Aides to Adam Clayton Powell Jr. widely distributed handbills and posters saying that Nixon lived in a house with a racially restrictive covenant. Cornelius Cotter and Bernard Hennessy, Politics without Power: The National Party Committees (New York: Atherton, 1964), 158–159; The GOP Record of Progress, box 131, Leverett Saltonstall Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.; Mayer, Running on Race, 19, 25–29; Buell and Sigelman, Attack Politics, 153; Felknor, Dirty Politics, 62–63; Simeon Booker, Black Man’s America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 95; Robert Novak, The Agony of the GOP, 1964 (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 12. 28. Sidney Kraus, ed., The Great Debates: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 349–350, 373–375. 29. NYT, October 13, 1960; press release, October 12, 1960, box 30, Lodge Papers; NYT, October 14, 15, and 17, 1960; WP, October 17 and 19, 1960; James H. Meriwether, “‘Worth a Lot of Negro Votes’: Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign,” Journal of American History 95 (December 2008): 741; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 165–166; Mayer, Running on Race, 28–32; Gifford, The Center Cannot Hold, 161; Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1960 (New York: Atheneum, 1961), 297; Bryant, The Bystander, 175; Robertson, Sly and Able, 534–535; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:551; CBS News, Face the Nation, 1960–1961: The Collected Transcripts from the CBS Radio and Television Broadcasts (New York: Holt Information Systems, 1972), 337– 338; NYT, October 7, 1960; press release, October 7, 1960, box 30, Lodge Papers.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 428

[ 428 ] not e s to page s 1 2 8 – 1 3 1

30. Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:39–40, 535–539; Bryant, The Bystander, 183–185. 31. Gordon Carey to Richard Nixon, October 20, 1960, PPS 320.107.26.3; Raphael Dubard to Richard Nixon, October 26, 1960, PPS 320.107.28.2. 32. Russell Riley, The Presidency and the Politics of Racial Inequality: NationKeeping from 1831 to 1965 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 203; NYT, October 27, 1960; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:39; E. Frederic Morrow, Black Man in the White House (New York: Coward-McCann, 1963), 213; Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 349–351; Bryant, The Bystander, 183–185; Michael Long, ed., First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 117; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 137; Carey to Nixon, October 20, 1960; Nichols, Matter of Justice, 259–260; draft of statement by Lawrence Walsh, October 31, 1960, box 731, Official Files, WHCF, DDEL. 33. Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 351; New York Courier, November 16, 1960; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:39–40, 535–539; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 145. 34. Bryant, The Bystander, 183–185; Carson, Papers of Martin Luther King, 5:40, 538–539; The Republican Party and Civil Rights, n.d., box 34, Workman Papers; Committee on Commerce, Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences, and Study Papers of Nixon, 1096–1097, 1114–1115. 35. Committee on Commerce, Speeches, Remarks, Press Conferences, and Study Papers of Nixon, 970–972; Statement of Vice President upon Arrival in South Carolina, November 3, 1960, box 38, Workman Papers; Gifford, The Center Cannot Hold, 161–165; Robertson, Sly and Able, 533. 36. Public Opinion News Service, December 9, 1960, box 38, Democratic National Committee Papers, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.; Minutes of the Republican National Committee, January 6, 1961, box 45, Republican National Committee Series, Morton Papers; Negro Vote Overwhelmingly Democratic in ’60 Election, December 8, 1960, series I, box 421, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; RNC Research Staff, “The 1960 Elections—A Summary Report with Supporting Tables,” April 1961, box 16, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Mayer, Running on Race, 36, Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 202; NYT, March 11, 1961; New Republic, November 21, 1960; Republican Advance, July 25 1963; Bryant, The Bystander, 187; William Workman column for December 4, 1960, box 33, Workman Papers; Wayne Greenhaw, Elephants in the Cottonfields: Ronald Reagan and the New Republican South (New York: Macmillan, 1982), 54. 37. Morrow, Black Man in the White House, 214. 38. Meriwether, “‘Worth a Lot of Negro Votes,’” 740–753; Ebony, April 1962; Crisis, January 1961; Ebony, December 1962; RNC press release, January 1961, series 320, box 533, NP, LN; diary entry, November 10, 1960, box 2, E. Frederic Morrow Papers, DDEL; Ebony, April 1961; Long, First Class Citizenship, 114, 118; Elliott Turnage to W. D. Workman, November 17, 1960, box 33, Workman Papers; Young

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 429

notes to pages 131–135 [ 429 ]

Republican News, March/April 1961, box 649, NP, LN; Bryant, The Bystander, 164–166. 39. Crisis, January 1961; NYT, March 11, 1961; Time, November 21, 1960; Charles Hirschman, “Minorities in the Labor Market: Cyclical Patterns and Secular Trends in Joblessness,” in Divided Opportunities: Minorities, Poverty, and Social Policy, ed. Gary D. Sandefur and Marta Tienda (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1988), 66. 40. White, Making of the President, 359–360; Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President, 122–139; 180–182; Bernard Cosman, “Presidential Republicanism in the South, 1960,” Journal of Politics 24 (May 1962): 303–306; RNC Research Staff, “The 1960 Elections—A Summary Report with Supporting Tables”; Donald Mathews and James Prothro, Negroes and the New Southern Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1966), 369; Donald Strong, “Further Reflections on Southern Politics,” Journal of Politics 33 (May 1971): 241. 41. Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 92; Samuel Cook, “Political Movements and Organizations,” Journal of Politics 26 (February 1964): 149; Philip Klinkner, The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956–1993 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 49; “The 1960 Elections—A Summary Report with Supporting Tables,” August 1961, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 2, part 2, Reports and Memoranda of the Research Division of the Republican National Committee, 1928–1980. 42. Edward Carmines and Robert Huckfeldt, “Party Politics in the Wake of the Voting Rights Act,” in Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective, ed. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution 1992), 123; Michael Fauntroy, Republicans and the Black Vote (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 56. 43. Mayer, Running on Race, 8, 37. 44. Bryce Harlow memorandum, December 28, 1960, box 55, Ann Whitman Files, DDE Diary Series, DDEL. 45. Clifford Case, Jacob Javits et al. to Alexander Wiley, October 20, 1960, series 4, box 7, Alexander Wiley Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; WP, January 12, 1961; Herman Edelsberg and David Brody, “Civil Rights in the 87th Congress, 1st Session,” box 10, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Bryant, The Bystander, 204–207; CR, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 855–856, 875, 2654, 3443, 3783, 7340; press release, January 17, 1961, Senatorial Series II Files, box 597, John Sherman Cooper Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.; press release, May 4, 1961, series 9, box 19, Keating Papers; press release, April 10, 1961, series II, box 999, Keating Papers; press release, May 4, 1961, series III, box A69, NAACP Papers; Louis Martin to Ted Sorensen, May 10, 1961, box 30, Ted Sorensen Papers, Kennedy Library. 46. Statement of Roy Wilkins, May 10, 1961, series III, box A72, NAACP Papers; Bryant, The Bystander, 262–282. 47. Bryant, The Bystander, 262–282. 48. CR, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 8498, 8506–8510, 8568–8569, 8648, 8712, 8917; press release, May 26, 1961, Senatorial Series II Files, box 597, Cooper Papers; NYT, May

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 430

[ 430 ] not e s to page s 1 3 5 – 1 4 0

23, 24, and 26, 1961; CQ: Revolution in Civil Rights (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1965), 37; Raymond Arsenault, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 277, 280; George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972), 1723; Jacob Javits to Robert Kennedy, May 15, 1961, series 11:1, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 49. NYT, May 23, 1961; Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 87th Congress, 1st Session”; CR, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 17,513–17,522; NYT, August 1, 1961. 50. Herman Edelsberg and David Brody, “Civil Rights in the 87th Congress, 2nd Session,” January 1, 1963, box 10, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Bryant, The Bystander, 297–305; press release, March 20, 1962, series 9, box 24, Keating Papers; press release, March 19, 1962, series II, box 547, Cooper Papers. 51. Lawson, Black Ballots, 263–293; Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 87th Congress, 2nd Session”; press release, April 30, 1962, Everett Dirksen Papers, Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, Ill.; remarks by Everett Dirksen, May 2, 1962, Working Papers F.234, Dirksen Papers; CR, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 8054–8055, 8293; New York Herald Tribune, May 15, 1962; WP, May 15, 1962. 52. Bryant, The Bystander, 225–226, 299–302; NYT, February 21 and 22, 1962. 53. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008), 256–263; Matthew Kessler, “Economic Status of Nonwhite Workers, 1955–1962,” Monthly Labor Review 86 (July 1963): 780–788; Jet, March 8, 1962; Time, August 30, 1963. 54. CR, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 17,513–17,522. 55. CR, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 15,128–15,129; press release, October 1962, series 9, box 28, Keating Papers. 56. CR, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 2348–2350. 57. Ibid. 58. Jet, February 22, 1962; CR, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 2348–2350; WP, February 21, 1962. 59. Branch, Parting the Waters, 601–632; Bryant, The Bystander, 320–324; press release, August 1, 1962, box 10, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; NYT, July 11, 28, and 29, August 3 and 4, 1962; Martin Luther King Jr. and Wyatt Tee Walker to Jacob Javits, August 29, 1962, and Jacob Javits to Robert Kennedy, August 30, 1962, both in series 11:1, Javits Papers; Mobile Register, August 31, 1962; NYT, September 15, 1962. 60. Charles Eagles, The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 282–284, 299–318, 350–372. 61. Bryant, The Bystander, 329–356; Branch, Parting the Waters, 671–672. 62. CR, 87th Cong., 2nd sess., 20,780, 21,023, 21,033–21,035; NYT, September 27, 28, and 30, October 2, 1962; Barry Goldwater to Eugene Martin, October 13, 1962, box 4, Denison Kitchell Papers, Herbert Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; Barry Goldwater to the Editor of the Arizona Republic, November 8, 1962, box 2, Kitchell Papers; Denver Post, October 5, 1962; CQ, September 20, 1963, 1639.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 431

notes to pages 140–143 [ 431 ]

63. Bryant, The Bystander, 288–289; press release, October 1, 1961, series 2, box 1004, Keating Papers; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report—Housing (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report— Employment (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report—Voting (Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1961); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report—Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1961 Commission on Civil Rights Report—Justice (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961); Crisis, October 1962, 449. 64. Herald Tribune News Services clipping, January 23, 1963, box 32, Workman Papers; Herman Edelsberg and David Brody, “Civil Rights in the 88th Congress, First Session,” box 11, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 65. Press release, January 31, 1963, series 4.1, box 2, Charles Mc. Mathias Papers, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; Advance, July 25, 1963, box 10, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; press release, February 28, 1963, series 2, box 1002, Keating Papers; press release, March 28, 1963, box 468, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; press release, March 28, 1963, box 74, Scott Papers; NYT, March 29, 1963; Bryant, The Bystander, 367–377. 66. Branch, Parting the Waters, 708–711. 67. Ibid., 737–745, 756–802; CR, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 8293–8294. 68. Bryant, The Bystander, 390–392. 69. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 290–305; CR, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 10,162; Charles Whalen and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Cabin John, Md.: Seven Locks Press, 1985), xix; Bryant, The Bystander, 1–4; Gene Roberts and Hank Kilbanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (New York: Knopf, 2006), 306–324. 70. Washington Star, June 5, 1963; statement of Senator John Sherman Cooper, May 23, 1963, box 885, Statement Series Files, Cooper Papers; press release, June 3, 1963, box 145.B.14.4f, Clark MacGregor Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; CQ, May 31, 1963. 71. Statement of the Senate Republican Conference, June 5, 1963, box 9, Legislative Files, Morton Papers; WP, June 6, 1963; New York Post, June 6, 1963; CR, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 8125–8126, 8214–8215, 8293–8249, 9336–9338, 9501–9502, 9619– 9620, 9702–9703, 9710–9711, 9976, 10,160–10,162; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 8337; Bryant, The Bystander, 387–410; Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 93; David Filvaroff and Raymond Wolfinger, “The Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” in Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 11; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 16–18. 72. Branch, Parting the Waters, 824–827; John F. Kennedy, “Radio and Televised Report to the American People on Civil Rights,” June 11, 1963, http://www.presi

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 432

[ 432 ] not e s to page s 1 4 3 – 1 4 7

dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9271&st=&st1=#axzz1SUgckvMN (accessed July 18, 2011). 73. Jet, June 27 and July 4, 1963. 74. Bryant, The Bystander, 407–428; Jonathan Rosenberg and Zachary Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice: The Civil Rights Tapes (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 114–116, 130–133; 1964 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1965). 75. Baltimore Sun, June 25, 1963; John G. Stewart, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Strategy,” in The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law that Ended Racial Segregation, ed. Robert D. Loevy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 170–173; Stephen Wrinn, Civil Rights in the Whitest State: Vermont’s Perception of Civil Rights, 1945–1968 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998), 31; WP, June 20, 1963. 76. Washington Star, June 16, 1963; Byron Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 175–176; CQ, June 21, 1963. 77. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1823; Gary Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 89–90; Roberts and Kilbanoff, Race Beat, 319–324; Filvaroff and Wolfinger, “Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” 16–18; Daniel B. Rodriguez and Barry R. Weingast, “The Positive Political Theory of Legislative History: New Perspectives on the 1964 Civil Right Act and Its Interpretation,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (April 2003): 1452–1455. 78. Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 7–10; Filvaroff and Wolfinger, “Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” 17–18; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Oral History, LBJ Library; U.S. News & World Report, August 10, 1964; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 122–129. 79. Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 14; Bryant, The Bystander, 428–429; Clarence Mitchell to Thomas Kuchel, June 4, 1963, box 468, Kuchel Papers; WP, July 1 and 2, 1963. 80. Press release, August 14, 1963, series 2, box 998, Keating Papers; press release, August 6, 1963, series 9, box 34, Keating Papers; Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1963; New York Herald Tribune, July 8, 1963; Jet, August 8, 1963; Washington Star, August 22, 1963; Gallup poll, n.d., box 179, WHCF—Aides Files, Fred Panzer, LBJ Library. 81. Bryant, The Bystander, 1–4; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 254–312; Jet, April 4, July 11 and 25, 1963. 82. Jet, July 11, 1963; Stacy Sewell, “The ‘Not Buying Power’ of the Black Community: Urban Boycotts and Equal Economic Opportunity, 1960–1964,” Journal of African American History 89 (Spring 2004): 136–142; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 273–274; Jet, July 25, 1963; Jennifer Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 1940–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 7–24, 190–193; Jet, August 8, 1963; Time, August 30, 1963. 83. Jet, August 29, 1963; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights U.S.A.: Public Schools North and West, 1962 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 433

notes to pages 147–154 [ 433 ]

Office, 1962); Jet, September 5, 1963; Kenneth Cmiel, “The Politics of Civility,” in The Sixties: From Memory to History, ed. David Farber (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 264–268; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 296–310; Time, August 30, 1963; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 2783; Jet, July 11, 1963. 84. Branch, Parting the Waters, 872–887; Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1836; CQ, August 30, 1963; Jet, September 12, 1963. 85. Jet, September 26, 1963; CQ, August 30, 1963; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 180; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 27. 86. Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 88th Congress, First Session”; Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, 177–179, 188– 192, 238; Filvaroff and Wolfinger, “Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” 18–20; CQ, November 1, 1963. 87. CQ July 26, 1963; Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, 192–193; Edelsberg and Brody, “Civil Rights in the 88th Congress, First Session”; John Stewart, “The Senate and Civil Rights,” in Loevy, Civil Rights Act of 1964, 157–160; Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 177–193; Anthony Chen, The Fifth Freedom: Jobs, Politics, and Civil Rights in the United States, 1941– 1972 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 187. 88. CQ, July 19 and 26, 1963; New Republic, November 9, 1963. 89. New Republic, November 9, 1963. 90. Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 33; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights U.S.A.: Public Schools North and West, 1962, 1–8, 29–97; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 163–199; Matthew D. Lassiter, “De Jure/de Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in Lassiter and Crespino, The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, 25–31; NYT, December 2, 1962. 91. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights U.S.A.: Public Schools North and West, 1962, 29–97; James Bolner and Robert Shanley, Busing: The Political and Judicial Process (New York: Praeger, 1974), 135. 92. CQ, November 1, 1963; Memo to Branch and Youth Officers, series III, box A67, NAACP Papers; Jet, December 5, 1963, and January 2, 1964. 93. CQ, September 20, 1963; Jet, September 12, 1963; WP, October 20, 1963; Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1828, 1838, 1840, 1844, 1852; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 2259; Bolner and Shanley, Busing, 135. 94. Filvaroff and Wolfinger, “Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” 20–21; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 67. 95. Jet, December 12, 1963. 96. Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, 198– 223; Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 40; Lawrence O’Brien Oral History V, LBJ Library; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 84–86; CQ, February 7, 1964.

chapter 6. the 1964 civil rights act 1. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 2541–2542. 2. Ibid., 1645–1646, 2560, 2756–2757; Jennifer Delton, Racial Integration in Cor-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 434

[ 434 ] not e s to page s 1 5 4 – 1 5 9

porate America, 1940–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 156– 157. 3. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Additional Views on H.R. 7152, December 2, 1963 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), 26–32. 4. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 1601–1603, 2541–2542, 2715. 5. Additional Views on H.R. 7152, 26–32. 6. Ibid.; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 1635–1636; Herbert Hill, “Twenty Years of State Fair Employment Practices Commissions: A Critical Analysis with Recommendations,” Buffalo Law Review 13 (Autumn 1964): 22–67. 7. Additional Views on H.R. 7152, 21–22. 8. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 1598; Matthew D. Lassiter, “De Jure/de Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, ed. Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 33–34. 9. CQ, February 14 and 21, 1964; Roy Wilkins, “Now for the Big Question,” February 22, 1964, box 37, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 2763. 10. CQ, February 21, 1964. 11. Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Lawrence O’Brien, March 9, 1964, box 21, WHCF, Aides Files—Harry McPherson, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.; Daniel B. Rodriguez and Barry R. Weingast, “The Positive Political Theory of Legislative History: New Perspectives on the 1964 Civil Right Act and Its Interpretation,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (April 2003): 1462–1463; Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 113; Anthony Chen, The Fifth Freedom: Jobs, Politics, and Civil Rights in the United States, 1941–1972 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), 183–184; David Filvaroff and Raymond Wolfinger, “The Origins and Enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” in Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 22; New Republic, February 29, 1964. 12. Charles Whalen and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Cabin John, Md.: Seven Locks Press, 1985), 155–156; CQ, May 15, 1964; press conference transcript, February 20, 1964, Congressional Leadership Series, and Dirksen notes, Working Papers F.205 and F.256, all in Everett Dirksen Papers, Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, Ill. 13. Dirksen notes, Working Papers F.205 and F.256. 14. NYT, November 24, 1994; John G. Stewart, “The 1964 Civil Rights Act: Strategy,” in The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law that Ended Racial Segregation, ed. Robert D. Loevy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 184–192. 15. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 5858, 6776–6777, 6840–6841; CQ, February 28 and March 27, 1964; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, March 31, 1964, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Kotz, Judgment Days, 131; Stephen Horn, “Periodic Log Maintained during the Discus-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 435

notes to pages 159–162 [ 435 ]

sions Concerning the Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” February 28, March 17, and April 7, 1964, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Horn Log); Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 145–146; Time, March 27, 1964; CQ, March 20, 1964; Roy Wilkins to Branch Presidents, March 20, 1964, series III, box A67, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; press release, April 23, 1964, series 9, box 43, Kenneth Keating Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.; CQ, May 1, 1964. 16. Transcript of press conference, February 20, 1964, Congressional Leadership Series, Dirksen Papers; Hubert Humphrey Oral History, LBJ Library; Horn Log, February 28, 1964; CQ, April 17 and 24, 1964; Time, May 1, 1964; Joint Statement by Senators Humphrey and Kuchel, April 14, 1964, box 76, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Jet, September 5 and 26, 1963; Stacy Sewell, “The ‘Not Buying Power’ of the Black Community: Urban Boycotts and Equal Economic Opportunity, 1960–1964,” Journal of African American History 89 (Spring 2004): 142–144. 17. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 5858–5859, 6210–6213; amicus curiae brief of William C. Cramer in James E. Wann et al. v. Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education, n.d., William Cramer Files, University of Tampa, Tampa, Fla.; NYT, March 22, 1964; Jet, March 26 and April 2, 1964. 18. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 6560, 8456, 10,767, 12,683, 12,717, 14,292–14,293. 19. Ibid., 5859–5860, 6840–6841; J. Harvie Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954–1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 80–82. 20. U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, The Equal Employment Opportunity Act, 88th Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), 47–53. 21. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 7773–7776, 8169, 9025–9034. 22. Jet, March 12, 1964; Herbert Hill, “The Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972: A Critical Analysis of the Legislative History and Administration of the Law,” Industrial Relations Law Journal 2 (Spring 1977): 12–13; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 5662–5664, 7246–7247; Michael Brown, Martin Carnoy, Elliott Currie, Troy Duster, David Oppenhemier, Marjorie M. Shultz, and David Wellman, Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 171–172; Rodriguez and Weingast, “Positive Political Theory of Legislative History,” 1505. 23. Horn Log, April 13, 1964; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 7246–7247, 7253; press release, April 8, 1964, box 124, Clifford Case Papers, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.; AFL-CIO Legislative Department, Senate Discussion of Quota Hiring, Preference Hiring, and Seniority, April 23, 1964, box 120, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 24. CQ, April 17, 1964; Chen, Fifth Freedom, 189–190; Thomas Harris to Andrew Biemiller, April 16, 1964, box 241, Senate Files, Hubert H. Humphrey Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn. 25. Byron Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 189–190;

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 436

[ 436 ] not e s to page s 1 6 2 – 1 6 5

Kotz, Judgment Days, 135; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 170; Chicago Defender, April 20, 1964. 26. Horn Log, April 21, 1964; WSJ, April 10, 1964; Horn Log, April 16, 1964; John G. Stewart, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Tactics I,” in Loevy, Civil Rights Act of 1964, 248–249. 27. Clarence Mitchell to Roy Wilkins, April 10, 1964, series III, box A72, NAACP Papers; Thomas Harris to Andrew Biemiller, April 9 and 16, 1964, box 241, Senate Files, Humphrey Papers; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, April 13, 1964, box 42, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; Jet, April 2, 1964. 28. Stewart, “Civil Rights Act of 1964: Tactics I,” 250; Kotz, Judgment Days, 138– 139; Harris to Biemiller, April 16, 1964; Horn Log, April 9, 16, and 21 and May 7, 1964; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, April 20, 1964, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Chicago Defender, April 22, 1964; John Stewart Diary, April 21 and 29, 1964, box 241, Senate Files, Humphrey Papers; Horn Log, April 22, 1964. 29. Jonathan Rosenberg and Zachary Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice: The Civil Rights Tapes (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 306–311; Rodriguez and Weingast, “Positive Political Theory of Legislative History,” 1488–1494; CQ, May 15, 1964; Hill, “Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972,” 6–8; Arthur Bonfield, “The Origin and Development of American Fair Employment Legislation,” Iowa Law Review 52 (June 1967): 1085–1086; New Republic, June 6, 1964; Committee of Concerned Citizens Lobbying for HR 7152, April 1964, box 12, Legislative Files, Americans for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Robert Mann, The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1996), 420; Stewart Diary, May 13, 1964, box 241, Humphrey Papers; Horn Log, May 14, 1964. 30. Rodriguez and Weingast, “Positive Political Theory of Legislative History,” 1488–1494. 31. CQ, May 15, 1964; Stewart Diary, April 30 and May 6, 1964, box 241, Senate Files, Humphrey Papers; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 187. 32. Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 301; Horn Log, May 7, 1964; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 190; Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 202–216. 33. Horn Log, May 8, 1964; CQ, May 15, 1964; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 301; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 190, 275. 34. CQ, May 15 and 22, 1964; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 196; Keith Finley, Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 259; CQ, May 29, 1964; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 190–191; Kotz, Judgment Days, 150; Roy Wilkins to Hubert Humphrey, June 8, 1964, series III, box A67, NAACP Papers; John G. Stewart, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: Tactics II,” in Loevy, Civil Rights Act of 1964, 281–294; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 12,681, 13,087; WP, June 10, 1964.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 437

notes to pages 166–170 [ 437 ]

35. Don Oberdorfer, Senator Mansfield: The Life and Times of a Great Statesman and Diplomat (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), 235; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 13,319–13,320; CQ, June 12, 1964; Stewart, “Civil Rights Act of 1964: Tactics II,” 295–305; Cleveland Plain-Dealer, June 11, 1964; Chicago Defender, June 22 1964; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 201; Chicago Defender, April 22 1964; Roy Wilkins to Everett Dirksen, June 12, 1964, series III, box A67, NAACP Papers. 36. CQ, June 19 and 26, 1964; bipartisan civil rights newsletter, June 19, 1964, series 11:15, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 37. NYT, June 20, 1964; Baltimore Sun, June 20, 1964; Newsweek, June 29, 1964; Baltimore Sun, July 3, 1964; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 219–228; William Leuchtenburg, The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 325. 38. CQ, June 26, 1964; Chicago Defender, June 22, 1964. 39. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” http://www.africa .upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html (accessed March 2, 2010); Randall Kennedy, “The Struggle for Racial Equality in Public Accommodations,” in Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, ed. Bernard Grofman (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000), 156–163; Hugh Graham, “Since 1865: The South and Civil Rights,” in The South as an American Problem, ed. Larry J. Griffin and Don H. Doyle (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 149. 40. Hugh Graham, “The Civil Rights Act and the American Regulatory State,” in Grofman, Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 43–64; Paul Burstein, “The Impact of EEO Law: A Social Movement Perspective,” in ibid., 129–155; Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 207–212. 41. Gary Orfield, “The 1964 Civil Rights Act and American Education,” in Grofman, Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 89–128; Gareth Davies, See Government Grow: Education Politics from Johnson to Reagan (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 42. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 14,292–14,293; Rodriguez and Weingast, “Positive Political Theory of Legislative History,” 1486–1494. 43. Stephen L. Wasby, “Litigation and Lobbying as Complementary Strategies for Civil Rights,” in Grofman, Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 65–68. 44. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 1635, 2763, 14,484; Additional Views on H.R. 7152, 11–12, 30–32. 45. CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 1602–1603; James Findlay, “Religion and Politics in the Sixties: The Churches and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Journal of American History 77 (June 1990): 77–78; Lawrence O’Brien Oral History V, LBJ Library; CQ, February 14 and 21, 1964; Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 204–223. 46. Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 108–111; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 2756–2757; Rodriguez and Weingast, “Positive Political Theory of Legislative History,” 1417–1430. 47. NYT, June 16, 1964; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, 213.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 438

[ 438 ] not e s to page s 1 7 1 – 1 7 4

chapter 7. race and republican politics, 1961–1964 1. Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 363–364; Newsweek, June 29, 1964; Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 196–197; CQ, June 26, 1964; CR, 88th Cong., 2nd sess., 14,300, 14,311. 2. Report of the Committee on Big City Politics, January 2, 1962, box 17, Ray Bliss Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; NYT, January 13, 1962; Jet, March 30 and February 16, 1961; Philip Klinkner, The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956–1993 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 45. 3. Report of the Committee on Big City Politics. 4. NYT, March 18, 1961, and January 13, 1962; Karl Lamb, “Under One Roof: Barry Goldwater’s Campaign Staff,” in Republican Politics: The 1964 Campaign and Its Aftermath for the Party, ed. Bernard Cosmand and Robert Huckshorn (New York: Praeger, 1968), 13–14; Jet, March 30, January 26, and May 25, 1961; Leah Wright, “The Loneliness of the Black Conservative: Black Republicans and the Grand Old Party, 1964–1980” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2009), 50. 5. New York Herald Tribune, February 28, 1961; Jet, March 30, 1961; WP, November 26, 1961; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 44–50, 134. 6. Jet, September 3, 1964; CQ, November 24, 1961; New York Herald Tribune, November 26, 1961; George Hinman to Nelson Rockefeller, December 11, 1961, series 4, box 93, Nelson A. Rockefeller Personal Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; NYT, November 19, 1961; WP, November 26, 1961; Stephen Hess and David Broder, The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP (New York: Harper, 1967), 337–340. 7. CQ, November 24, 1961. 8. New York Herald Tribune, November 26, 1961; Wright, “Loneliness of the Black Conservative,” 52; Jackie Robinson to Richard Nixon, December 8, 1961, series 320, box 649, NP, LN; Michael Long, ed., First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 140; Ebony, April 1962; Jet, May 25, 1961; Long, First Class Citizenship, 130–132. 9. Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 90; Donald R. Mathews and James W. Prothro, “Southern Images of Political Parties: An Analysis of White and Negro Attitudes,” Journal of Politics 26 (February 1964): 97, 109–110; Joseph Aistrup, The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 21–23. 10. Black and Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 40–71. 11. Lamb, “Under One Roof,” 14–15; NYT, June 11, 1957; Klinkner, Losing Parties, 51; Ocala Star-Banner, September 6, 1962; Aistrup, Southern Strategy Revisited, 26; Ripon Society, “Election ’64: A Ripon Society Report,” box 7, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction: A Republican Rebirth (New York: Pocket Books, 1966), 31; Richmond Times Dispatch, October 15, 1957.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 439

notes to pages 175–179 [ 439 ]

12. U.S. News & World Report, December 11, 1961; Aistrup, Southern Strategy Revisited, 72; Meade Alcorn Oral History, DDEL. 13. Jet, June 22, 1961; NYT, July 1, 1962; Jet, July 19, 1962; Wright, “Loneliness of the Black Conservative,” 50. 14. Klinkner, Losing Parties, 53–61; Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction, 30; Advance, July 25, 1963; Goldwater Forces Hold the Upper Hand, n.d., record group 4, box 20, George Hinman Files, Rockefeller Personal Papers. 15. Klinkner, Losing Parties, 60–65; Eugene Register-Guard, October 8, 1963; address by John J. Calhoun, June 12, 1962, and address by Grant Reynolds, June 12, 1962, both in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1986), reel 2, part 1, Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series B, 1960–1980; George Gilder and Bruce Chapman, The Party That Lost Its Head (New York: Knopf, 1966), 61; Ripon Society, “Election ’64,” 18; Jet, January 24, 1963. 16. National Review, February 12, 1963; Harper’s, May 1963; Time, November 16, 1962; Reporter, December 20, 1962; Advance, July 25, 1963; Klinkner, Losing Parties, 55–57; Joseph Lowndes, From the New Deal to the New Right: The Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008), 64; Columbia Record, January 11, 1963; David Reinhard, The Republican Right since 1945 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), 168; Barry Goldwater, “The GOP Invades the South,” n.d., box 4, Denison Kitchell Papers, Herbert Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; National Review, February 12, 1963. 17. NYT, November 8, 21, and 26, 1962; 1962; Lamb, “Under One Roof,” 16; NYT, December 1, 1962; New York Herald Tribune, December 1, 1962; Jet, January 3, 1963. 18. National Review, February 12 and April 9, 1963. 19. NYT, May 2, 1963; National Review, February 12, 1963. 20. Goldwater, “The GOP Invades the South.” 21. Roy Wilkins, “Reluctant Republicans,” December 1, 1962, box 37, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Republican National Committee, “The 1962 Elections,” n.d., record group 4, series J.2, box 96, Rockefeller Personal Papers; Success in Winning the Negro Vote, n.d., box 73, Workman Papers; speech by W. D. Workman, December 1, 1961, and Keynote Address by William D. Workman Jr. at Republican State Convention, May 26, 1962, both in box 5, Workman Papers; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 169. 22. Glenn Feldman, “Race, Emotion, and the Rise of the Modern Republican Party in Alabama and the South,” in Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 282; Walter Dean Burnham, “The Alabama Senatorial Election of 1962: Return of Inter-Party Competition,” Journal of Politics 26 (November 1964): 809–819; Donald Strong, “Alabama: Transition and Alienation,” in The Changing Politics of the South, ed. William C. Harvard (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 437–439; Klinkner, Losing Parties, 58. 23. Robert Novak, The Agony of the GOP, 1964 (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 177–200; WP, June 26, 1963; press conference of William E. Miller, August 5, 1963, in

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 440

[ 440 ] not e s to page s 1 7 9 – 1 8 4

Papers of the Republican Party, reel 3, part 1, Meetings of the Republican National Committee, 1911–19080, series B, 1960–1980; Jet, August 1, 1963. 24. Jet, October 3 and November 14, 1963. 25. Newsweek, July 29, 1963. 26. Ibid. 27. Perlstein, Before the Storm, 174–194; Paul Tillett, “The National Conventions,” in The National Election of 1964, ed. Milton Cummings Jr. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1966), 18; Lamb, “Under One Roof,” 16–17; NYT, August 26, June 30, and July 8, 1963; Robert David Johnson, All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 14–15; Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), 176. 28. WP, July 12, 1963; Michael Kramer and Sam Roberts, “I Never Meant to Be Vice President of Anything”: An Investigative Biography of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 245, 269–277; Raymond Arsenault, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 336, 582; NYT, September 13, 1962; Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 488–489; NYT, June 13, 1961, and July 28, 1962; Nick Bryant, The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 391; Jet, December 27, 1962; Nelson Rockefeller, “Promise and Performance on Civil Rights,” March 5, 1963, series J.1, box 14, Rockefeller Personal Papers; Jet, March 22, 1962; NYT, October 7, 1962; Statements and Record of Nelson A. Rockefeller, January 1, 1964, record group 4, box 56, Hinman Files, Rockefeller Personal Papers; U.S. News & World Report, April 29, 1963. 29. Nelson Rockefeller, “A Matter of Principle,” July 14, 1963, series J.1, box 14, Rockefeller Personal Papers; Novak, Agony of the GOP, 209–215; Kramer and Roberts, “I Never Meant to Be Vice President of Anything,” 277. 30. Cincinnati Enquirer, October 21, 1963; Jet, January 30, 1964. 31. Newsweek, October 21, 1963. 32. Ibid. 33. New York Herald Tribune, August 23, 1963; CQ, November 15, 1963. 34. Jere Nash and Andy Taggart, Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976– 2006 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 48; Novak, Agony of the GOP, 177–200; Joseph A. Sinsheimer, “The Freedom Vote of 1963: New Strategies of Racial Protest in Mississippi,” Journal of Southern History 55 (May 1989): 218, 240–242; Gilder and Chapman, Party That Lost Its Head, 63; Klinkner, Losing Parties, 59; Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 89–91; Erle Johnston, Politics: Mississippi Style (Forest, Miss.: Lake Harbor Publishers, 1993), 150–166. 35. NYT, November 10, 1963; Newsweek, November 18, 1963; Donald Kinder and Lynn Sanders, Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 199. 36. WP, November 10, 1963; Newsweek, November 18, 1963. 37. Newsweek, October 21, 1963; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 214; Kimberly

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 441

notes to pages 184–189 [ 441 ]

Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 133–134; Michael Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 32; New Republic, November 23, 1963; Robert MacNeil to William McAndrew, October 14, 1963, box 11, Robert MacNeil Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 38. NYT, November 7, 1963; Newsweek, November 18, 1963. 39. Newsweek, November 18, 1963; U.S. News & World Report, November 18 and 25, 1963. 40. Gary Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah: The Presidential Campaign of 1964 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2003), 62–64; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 33–34; Timothy Sullivan, New York State and the Rise of Modern Conservatism: Redrawing Party Lines (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), 6–13. 41. Perlstein, Before the Storm, 110–118, 268–298. 42. NYT, March 1, 1964; Flamm, Law and Order, 19–33; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 310–332; Jeremy Mayer, Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960–2000 (New York: Random House, 2002), 55; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 115, Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 197. 43. Perlstein, Before the Storm, 338–355; Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), 132–138; Novak, Agony of the GOP, 400–415. 44. Afro-American, May 16, 1964; Jet, July 2, 1964; Washington Evening Star, May 15, 1964. 45. Jet, April 2, 1964; Washington Evening Star, May 15, 1964; Charles Willis to Leslie Duvall, August 14, 1964, box 26, Bliss Papers; Jet, July 16, 1964. 46. Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 305; Sondra Kathryn Wilson, ed., In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins (1920–1977) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 333–334; Crisis, January 1965; Saturday Evening Post, August 10, 1963. 47. Jet, July 16 and 30, 1964. 48. George D. Wolf, William Warren Scranton: Pennsylvania Statesman (University Park: Pennsylvania State Press, 1981), 88–115; press release, July 5, 1964, record group 4, series J.1, box 8, Rockefeller Personal Papers; Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 75, 138; Reinhard, Republican Right since 1945, 190–191; Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 198–199; A Declaration of Principles, June 15, 1964, series 5, subseries 2, box 16, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y.; Harris Survey, June 29, 1964, box 26, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Leverett Saltonstall to Dorothy Bascom, July 9, 1964, box 45, Leverett Saltonstall Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass. 49. Reinhard, Republican Right since 1945, 191; Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 75; Time, July 10, 1964; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, “The White Man’s Party,” box 30, WHCF, Aides Files—Bill Moyers, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex. 50. Branch, Pillar of Fire, 403; New York Herald Tribune, July 14, 1964; Hanes

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 442

[ 442 ] not e s to page s 1 8 9 – 1 9 2

Walton Jr. and C. Vernon Gray, “Black Politics at the National Republican and Democratic Conventions, 1868–1972,” Phylon 36 (September 1975): 273; Washington Star, July 14, 1964; Evans and Novak, “White Man’s Party,” 439–441; New York Amsterdam News, July 25, 1964; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 371. 51. New York Herald Tribune, July 13, 1964; Time, July 10, 1964; CQ, July 17, 1964; Tillett, “The National Conventions,” 28; “Do You Believe . . . ,” box 21, WHCF, Aides Files—Bill Moyers, LBJ Library; Karl Hess, In a Cause that Will Triumph: The Goldwater Campaign and the Future of Conservatism (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), 80–81; New York Herald Tribune, July 19, 1964; Novak, Agony of the GOP, 451; “Text of the 1964 Republican Party Platform,” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25840 (accessed April 23, 2010); Ripon Society, “Election ’64”; New Republic, July 25, 1964; Jet, July 23, 1964. 52. Resume of Activities, July 13–16, 1964, box 7, Clarence Townes Jr. Papers, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va.; Jet, November 4, 1965; PhillipsFein, Invisible Hands, 133; Barry Goldwater to William White, August 28, 1963, box 4, Kitchell Papers. 53. Hugh Scott to Thruston Morton, Melvin Laird, and Polly Buck, July 13, 1964, box A16, Gerald Ford Congressional Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 177; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 382– 384; John Kessel, The Goldwater Coalition: Republican Strategies in 1964 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), 112; press release, July 13, 1964, box 26, Scott Papers; statement by Governor George Romney, July 15, 1964, box A15, Ford Congressional Papers; Novak, Agony of the GOP, 452; Tillett, “The National Conventions,” 28. 54. Jet, July 30, 1964; Chicago Defender, July 15, 1964; WP, July 15, 1964; Newsweek, July 27, 1964; Ripon Society, “Election ’64.” 55. F. Clifton White, Suite 3505: The Story of the Draft Goldwater Movement (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1967), 433; CQ, July 31, 1964; Flamm, Law and Order, 33–36; Barry Goldwater, “Speech to the 1964 Republican Convention,” http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barrygoldwater1964rnc.htm (accessed April 26, 2010). 56. Branch, Pillar of Fire, 396–404; Des Moines Register, July 17, 1964; New York Herald Tribune, July 19, 1964; Roy Wilkins, “Ike Struck Lowest Blow,” July 25, 1964, box 37, Wilkins Papers; Confidential Proceeding of Closed Session of Republican Unity Conference, August 12, 1964, box 117, EX PL 3, WHCF, LBJ Library; Jet, July 30, 1964; Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 201; Long, First Class Citizenship, 198– 201; New York Herald Tribune, August 7, 1964; press release, August 7, 1964, series 5, subseries 2, box 36, Javits Papers; Washington Star, July 17, 1964. 57. Flamm, Law and Order, 37; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 140; Goldwater background briefing, July 3, 1964, Robert MacNeil report, July 3, 1964, and Goldwater—For Hagan Harlem Special, July 25, 1964, all in box 11, MacNeil Papers; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 134–135; transcript of telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley, July 21, 1964, 3:29 p.m., citation 4297, tape WH 6407.11, program 12–13, LBJ Library. 58. Flamm, Law and Order, 38–39; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 140–142; Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 216; Goldwater-MacNeil for WNR, July 24, 1964, box

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 443

notes to pages 192–197 [ 443 ]

11, MacNeil Papers; Mayer, Running on Race, 57–58; Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 207. 59. Roy Wilkins to Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, and John Lewis, July 22, 1964, series III, box A247, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 184–185; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 424; American Institute of Public Opinion Report, July 25, 1964, box 179, WHCF, Aides Files—Fred Panzer, LBJ Library; Des Moines Register, July 30, 1964. 60. Confidential Proceedings of Closed Session of Republican Unity Conference, August 12, 1964. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid.; Reinhard, Republican Right since 1945, 199; New York Herald Tribune, August 13, 1964. 65. Minutes of meeting of National Negro Republican Assembly, August 23, 1964, text of remarks by George Fleming, August 22, 1964, membership, principles, policies, and planning memo, n.d., and financial report, n.d., all in box 7, Townes Papers. 66. NYT, August 4, 1964; Jet, September 17 and October 8, 1964; NYT, August 14, 1964. 67. Newsweek, July 13, 1964; NYT, August 3, 4, and 11, 1964. 68. NYT, August 12, 18, and 19, 1964; WSJ, July 24, 1964; NYT, August 23, 1964; National Review, September 22, 1964. 69. WSJ, July 24 and August 26, 1964; NYT, August 4 and 9, 1964; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 199–200. 70. Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 156, 255–257; NYT, August 4, 1964; NYT Magazine, September 15, 1968; William Leuchtenburg, The White House Looks South: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 315; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 493; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 225–227. 71. Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 254; Goldwater for Hagan Special, Campaign and the Candidates, September 17, 1964, box 11, MacNeil Papers; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 492; Richard Rovere, The Goldwater Caper (New York: Harcourt, 1965), 135–141; Feldman, “Race, Emotion, and Rise of the Modern Republican Party,” 301; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 238; Jet, October 8 and November 27, 1964; New Republic, September 26, 1964. 72. Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction, 31; George C. Robert, “The 1964 Presidential Election in Arkansas,” in The 1964 Presidential Election in the Southwest, ed. John Claunch (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1966), 85; Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, The Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 27; Chicago Defender, October 13, 1964. 73. Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, 142–143; Chicago Defender, September 9,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 444

[ 444 ] not e s to page s 1 9 8 – 2 0 1

1964; WP, September 29, 1964; Matthew D. Lassiter, “De Jure/de Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, ed. Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 35–37; National Review, September 22, 1964; Mayer, Running on Race, 61. 74. Flamm, Law and Order, 40–44; Jeremy Mayer, “LBJ Fights the White Backlash: The Racial Politics of the 1964 Campaign,” Prologue 33 (Spring 2001), http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/spring/lbj-and-white-back lash-1.html (accessed May 6, 2010). 75. RNC press release, October 6, 1964, series III, box 21, Hinman Files, Rockefeller Personal Papers; Flamm, Law and Order, 40–44; Reporter, October 8, 1964; New Republic, October 3, 1964; Jet, October 15, 1964; WP, September 26, 1964; Perlstein, Before the Storm, 484–486; Roy Wilkins, “When a Riot’s Not a Riot,” September 19, 1964, box 37, Wilkins Papers; Chicago Defender, October 7, 1964. 76. Flamm, Law and Order, 44–45; Jet, November 5, 1964; Roy Wilkins to Robert Sarnoff, October 21, 1964, series III, box A247, NAACP Papers; Lamb, “Under One Roof,” 38; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 215. 77. Kessel, Goldwater Coalition, 208–210; RNC press release, October 16, 1964, box 106, WHCF, Aides Files—Douglass Cater, LBJ Library; Chicago Defender, November 2, 1964. William Miller similarly criticized busing initiatives as “racist schemes.” See James Bolner and William Shanley, Busing: The Political and Judicial Process (New York: Praeger, 1974), 137. 78. NYT, September 7, 1964; Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 210; Jet, September 24 and October 15, 1964; Chicago Defender, October 13 and 14, 1964; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 488; NYT, September 27, 1964; memo, September 21, 1964, box 11, William McCulloch Papers, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio; Jet, October 22, 1964; Baltimore Sun, July 23, 1964; Roy Wilkins to NAACP members, October 28, 1964, series VI, box A21, NAACP Papers; memo to Branch Presidents, n.d., series III, box A247, NAACP Papers; Jet, November 12 and 27, 1964. 79. Reporter, October 8, 1964. See letter from Charles Taft, September 30, 1964, box 17, Bliss Papers; New York Herald Tribune, October 28, 1964. 80. Chicago Defender, October 29, 1964. 81. Reporter, October 8, 1964; Jet, September 24, 1964; Washington Afro-American, January 18, 1966; Ripon Society, “Election ’64,” 18; Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction, 32; Lamb, “Under One Roof,” 33. 82. NYT, October 30, November 3 and 4, 1964; Chicago Defender, November 3, 1964; Chandler Davidson, Tayna Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, “Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Vote Suppression—or Both?” September 2004, http://www.votelaw.com/blog/blogdocs/GOP_Ballot_Se curity_Programs.pdf (accessed May 6, 2010); Tova Andrea Wang, The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012), 49–52.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 445

notes to pages 201–203 [ 445 ]

83. Davidson et al., “Republican Ballot Security Programs”; NYT, November 3, 1964; Chicago Defender, November 3, 1964; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 296– 297; Tim Sheehan to Ray Bliss, February 18, 1965, box 2, Bliss Papers. 84. NYT, November 4, 1964; Davidson et al., “Republican Ballot Security Programs”; 1964 Operation Eagle Eye Analysis by Ward, box 2, Bliss Papers. Republican poll watchers in Cook County, Illinois, claimed that a wide variety of illegal activities occurred in November, including Democratic operatives providing voters with instructions rather than assistance in filling out ballots and paying voters with money or alcohol. On subsequent charges of voter suppression, see NAACP and People for the American Way, “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today,” http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/the-long -shadow-of-jim-crow-voter-suppression-america (accessed April 14, 2010). 85. Donaldson, Liberalism’s Last Hurrah, 294–295; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 299, Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction, 46; Chairman’s Report, February 1965, record group 4, box 44, Hinman Files, Rockefeller Personal Papers. 86. Republican National Committee, “The 1964 Elections: A Summary Report with Supporting Tables,” October 1965, box 7, Workman Papers; Mark Levy and Michael Kramer, The Ethnic Factor: How America’s Minorities Decide Elections (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 45–46; Ripon Society, “Election ’64,” 22; William Brink and Louis Harris, Black and White: A Study of Racial Attitudes Today (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 75; Sam Ragan, “Dixie Looked Away,” American Scholar 34 (Spring 1965): 209–210; Southern Republicanism and the New South, n.d., box 79B, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif. 87. Branch, Pillar of Fire, 522–523; Ripon Society, “Election ’64,” 21; Kotz, Judgment Days, 228; Michael Beschloss, Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 134; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 305; Edward Carmines and Robert Huckfeldt, “Party Politics in the Wake of the Voting Rights Act,” in Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective, ed. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992), 129. 88. Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 106–107; Reg Murphy and Hal Gulliver, The Southern Strategy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 173, 219; Charles Prysby, “Electoral Behavior in the U.S. South,” in Party Politics in the South, ed. Robert Steed, Laurence Moreland, and Tod Baker (New York: Praeger, 1980), 102; Republican National Committee, “The 1964 Elections: A Summary Report with Supporting Tables”; Samuel Lubell, White and Black: Test of a Nation (New York: Harper, 1966), 169–170; Dewey Grantham, The Life and Death of the Solid South: A Political History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 161; Strong, “Alabama: Transition and Alienation,” 441; David Castle, “Goldwater’s Presidential Candidacy and Political Realignment,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 20 (Winter 1990): 108; Ripon Society, “Election ’64”; Kenneth Vines, “The 1964 Election in Louisiana: An Example of Ethnic Politics in the South,” in Claunch, The 1964 Presidential Election in the Southwest, 105–109.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 446

[ 446 ] not e s to page s 2 0 3 – 2 2 1

89. Ripon Society, “Election ’64”; CQ, October 7, 1966; Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 236; Mayer, Running on Race, 65–66; Bernard Cosman, Five States for Goldwater (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1966), 42– 51, 76; Philip Converse, Aage Clausen, and Warren Miller, “Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election,” in Republican Politics: The 1964 Campaign and Its Aftermath for the Party, ed. Bernard Cosman and Robert Huckshorn (New York: Praeger, 1968), 63– 65; Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction, 33; Donald Fowler, Presidential Voting in South Carolina, 1948–1964 (Columbia, S.C.: Bureau of Governmental Research and Service, 1966), 13; Bartley and Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction, 107. 90. Carmines and Huckfeldt, “Party Politics in the Wake of the Voting Rights Act,” 123; Angus Campbell, “Interpreting the Presidential Victory,” in Cummings, National Election of 1964, 271. 91. Jet, November 19, 1964. 92. Ibid.

chapter 8. civil rights policy, 1965–1968 1. Time, January 1 and 8, 1965. 2. Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom”: The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 221; Chandler Davidson, “The Voting Rights Act: A Brief History,” in Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective, ed. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992), 13–15; David J. Garrow, Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 19; Richard Vallely, The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 191–193. 3. CQ, March 19 and 26, 1965; Davidson, “Voting Rights Act,” 13–15; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 22–35; Vallely, Two Reconstructions, 188–189; Hugh Davis Graham, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960–1972 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 165; David Garrow, “The Voting Rights Act in Historical Perspective,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 74 (Fall 1990): 385–389. 4. Mark Stern, Calculating Visions: Kennedy, Johnson, and Civil Rights (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 220; Robert Mann, The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell, and the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1996), 451; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 45– 62; Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 46–57, 76–82, 170–173; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 161–163. 5. CQ, March 19, 1965; Davidson, “Voting Rights Act,” 16; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 98–104. 6. CQ, February 19, 1965; press release, February 24, 1965, series 1.1, box 36, Charles Mc. Mathias Papers, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; NYT, Feb-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 447

notes to pages 222–224 [ 447 ]

ruary 24, 1965; New Republic, May 15, 1965; Mann, Walls of Jericho, 468; Jacob Javits et al. to Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, February 26, 1965, box 102, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; press release, February 28, 1965, box 145.B.14.4F, Clark MacGregor Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; CR, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 4443, 4452–4454; press release, March 10, 1965, series J.2, box 97, George Hinman Files, Nelson A. Rockefeller Personal Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 49, 98; NYT, March 10, 1964, March 18, 19, and 21, 1965; Byron Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents: How a Senate Giant Shaped American Politics (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 211–212; CQ, March 26, 1965; Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books 2000), 118–162. 7. CQ, April 9, 1965; Howard Calloway to Gerald Ford, February 24, 1969, box B134, Congressional Files, Gerald Ford Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Joint Statement by Gerald Ford and William McCulloch, April 5, 1965, series 4.1, box 2, Mathias Papers; press release, May 18, 1965, series 1.1, box 36, Mathias Papers; CQ, May 21 and March 26, 1965; Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 318; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 115–119; NYT, March 26, 1965. 8. Southern Republican Shift, n.d., box 217, Charles Taft Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 166–169; Summary Comparison of Ford-McCulloch and Administration-Celler Bills, William Cramer Files, University of Tampa, Tampa, Fla. 9. Charlton Lyons to Everett Dirksen, March 31, 1965, and Wirt Yerger Jr. to Walter Witthoff, April 16, 1965, both in box 26, Ray Bliss Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio (Witthoff was head of the Nebraska Republican Party); Wirt Yerger Jr. to Richard Poff, April 29, 1965, box 84, Richard Poff Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; C. M. McLean and Mrs. G. H. Renau to Richard Nixon, April 24, 1965, box 26, Bliss Papers. 10. James Edward to Gerald Ford, May 29, 1965, and research paper, Charleston County Republican Party, n.d., both in box 26, Bliss Papers. 11. J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974), 80; Keith Finley, Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 7–10. 12. Frank B. Atkinson, The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-Party Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980, rev. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 15–17; Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 29; Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities throughout American History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 45. 13. National Review, April 20, 1965. 14. Andrew Buni, The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902–1965 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 130–135; Roy Wilkins, “The Future of the Negro Voter in the United States,” Journal of Negro Education 26 (Summer 1957): 424–428;

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 448

[ 448 ] not e s to page s 2 2 5 – 2 2 7

Keyssar, Right to Vote, 160–162; Earl Black and Merle Black, Politics and Society in the South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 8–9; V. O. Key Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), 26–32. 15. Garrow, Protest at Selma, 121; Martin Luther King Jr. to Leverett Saltonstall, April 27, 1965, Clarence Mitchell to Leverett Saltonstall, April 28, 1965, and LCCR newsletter, April 30, 1965, all in box 45, Leverett Saltonstall Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Mass.; Mann, Walls of Jericho, 468–470; CQ, April 30, May 7, 14, and 21, 1965; Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 77; Kotz, Judgment Days, 314; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 211; Finley, Delaying the Dream, 281–305; NYT, March 17 and 18, 1965; CQ, May 28, 1965. 16. WP, April 30, 1965; press release, n.d., box 1, Robert Peabody Interviews, Ford Library; Michael Beschloss, Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 387; CQ, July 9, 1965; WSJ, July 15, 1965; Roanoke Times, July 9, 1965; CQ, July 16 and August 13, 1965; New Republic, September 25, 1965. 17. CR, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 16,407–16,409. 18. Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1965. 19. Davidson, “Voting Rights Act,” 21; Hugh Davis Graham, “Since 1965: The South and Civil Rights,” in The South as an American Problem, ed. Larry J. Griffin and Don H. Doyle (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 151; Garrow, Protest at Selma, 144–157; Black and Black, Politics and Society in the South, 126–145. 20. CQ, August 20, 1965; Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam, 1968), 38; Ramsey Clark Oral History III, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.; Michael Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 58–66. 21. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008), 325–335; Kenneth B. Clark, “‘The Wonder Is There Have Been So Few Riots,’” NYT Magazine, September 5, 1965, 10; Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 297–309; Stephan Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 162. 22. NYT, August 18, 1965; CQ, August 20, 1965; CR, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 20,610, 20,756–20,757, 20,792–20,793, 22,736, 25,148. 23. Republican Coordinating Committee, “Equality in America: A Promise Unfulfilled,” box 61, Republican National Committee Series, Thruston Morton Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.; press release, September 3, 1965, box 79c, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Oakland Tribune, September 7, 1965; NYT, August 24, 1965; Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 246; NYT, September 3, 1965; Minutes of Meeting of the Republican Coordinating Committee, August 30, 1965, box 138, Bliss Papers; Philip Klinkner, The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956–1993 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 84–86; RNC Research Report, December 27, 1965, box 26, Bliss Papers.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 449

notes to pages 227–232 [ 449 ]

24. Republican Coordinating Committee, “Equality in America.” 25. Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 475–489. 26. Ibid., 485–495; Stephen Tuck, We Ain’t What Ought to Be: The Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 330–331; William Brink and Louis Harris, Black and White: A Study of Racial Attitudes Today (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 52–53; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 337. 27. U.S. News & World Report, August 8, 1966; CQ, July 22, 1966; Jet, August 4, 1966. 28. Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 501–506; Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 29. CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 17,538; Newsweek, August 22, 1966; Brink and Harris, Black and White, 21–33; remarks of Gerald Ford, August 17, 1966, box A47, Gerald Ford Congressional Papers, Ford Library; NYT, September 21, 1966; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 17,439–17,440, 17,538, 17,878–17,879, 18,454, 18,458, 18,505, 18,744; Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 246; Issue of the Day, September 14, 1966, box 40, Edward Hutchinson Papers, Ford Library. 30. Lawrence O’Brien Oral History VII, LBJ Library; Congressional Digest, November 1966; Christopher Bonastia, Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 78; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Joseph Califano, March 9, 1966, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Henry Wilson, March 15, 1966, and Henry Wilson to Lyndon Johnson, March 11, 1966, all in box 4, Legislative Background Files—Fair Housing, LBJ Library; CQ, May 6, 1966; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 1416; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Agencies, February 18, 1966, box 2, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; press release, March 6, 1966, series 4.1, box 3, Mathias Papers. 31. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 38; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 260. 32. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 130–131. 33. David Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 28–32, 331–333; Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), 42–43; Hazel Erskine, “The Polls: Negro Housing,” Public Opinion Quarterly 31 (Autumn 1967): 482–498; Kenneth Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working Class Politics in Baltimore, 1940–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 53–82; Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 231–258; Tuck, We Ain’t What Ought to Be, 253. 34. Freund, Colored Property, 4–9, 28–32, 331–332, 358–365; Sugrue, Origins of the Urban Crisis, 209–229; Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 55–77. 35. Freund, Colored Property, 10–19. 36. Ibid., 34–37; David Freund, “Marketing the Free Market: State Intervention and the Politics of Prosperity in Metropolitan America,” in The New Suburban His-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 450

[ 450 ] not e s to page s 2 3 2 – 2 3 4

tory, ed. Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 11–32; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 60–63; Matthew D. Lassiter, “De Jure/de Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, ed. Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 29; Self, American Babylon, 97–99, 128–131, 151–155; Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 45–59. 37. NYT, June 9, 16, and 17, 1966; WP, June 17, 1966; CQ, June 3, 1966; National Journal, June 10, 1966; WP, June 13, 1966; Monthly Report of the Washington Bureau, September 1, 1966, series IV, box A91, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jack Justice to Board Presidents and Secretaries, June 8, 1966, series IV, box A90, NAACP Papers. 38. CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 17,180, 17,189, 17,222, 17,227, 17,511–17,512, 17,526, 18,186, 18,395; Denton Watson, Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002), 696–697; Pittsburgh Courier, August 27, 1966; Henry Wilson to Lyndon Johnson, August 5, 1966, LE/HU 2, box 65, WHCF, LBJ Library; Clarence Mitchell to William McCulloch, August 2, 1966, box 15, William McCulloch Papers, Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio. 39. WP, August 14, 1966; Reporter, September 8, 1966; Monthly Report of the Washington Bureau, September 1, 1966, series IV, box A91, NAACP Papers; CQ, October 14, 1966; interview with Silvio Conte, August 3, 1966, interview with Al Quie, August 9, 1966, interview with John Anderson, August 5, 1966, and interview with Jack Edwards, August 5, 1966, all in box 2, Robert Peabody Interview Transcripts, Ford Library; press release, July 14, 1966, series 4.1, box 3, Mathias Papers; Washington Evening Star, July 16, 1966; National Association of Real Estate Boards Legislative Action Bulletin, July 18, 1966, series IV, box A90, NAACP Papers; CQ, July 15 and 22, 1966; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 17,180; CQ, August 5, 1966; Charles McC. Mathias Jr. and Marion Morris, “Fair Housing Legislation: Not an Easy Row to Hoe,” Cityscape 4, 3 (1999): 23. 40. WP, September 9, 1966; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 11, 1966; CQ, September 9, 1966; Nicholas deB. Katzenbach to Lyndon Johnson, September 9, 1966, LE/HU 2, box 65, WHCF, LBJ Library; WP, September 16, 1966; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 11, 1966; Jet, October 6, 1966; transcript of interview with Everett Dirksen, September 15, 1966, Remarks and Releases Files, Everett Dirksen Papers, Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, Ill. 41. CQ, September 16, 1966; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 22,610–22,612. 42. CQ, September 16, 1966; Congressional Digest, November 1966; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, September 22, 1966, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 225; Newsweek, September 26, 1966. 43. Ebony, January 1967; Jet, October 6, 1966; CQ, September 23, 1966; 1966 Annual Report, Washington Bureau, December 19, 1966, series IV, box A91, NAACP Papers; Watson, Lion in the Lobby, 718. 44. Michael Danielson, The Politics of Exclusion (New York: Columbia University

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 451

notes to pages 235–239 [ 451 ]

Press, 1976), 206–209; CQ, October 14, 1966; Bernard Frieden and Marshall Kaplan, The Politics of Neglect: Urban Aid from Model Cities to Revenue Sharing (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1975), 59; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 22,754–22,755. 45. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 455–472; Kruse, White Flight, 164–179; Gary Orfield, The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1969), 4–15. 46. Dean Kotlowski, “With All Deliberate Delay: Kennedy, Johnson, and School Desegregation,” Journal of Policy History 17 (April 2005): 157–175; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 26,619; Lawrence McAndrews, The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 51–52. 47. CQ, October 14, 1966; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 21,607, 22,466–22,447; CQ, October 21, 1966; Orfield, Reconstruction of Southern Education, 297. 48. Gary Orfield, Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), 283; CQ, August 26, October 21, and November 11, 1966. 49. CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 23,200, 24,048–24,049, 24,051, 24,154; Orfield, Reconstruction of Southern Education, 151–207; Orfield, Must We Bus? 238. 50. CQ, June 24, 1966; NYT, June 19 and October 6, 1966; CQ, October 21, 1966. 51. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty, 466–468; CR, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 21,832, 22,754–22,755, 23,200, 23,916, 24,048–24,049, 24,051–24,053, 24,056, 26,619, 26,952– 26,953; Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 111–112; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, October 4, 1966, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; CQ, December 30 and April 29, 1966. 52. James Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle over Black Family Life: From LBJ to Obama (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 39–40. 53. CQ, December 23, 1966; Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (New York: Pantheon, 1990). 54. CQ, December 23, October 7, and December 30, 1966. 55. NYT, February 16, 1967; George Romney to Charles Mc. Mathias, May 23, 1967, series 4.1, box 3, Mathias Papers; CQ, October 13 and February 17, 1967; Erskine, “Polls: Negro Housing,” 491. 56. NYT, May 12, 13, 16, 17, 24, and 25, 1967; Orfield, Reconstruction of Southern Education, 322–325. 57. Jet, June 1 and May 18, 1967; CR, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 12,616, H5685, H6143–H6144; NYT, May 3, 1967. 58. Press release, July 12, 1967, box A70, Congressional Files, Ford Papers; Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Crusade to Save New York (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 139; Freund, Colored Property, 382; Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound: A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement (New York: Plume, 1991), 261–270; Sidney Fine, Violence in the Model City: The Cavanaugh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), 32–37. 59. Jet, June 29, 1967; Stephen Grant Meyer, As Long as They Don’t Move Next

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 452

[ 452 ] not e s to page s 2 4 0 – 2 4 4

Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 188–194; Patrick Jones, The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 1–4, 24–30; Donald R. Kinder and Lynn Sanders, Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 105. 60. CQ, September 8, 1967; CR, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 20,510, 20,584, 20,878– 20,879, 21,217; press release, August 29, 1967, box 45, Bliss Papers; Jet, August 17, 1967; press release, August 2, 1967, box 143, Scott Papers; NYT, July 26 and August 1, 1967. 61. CR, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 19,961, 20,028, 20,513-20,514; CQ, September 8, 1967. 62. Transcript of press conference, July 24, 1967, box 100, Bliss Papers; NYT, July 25 1967; WP, July 29, 1967. 63. CR, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 19,816; NYT, July 26 and 30, 1967; CQ, August 4, 1967; NYT, August 22 and 24, 1967. 64. Statement of Senator Thruston Morton, July 27, 1967, box 1, Speech Files, Senatorial Files, Morton Papers; press release, August 3, 1967, box 153, Scott Papers. 65. CQ, September 8, 1967; NYT, July 26 and 28, 1967. 66. NYT, August 11, 1967; Action Plan, Republican Governors Association Policy Committee, August 10, 1967, box 6, EX HU 2, WHCF, LBJ Library; Benjamin Muse, The American Negro Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power, 1963– 1967 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), 311. 67. NYT, November 11 and July 20, 1967; press release, July 22, 1967, Cramer Files; 1967 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1968), 442–447; NYT, August 9, 1967; CQ, March 1, 1968; Flamm, Law and Order, 133; CQ, December 15, 1967. 68. John David Skrentny, The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 113–125; 1967 CQ Almanac; Herbert Hill, “The Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972: A Critical Analysis of the Legislative History and Administration of the Law,” Industrial Relations Law Journal 2 (Spring 1977): 32; Republican Coordinating Committee, Task Force on Job Opportunities and Welfare, “Full and Equal Employment Opportunities,” December 1967, box 61, Morton Papers. 69. NYT, January 19, 1968; Jet, February 15 and 22, 1968; CR, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., 2279–2280, 2525–2526; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 270. 70. William Haynie to William Cramer, March 13, 1968, Committee for the Preservation of a Free Society flyer, n.d., and Donald Longley and Joe Thomas to William Cramer, March 1, 1968, all in Cramer Files; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 82–83; Mara Sidney, “Images of Race, Class, and Markets: Rethinking the Origins of U.S. Fair Housing Policy,” Journal of Policy History 13, 2 (2001): 195–198; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 271. 71. Hugh Graham, “On Riots and Riot Commissions,” Public Historian 2 (Summer 1980): 18–19; CQ, March 8, 1968. 72. CQ, March 8, 1968; CR, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., 4950, 5026, 5280, 5788; Congressman Richard Roudebush Reports from Washington, March 14, 1968, box 407, White House Aides Files—Fred Panzer, WHCF, LBJ Library.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 453

notes to pages 244–249 [ 453 ]

73. CQ, April 26, 1968; Larry Temple to Lyndon Johnson, February 23, 1968, and memo to Lyndon Johnson, February 26, 1968, both in box 4, Legislative Background Files—Fair Housing, LBJ Library; CQ, March 8 and 15, 1968. 74. CQ, March 1, 1965; WSJ, March 13, 1968; Life, March 15, 1968; Ramsey Clark Oral History IV, LBJ Library; Mike Manatos to Lyndon Johnson, March 5, 1968, box 66, EX LE/HU 2, WHCF, LBJ Library; Hugh Davis Graham, “The Surprising Career of Federal Fair Housing Law,” Journal of Policy History 12, 2 (2000): 217– 219; Edward Brooke, Bridging the Divide: My Life (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 177. 75. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid, 196–198; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 272–274; Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, 255. 76. Memo, March 1968, series 4.1, box 3, Mathias Papers; CQ, March 22, 1968; Arnold Aronson to Cooperating Organizations, March 22, 1968, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; CQ, March 29 and April 26, 1968. 77. Barefoot Sanders to Lyndon Johnson, March 9, 1968, and Louis Martin to Lyndon Johnson, March 1, 1968, both in box 66, EX LE/HU 2, WHCF, LBJ Library; WP, March 27, 1968; Edward Brooke to Gerald Ford, March 28, 1968, box B85, Congressional Files, Ford Papers; memo to Richard Nixon, April 8, 1968, PPS 501.9.4; CQ, March 22, 1968; WP, April 22, 1968. 78. Statement of William McCulloch, April 10, 1968, box 38, McCulloch Papers; Harry Dent to Ray Bliss, April 10, 1968, box 57, Bliss Papers. 79. CQ, April 12, 1968; Clay Risen, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 3–4, 126–127, 138– 139. 80. Issue of the Day, April 9, 1968, series 4.1, box 9, Mathias Papers; statement of Senator Charles H. Percy, April 11, 1968, series IV, box A28, NAACP Papers. 81. CQ, April 12, 1968; NYT, April 11, 1968. 82. Statement of Clarence Mitchell before Republican Governor’s Association, May 16, 1968, box 25, Albert Quie Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 88; NYT, April 10, 1968; CQ, April 12 and 26, 1968; Clark Oral History IV; Michael Belknap, Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 227. 83. CQ, April 12, 1968; James Harvey, Black Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration (Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1973), 55; Kotz, Judgment Days, 421; Raphael W. Bostic and Richard W. Martin, “Have Anti-Discrimination Housing Laws Worked? Evidence from Trends in Black Homeownership,” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 31, 1 (2005): 5–26. 84. CR, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., 11,967, 12,452, 12,650; WP, May 16, 1968; Louisville Courier-Journal, June 6, 1968; New Directions ’68, vol. 1, no. 5, box 57, Bliss Papers; Jet, June 13, 1968. 85. CR, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., 10,186, 13,882; Strom Thurmond to Roy Wilkins, n.d., series IV, box A60, NAACP Papers. 86. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 272–276. 87. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 11, 1966. 88. Flamm, Law and Order, 83–84; CQ, September 8, 1967; Jet, September 7,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 454

[ 454 ] not e s to page s 2 4 9 – 2 5 4

1967; Harlan Hahn and Joe Feagin, “Rank and File versus Congressional Perceptions of Ghetto Riots,” Social Science Quarterly 51 (September 1970): 361–373; Hazel Erskine, “The Polls: Demonstrations and Race Riots,” Public Opinion Quarterly 31 (Winter 1967–1968): 665–671. 89. NYT, August 18, 1965.

chapter 9. the nixon synthesis 1. NYT Magazine, November 15, 1964; Time, November 20, 1964. 2. Time, November 20, 1964, and January 8, 1965; NYT, November 6, 1964, and November 29, 1966; Arkansas Democrat, November 13, 1964; CQ, December 2, 1966. 3. NYT, November 6, 1964; Time, November 20, 1964. 4. Time, December 11 and 18, 1964; CQ, January 15, 1965; NYT, January 23, 1965; John F. Bibby and Robert Huckshorn, “Out-Party Strategy: Republican National Committee Rebuilding Politics, 1964–1966,” in Republican Politics: The 1964 Campaign and Its Aftermath for the Party, ed. Bernard Cosman and Robert Huckshorn (New York: Praeger, 1968), 214; Ripon Society, From Disaster to Distinction: A Republican Rebirth (New York: Pocket Books, 1966), 88–90; NYT Magazine, March 21, 1965; NYT, April 1, 1965; John F. Bibby, “Party Leadership, the Bliss Model, and the Development of the Republican National Committee,” in Politics, Professionalism, and Power: Modern Party Organization and the Legacy of Ray C. Bliss (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994), 20–23; Jet, January 28, 1965. 5. Philip Klinkner, The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956– 1993 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 84–87; NYT, February 4 and June 5, 1965; CQ, February 12, 1965. 6. NYT, February 19, 1965. 7. Jet, December 3, 1964; NYT, January 24 and February 21, 1965; U.S. News & World Report, February 1, 1965; CQ, January 29, 1965; Michael Long, ed., First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 214–215; Houston Post, July 7, 1965. 8. CQ, January 1, 1965; Baltimore Sun, December 5, 1964; Jet, December 3, 1964; interview with James Martin, April 9, 1965, box 1, Robert Peabody Interviews, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Excerpt from Remarks, Senator Thruston B. Morton, January 22, 1965, box 74, Richard Poff Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; NYT, February 18, 1965; CQ, February 26, 1965. 9. Southern Republicanism and the New South, n.d., box 79B, Thomas Kuchel Papers, University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 214–215; NYT, February 26, 1965. 10. George Fowler to Ray Bliss, August 27, 1965, box 26, Ray Bliss Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; NYT, August 24 and 29, 1965; CQ, August 27, 1965; NYT, June 30, 1965; U.S. News & World Report, November 11, 1965. 11. Emphasis: Oregon, November 1965, and Emphasis: Oregon, December 1965, both in box 30, Bliss Papers; Jet, December 23, 1965. 12. GOP Candidate Added to CORE Purge List, n.d., box 26, Bliss Papers; Wat-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 455

notes to pages 254–257 [ 455 ]

son Says GOP Should Avoid Wooing Negro in Dixie Buildup, June 17, 1965, box 52, William Workman Papers, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.; pro-Watson campaign flyers, n.d., box 3, Ripon Society Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Greenville News, September 25, 1965; Ripon Forum, July and December 1965, box 30, Ripon Society Papers; pro-Watson campaign flyer, box 217, Charles Taft Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 13. Bill B. Hathorn, “Friendly Rivalry: Winthrop Rockefeller Challenges Orval Faubus in 1964,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 53 (Winter 1994): 460–470; NYT, November 28, 1965; Time, December 2, 1966; Linwood Holton, Opportunity Time (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 50–52; Andrew Buni, The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1902–1965 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 232–244; Frank B. Atkinson, The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-Party Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980, rev. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 174; Time, November 12, 1965. 14. NYT, November 28, 1965; CQ, October 1, 1965; Gene Saloma to Judge John M. Wisdom, October 27, 1965, box 1, Ripon Society Papers; Segregationist Label Wrong for Thurmond, Rep. Ford Says, n.d., box 26, Bliss Papers. 15. Southern Republicanism and the New South, n.d., box 79B, Kuchel Papers. 16. Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 68–72; William Brink and Louis Harris, Black and White: A Study of U.S. Racial Attitudes Today (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), 79; Elements of Victory—Chairman’s Presentation to the Republican National Committee, January 31, 1966, box 100, Bliss Papers; U.S. News & World Report, November 22, 1965; Look, December 28, 1965; Jet, November 18, 1965; press release, December 5, 1965, and Barry Goldwater to Hugh Scott, December 14, 1965, both in box 13, collection 10200-n, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 17. Southern Project Report, April 13, 1966, box 217, Charles Taft Papers. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. NYT, April 13, 1966; Christian Science Monitor, April 15, 1966; Baltimore Sun, April 15, 1966; Chives Prosser to Ray Bliss, March 29, 1966, and Dent Claims Palmetto GOP Is Not Excluding Negroes, March 28, 1966, both in box 26, Bliss Papers. 22. James Cobb, The Brown Decision, Jim Crow, and Southern Identity (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005), 7, 34–35; David Carlton, “How American Is the American South?” in The South as an American Problem, ed. Larry J. Griffin and Don H. Hoyle (Athens: University of Georgia Press 1995), 36–38; Earl Black and Merle Black, Politics and Society in the South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 60–72, 126–143, 230; Negro Vote in the South, n.d., box 217, Charles Taft Papers; Nelson Polsby, How Congress Evolves: Social Bases of Institutional Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 81. 23. H. W. Quick to Arthur Peterson, December 3, 1965, box 26, Bliss Papers. 24. U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, Where the Votes Are, July 10,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 456

[ 456 ] not e s to page s 2 5 8 – 2 6 3

1966, series 5, subseries 2, box 8, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 25. Ibid.; CQ, December 31, 1965, and January 28, 1966. 26. U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, Where the Votes Are. 27. NYT, January 26, 1966; press releases, February 25 and April 25, 1966, box 26, Bliss Papers; NYT, April 26, 1966. 28. NYT, May 31, 1966; remarks by Clarence Townes Jr., March 11, 1966, box 95, Bliss Papers; Minutes of Meeting, Republican National Committee, June 20, 1966, in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1986), reel 5, part 1, Minutes of the Republican National Committee, 1911–1980, series B, 1960–1980. 29. Pittsburgh Courier, April 16, 1966; Ripon Forum, June 1966, box 3, Ripon Society Papers; Cleveland Press, May 31, 1966; Pittsburgh Courier, June 11 and August 6, 1966; National Negro Republican Assembly press release, June 1, 1966, box 217, Charles Taft Papers; CQ, June 17, 1966; Long, First Class Citizenship, 230–231. 30. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 91–96. 31. Ibid. 32. Newsweek, August 22, 1966. 33. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 134–139. 34. Newsweek, August 22, 1966; Brink and Harris, Black and White, 122–127. 35. The 1966 Elections: A Summary Report with Supporting Tables, September 1, 1967, box 50, Bliss Papers; NYT, October 3, 1967. 36. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 110–111; Michael Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 68–76; Long, First Class Citizenship, 230; Jeremy D. Mayer, “Reagan and Race: Prophet of Color Blindness, Baiter of the Backlash,” in Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America’s Fortieth President (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2005), 71–76. 37. Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 150–166; NYT, February 18 and November 5, 1966; Jet, July 14, 1966; Stephen Hess and David Broder, The Republican Establishment: The Present and Future of the GOP (New York: Harper, 1967), 216– 221. 38. Flamm, Law and Order, 76–80. 39. 1966 Elections: Summary Report with Supporting Tables; New York Post, November 19, 1966; Ebony, February 1967; WP, October 28, 1966; Ripon Forum, November 1966; Brink and Harris, Black and White, 38–42, 75–77, 114–115. 40. Ebony, March 1967; Hugh Davis Graham, “The Surprising Career of Federal Fair Housing Law,” Journal of Policy History 12, 2 (2000): 218; Jet, November 24, 1966; Ebony, February 1967. 41. Numan Bartley and Hugh Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 126; GOP Gains in Dixie, n.d., box 217, Charles Taft Papers; CQ, October 28, 1966; NYT, October 9, 1966; 1966 Elections: Summary Report with Supporting Tables; Southern Politics Frustrate Negro Voters, October 15, 1966, box 5, Ripon Society Papers; Charles N.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 457

notes to pages 263–267 [ 457 ]

Fortenberry and F. Glenn Abney, “Mississippi: Unreconstructed and Unredeemed,” in The Changing Politics of the South, ed. William Havard (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 497–502; Gary Orfield, The Reconstruction of Southern Education: The Schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1969), 325; U.S. News & World Report, August 1, 1966; WP, October 21, 1966; U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Political Participation, 1968 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 148; Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 341–342; Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 232–233. 42. Brink and Harris, Black and White, 87–88; Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 341–342. 43. Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 341–342; Ebony, March 1967; Kenneth Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working-Class Politics in Baltimore, 1940–1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 137–139; Ripon Forum, November 1966, box 217, Charles Taft Papers; Jet, November 24, 1966; Mark Levy and Michael Kramer, The Ethnic Factor: How America’s Minorities Decide Elections (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 56–63; CQ, January 1, 1965; Ebony, February 1967. 44. Press release, November 2, 1966, and Republican National Committee, “Republican Fact Book, 1966 Election Campaign,” both in box 36, Bliss Papers. 45. Democrats vs. Republicans Negro Voting ’66, n.d., box 145.B.14.4F, Clark MacGregor Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn.; WSJ, February 23, 1966. 46. NYT, May 14, 1967; Jackie Robinson to Ray Bliss, August 16, 1967, and Harold Wood to Ray Bliss, November 15, 1967, both in box 45, Bliss Papers; Jet, May 25 and 11, 1967; Ebony, February 1967. 47. Ripon Forum, December 1967; Newsday, November 11, 1967; Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), 350. 48. Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page, An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (New York: Viking, 1969), 224–258. 49. CQ, June 16, 1967; Progressive, October and November 1967; George Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972), 1972, 2038, 2049, 2053, 2056, 2076–2077, 2079. 50. Sidney Fine, “Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights”: Michigan, 1948–1968 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 215–227; Ripon Forum, November 1966; Progressive, October and November 1967. 51. Progressive, October 1967; Delbert Stapley to George Romney, January 23, 1964, http://salamandersociety.com/blacks (accessed February 6, 2012). 52. NYT, August 29, 1967; CQ, September 22, 1967; NYT, October 31, 1, and 7, 1967; CQ, September 29, 1967. 53. CQ, September 29 and December 15, 1967. 54. CQ, September 29, 1967; U.S. News & World Report, November 20, 1967; NYT, December 9 and 20, 1967; CQ, January 19, 1968. 55. NYT, December 9 and 20, 1967.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 458

[ 458 ] not e s to page s 2 6 8 – 2 7 2

56. NYT, December 20 and 9, 1967. 57. NYT, December 5, 1966; Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 295, 332. 58. Roland Evans and Robert Novak, Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power (New York: Random House, 1971), 136–137; Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 26; Richard Nixon, “Dixie Democrats’ Fatal Error,” October 30, 1966, box 51, Bliss Papers; CQ, May 20, 1966; Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 181–184. 59. CQ, May 20, 1966; Perlstein, Nixonland, 89; Hess and Broder, Republican Establishment, 181–184. 60. Chris Bachelder, “Crashing the Party: The Ill-Fated 1968 Presidential Campaign of Governor George Romney,” Michigan Historical Review 33 (Fall 2007): 131–162; CQ, August 9, 1968. 61. CQ, May 3, 1968; WP, March 8, 1968; Washington Evening Star, May 9, 1968. 62. Press release, February 28, 1968, box 180, White House Aides Files—Fred Panzer, LBJ Library, Austin, Tex.; New York Daily News, May 9, 1968; NYT, March 7, 1968; Nixon—Exploits Riots for Political Purposes, July 4, 1968, box 22, Graham Molitor Papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; CQ, April 26, 1968; WP, April 22, 1968. 63. Perlstein, Nixonland, 283–285; NYT, May 28, 1968; David Armor, Forced Justice: School Desegregation and the Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 27–29; NYT, May 30, 1968; Baltimore Sun, June 1, 1968; Harry Dent to John Mitchell, January 27, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, Richard Nixon Papers, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. 64. Perlstein, Nixonland, 283–285; Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 444–447. 65. Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond (New York: Random House, 1997), 124–125; Clay Risen, A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 211. 66. Bridges to Human Dignity, PPS 208 (1968).23–24; NYT, May 3 and 17, 1968; Mason, Nixon and the Quest, 27; David Farber, “The Silent Majority and Talk about Revolution,” in The Sixties: From Memory to History, ed. David Farber (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 299–303. 67. NYT, June 24, 1968; Boston Herald-Traveler, April 17, 1968; Long, First Class Citizenship, 260–275; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 137; Denver Post, May 8, 1968; Robert E. Weems Jr. and Lewis Randolph, Business in Black and White: American Presidents & Black Entrepreneurs in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 110–121. 68. John Price to Robert Douglas et al., May 18, 1968, box 8, Molitor Papers; Jet, July 25, 1968. 69. Michael Kramer and Sam Roberts, “I Never Meant to Be Vice President of Anything”: An Investigative Biography of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 245, 327–330; Jet, July 18, 1968; Perlstein, Nixonland, 266–269; Points

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 459

notes to pages 272–277 [ 459 ]

of Difference between NAR and RMN, July 15, 1968, box 8, Molitor Papers; CQ, April 26 and July 26, 1968; NYT, June 23, 1968, and June 27, 1967; CQ, August 16, 1968; CQ Almanac 1967 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1968), 1227; Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 389; Republican Survival in a Democratic Decade, n.d., box 300, Senatorial Series II Files, John Sherman Cooper Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.; Gallup, Gallup Poll, 2131–2141. 70. Roy Wilkins to Ray Bliss, July 31, 1968, box 57, Bliss Papers; U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Political Participation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 144–150; CQ, July 26, 1968. 71. Statement of Roy Wilkins, July 31, 1968, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Madison, Wis.; WP, August 1 and 6, 1968; CQ, August 9, 1968; Philadelphia Inquirer, August 6, 1968; New York News, August 8, 1968; Chicago Sun-Times, August 7, 1968; Washington Star, August 7, 1968; NYT, August 7, 1968; CQ, July 26, 1968. 72. Perlstein, Nixonland, 295; CQ, August 9, 1968. 73. Jet, August 15, 1968; WP, August 9, 1968; Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 433–450; Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Times Books, 1978), 309; Perlstein, Nixonland, 296–300. 74. Washington Star, August 7, 1968; CQ, August 9 and 16, 1968. 75. CQ, August 9, 1968; NYT, August 11, 1968; Jet, August 22, 1968; CQ, August 16 and 23, 1968; Baltimore Sun, May 7, 1967; press release, February 1, 1967, box 45, Bliss Papers; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 307–310; Durr, Behind the Backlash, 136–138, 142–145. 76. WP, August 9, 1968; CQ, August 9, 1968. 77. Crisis, October 1968; NYT, August 12 and 13, 1968; Jet, July 16, 1970. 78. Jet, August 29, 1968; Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 499; John Cutler, Edward Brooke: Biography of a Senator (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), 309–311; NYT, September 14, 1968; CQ, August 16, 1968. 79. CQ, August 16, 1968. 80. Flamm, Law and Order, 164–168; Fred Panzer to LBJ, September 21, 1968, box 90, EX PL 2, WHCF, LBJ Library. 81. CQ, August 16, 1968; NYT Magazine, September 15, 1968; Perlstein, Nixonland, 345–347; Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 225–244. 82. Lassiter, Silent Majority, 22–41, 225–244; Richard Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real Majority (New York: Coward-McCann, 1970), 100. 83. Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 140–141; NYT, September 13, 1968; James Bolner and William Shanley, Busing: The Political and Judicial Process (New York: Praeger, 1974), 141. 84. NYT, September 18, 1968; Bolner and Shanley, Busing, 141; Peter Binzen, Whitetown, U.S.A. (New York: Random House, 1970), 288–297; NYT, September 24, 1968. 85. Flamm, Law and Order, 155–167; James Button, Black Violence: Political Impact of the 1960s Riots (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), 134; Scammon and Wattenberg, The Real Majority, 96–97; Perlstein, Nixonland, 349; Joe

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 460

[ 460 ] not e s to page s 2 7 8 – 2 8 2

McGinnis, The Selling of the President, 1968 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), 23; The Living Room Candidate: 1968—Nixon vs. Humphrey vs. Wallace, http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1968 (accessed August 31, 2010). 86. 1968 Republican Presidential Campaign—The Answer Desk, October 15, 1968, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 7, part 2, series B, Reports and Memoranda of the Research Division of the Republican National Committee, 1928–1980. 87. Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 624–625; Cutler, Edward Brooke, 314; CQ, September 13, 1968; NYT, September 16 and October 17, 1968; CQ, October 18, 1968. 88. Jet, October 24, 17, and 31, 1968. 89. Jet, November 7, 1968. 90. Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 624–625; Jet, November 14, 1968; Roy Wilkins to Edward Brooke, October 21, 1968, series IV, box A57, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Ripon Society, The Lessons of Victory (New York: Dial Press, 1969), 173. 91. Manfred Berg, “The Ticket to Freedom:” The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005), 246; Fred Panzer to Lyndon Johnson, October 17, 1968, box 90, EX PL 2, WHCF, LBJ Library; CQ, November 8, 1968; Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, Jerrold G. Rusk, and Arthur C. Wolfe, “Continuity and Change in American Politics: Parties and Issues in the 1968 Election,” American Political Science Review 63 (December 1969): 1084. 92. Forward Together: Election Analysis—1968 and the Black American Voter, January 1969, box A12, President Ford Committee Records, Ford Library; “The 1968 Elections: A Summary Report with Supporting Tables,” April 1969, in Papers of the Republican Party, reel 8, part 2, series B, Reports and Memoranda of the Research Division of the Republican National Committee, 1928–1980. 93. Bartley and Graham, Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction, 136– 138; Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 168–171; Samuel Lubell, The Hidden Crisis in American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 144; Chester Bain, “South Carolina: Partisan Prelude,” in Havard, Changing Politics of the South, 613–620. 94. Republican Percentages among the Non-White Vote, n.d., box 5, Stanley Scott Files, Ford Library; CQ, November 8, 1968; Levy and Kramer, The Ethnic Factor, 47–48; Berg, Ticket to Freedom, 246. 95. Phillips, Emerging Republican Majority, 464–470; Ripon Society, Lessons of Victory, 180. 96. Lubell, Hidden Crisis in American Politics, 72–73; Converse et al., “Continuity and Change in American Politics,” 1086–1088.

chapter 10. schools, voting rights, and the supreme cour t, 1969–197 0 1. Richard Nixon, “Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1969, http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=1941 (accessed September 27, 2010); NYT, January 21, 1969.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 461

notes to pages 282–288 [ 461 ]

2. Jet, January 30 and February 6, 1969; Kenneth O’Reilly, Nixon’s Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton (New York: Free Press, 1995), 289; Raymond Price, With Nixon (New York: Viking Press, 1977), 44. 3. NYT, November 16, 1968; Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Richard Nixon, n.d., in Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary, ed. Steven Weisman (New York: Public Affairs, 2010), 158–160; Jet, December 26, 1968, January 2, 9, 23, 30, and February 6, 1969; Dennis Dickerson, Militant Mediator: Whitney M. Young, Jr. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 262. 4. John D’Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (New York: Free Press, 2003), 476; Jet, July 16, 1970; New Yorker, February 13, 1971; Eleanor Holmes Norton, “Civil Rights: Working Backward,” in What Nixon Is Doing to Us, ed. Alan Gartner, Colin Greer, and Frank Riessman (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 201–215; U.S. Civil Rights Commission, The Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort—A Reassessment (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 4–10; notes of meeting, August 4, 1970, box 1, John Ehrlichman Papers, Herbert Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. 5. Dean Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York: Basic Books, 1994); William Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 368–369; William Chafe, Private Lives/Public Consequences: Personality and Politics in Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 232–291; O’Reilly, Nixon’s Piano, 329; Hugh Davis Graham, “The Incoherence of the Civil Rights Policy in the Nixon Administration,” in Richard M. Nixon: Politician, President, Administrator, ed. Leon Friedman and William Levantrosser (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 159–172; Hugh Davis Graham, “Richard Nixon and Civil Rights: Explaining an Enigma,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26 (Winter 1996): 93–106. 6. Harper’s, February 2000; Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 42, 110, 343–344, 378–379, 547; NYT, March 17, 2002; H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 53, 132; David Greenberg, “Nixon and the Jews. Again,” http://www.slate.com/id/2063030 (accessed October 6, 2010); WP, December 12, 2010. 7. Dean Kotlowski, “Nixon’s Southern Strategy Revisited,” Journal of Policy History 10, 2 (1998): 213; William Safire, Before the Fall: An Insider’s View of the PreWatergate White House (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 232–238. 8. Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 157–158; Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 128–129, 138; Daniel Patrick Moynihan to H. R. Haldeman, March 12, 1970, in Weisman, Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters, 216–219. 9. Safire, Before the Fall, 8, 236–237, 244. 10. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 133. 11. Transcript of the President’s Press Conference, January 30, 1970, http://www .presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2558 (accessed January 12, 2011). 12. CQ, February 14, 1969; Alvy L. King, “Richard Nixon, Southern Strategies, and Desegregation of Public Schools,” in Friedman and Levantrosser, Richard M.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 462

[ 462 ] not e s to page s 2 8 8 – 2 8 9

Nixon, 142–144; Gareth Davies, “Richard Nixon and the Desegregation of Southern Schools,” Journal of Policy History 19, 4 (2007): 370–372; Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 51; Roland Evans and Robert Novak, Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power (New York: Random House, 1971), 144–145; James Batten, “The Nixonians and School Desegregation,” Southern Education Report (June 1969): 22; Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 28–30; NYT, January 30 and February 2, 1969; Gareth Davies, See Government Grow: Education Politics from Johnson to Reagan (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007), 113; James Bolner and William Shanley, Busing: The Political and Judicial Process (New York: Praeger, 1974), 142; excerpt from article in the Washington Afro-American, February 4, 1969, box 35, White House Special Files, Confidential Files, NPP; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, February 3, 1969, box 43, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 13. NYT, March 12, 1969. 14. Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 370–372; King, “Richard Nixon, Southern Strategies,” 144; Batten, “Nixonians and School Desegregation,” 22; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 138–147; CQ, February 14, 1969; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, January 23, 1969, Francis Holman to Richard Nixon, February 14, 1969, Louis Boone to Harry Dent, February 17, 1969, Willard Strain to G. Paul Jones, February 25, 1969, Harry Dent to Bryce Harlow, February 20, 1969, Harry Dent to Robert Finch, February 24, 1969, and George Bush to Harry Dent, February 21, 1969, all in box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Sean Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), 117–119; Hastings Wyman to Strom Thurmond, February 19, 1969, and Strom Thurmond to Robert Finch, February 20, 1969, both in box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Strom Thurmond Papers, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.; Harry Dent to John Mitchell, February 19, 1969, and Huger Sinkler to Winston Blount, February 10, 1968, both in box 8, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Jet, February 20, 1969; WRAL-TV Viewpoint, February 6, 1969, box 1, Robert Mardian Papers, Herbert Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; Spiro Agnew to Richard Nixon, May 16, 1969, box 2, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP; James Martin to Strom Thurmond, January 30, 1969, box 1, Harry Dent Papers, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.; G. Paul Jones Jr. to John Sears, February 25, 1969, box 1, Mardian Papers. 15. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 31; Ray Harris to John Mitchell, February 21, 1969, box 4, Subject Correspondence Files, 1969, Thurmond Papers; Harry Dent to John E. Batten III, February 24, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Charleston News and Courier, March 18, 1969; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, March 5, 1969, memo, March 17, 1969, and Harry Dent to Bryce Harlow, John Ehrlichman, and Bob Haldeman, March 10, 1969, all in box 8, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; U.S. News & World Report, March 10, 1969; WP, April 23, 1969. 16. Strom Thurmond to G. Paul Jones Jr., May 16, 1969, and G. Paul Jones Jr. to

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 463

notes to pages 289–290 [ 463 ]

Richard Nixon, May 22, 1969, both in box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Bryce Harlow, April 4, 1969, box 3, Subject Correspondence Files, 1969, Thurmond Papers; G. Paul Jones Jr. to Harry Dent, April 8, 1969, Harry Dent to Robert Finch, May 1, 1969, Harry Dent to John Ehrlichman, May 5, 1969, and G. Paul Jones Jr. to Harry Dent, May 19, 1969, all in box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Robert Finch, April 15, 1969, Raymond Harris to Richard Nixon, May 22, 1969, and Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, June 2, 1969, all in box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Thurmond Papers; Alvin Wall to Harry Dent, May 13, 1969, Dan Albergotti to Harry Dent, May 16, 1969, and G. Paul Jones Jr. to Harry Dent, June 3, 1969, all in box 1, Mardian Papers; Robert Byrd to Spiro Agnew, May 29, 1969, and Spiro Agnew to Harry Dent, May 29, 1969, both in box 1, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Harry Dent, May 29, 1969, box 1, Dent Papers. 17. NYT, March 12, 1969; Major Summerford to Harry Dent, May 14, 1969, and Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, April 9, 1969, both in box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP. 18. Strom Thurmond to Bryce Harlow, May 9, 1969, and memorandum on meeting between the President and Secretary Robert H. Finch, May 15, 1969, both in box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, May 12, 1969, box 35, White House Subject Files, Confidential Files, NPP; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, June 25, 1969, box 141, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; WP, June 27, 1969. 19. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 202; Jet, July 10, 1969; Roy Wilkins to Robert Finch and Richard Nixon, July 1, 1969, series VI, box A25, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; press release, June 21, 1969, box 141, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; Edward Brooke, Clifford Case et al. to Richard Nixon, June 23, 1969, box 422, Edward Brooke Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Robert Griffin to Richard Nixon, July 1, 1969, and Robert Packwood to Richard Nixon, July 2, 1969, both in box 79, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; Leon Panetta to Robert Finch, July 1, 1969, box 114, Robert Finch Papers, Richard Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Calif. 20. NYT, July 4, 1969; Gary Orfield, Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), 286–287; Lawrence McAndrews, The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 63; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, July 9, 1969, box 43, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; State, July 6, 1969; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 149–150; NYT, July 7, 1969; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 8, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP. 21. Brief on Desegregation Guideline Statement for Senator Brooke et al., June 25, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; John Ehrlichman to Jim Keogh, June 26, 1969, box 8, EX HU 2-1, WHCF,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 464

[ 464 ] not e s to page s 2 9 0 – 2 9 2

NPP; Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 29; Leon Panetta to Robert Finch, April 21 and May 19, 1969, documents 43.2 and 54.2, Finch Papers; Hugh Davis Graham, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960–1972 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 320. 22. Jackson Advocate, June 7, 1969. 23. Davies, See Government Grow, 123; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 14, 1969, and press release, July 9, 1969, both in box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Howard Bo Calloway to Harry Dent, July 23, 1969, box 13, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Clarke Reed to Harry Dent, July 11, 1969, box 8, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Harry Dent to John Ehrlichman, July 18, 1969, box 3, Dent Papers. 24. John Stennis to Richard Nixon, August 11, 1969, and Ken Belieu to Bryce Harlow, August 13, 1969, both in box 34, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008), 421, 465; Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, July 22, 1969, box 78, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP. 25. Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 183; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 152–155; NYT, March 8, 1970, and August 31, 1969; Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 372–373; NYT, September 13, 1969; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, September 19, 1969, box 1, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress. 26. Transcript of the President’s News Conference, September 26, 1969, http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2246 (accessed October 11, 2010). 27. Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 52; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 155; Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 183–184; Stephen Tuck, We Ain’t What Ought to Be: The Black Freedom Struggle from Emancipation to Obama (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 355; Ehrlichman meeting notes, January 9, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, NPP; Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 373–375; Transcript of the President’s News Conference, December 8, 1969, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=2365 (accessed October 11, 2010). 28. Roy Wilkins to Richard Nixon, July 21, 1969, and press releases, August 9 and 23, 1969, all in series VI, box A26, NAACP Papers; WRAL-TV Viewpoint, October 20, 1969, Coalition for Constructive Action to Margaret Chase Smith, n.d., and Harry Dent to Ken Belieu, October 17, 1969, all in box 6, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Leonard Garment to H. R. Haldeman, October 1, 1969, box 3, Leonard Garment Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; notes of Legislative Leadership Meeting, October 14, 1969, box 8, collection 10200-n, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 29. Telegram, November 14, 1969, series 11:6, Jacob Javits Papers, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y.; Scott Criticizes Dixie Strategy of the Republicans, box 25, Ripon Society Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Tom Lias to Kevin Phillips, October 16, 1969, and Harry Dent to Bryce Harlow, Oc-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 465

notes to pages 293–295 [ 465 ]

tober 22, 1969, both in box 6, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 118–122; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 162; Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon, October 14, 1969, box 79, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; WP, November 22, 1969; NYT, November 22, 1969; Wilkins Calls It a Negro Victory, n.d., series VI, box A25, NAACP Papers; John Cutler, Edward Brooke: Biography of a Senator (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), 324; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 163; memo for the President’s File, December 4, 1969, box 79, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP. 30. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 348–349; 1969 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1970), 422; press release, January 30, 1969, series 4.1, box 3, Mathias Papers; U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Political Participation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 140–150; memo, March 17, 1969, box 8, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon, May 20, 1969, box 78, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; Harry Dent to John Mitchell, January 27, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Howard Callaway to John Mitchell, February 24, 1969, and Howard Callaway to Gerald Ford, February 24, 1969, both in box B134, Congressional Files, Gerald Ford Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich. 31. Buchanan to Nixon, May 20, 1969; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 353–355; Sid Bailey to Hugh Scott, June 2, 1969, box 103, Scott Papers; NYT, June 11, 1969; Lamar Alexander to Bill Timmons, May 28, 1969, Lamar Alexander to Bryce Harlow, June 2, 1969, Dale Grubb to Bryce Harlow, June 2, 1969, memo from Bill Timmons, June 2, 1969, and Lamar Alexander to Bryce Harlow, June 3, 1969, all in box 19, WHCF, HU 2-4, NPP; Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon, June 17, 1969, box 78, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; notes on Republican Leadership Meeting, June 17, 1969, box 8, collection 10200-n, Scott Papers. 32. 1969 CQ Almanac, 422–425; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 354–355; CQ, August 1, 1969, 1411–1412. 33. Clarke Reed to Southern Chairmen, June 30, 1969, box 8, White House Special Flies, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, December 23, 1969, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 14, 1969, box 7, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP. 34. 1969 CQ Almanac, 411, 421, 426; NYT, December 12 and 14, 1969; press release, n.d., box 105, Robert Hartmann Files, Ford Library. 35. Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, December 23, 1969, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Alexander Butterfield to John Ehrlichman and Bryce Harlow, August 4, 1969, box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; 1969 CQ Almanac, 545, 552–553; Another Last Minute Rescue for School Desegregation, December 23, 1969, box 71, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; A. James Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Adminis-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 466

[ 466 ] not e s to page s 2 9 5 – 2 9 8

trations (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981), 187; memo for Richard Nixon, December 11, 1969, box 4, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, December 11, 1969, box 2, Dent Papers. 36. Face the Nation (New York: Holt Information Systems, 1972), 17; Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, January 23, 1969, box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Thurmond Papers. 37. Gary Orfield, “Congress, the President, and Anti-Busing Legislation, 1966– 1974,” in School Busing: Constitutional and Political Developments, vol. 2, The Public Debate over Busing and Attempts to Restrict Its Use, ed. Davison Douglas (New York: Garland, 1994), 15–17; Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 174, 186–187, 193–200; Congressional Digest, April 1970, 111–127. 38. Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 131–158; Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 378. 39. Lassiter, Silent Majority, 256–261; Judith Buncher, ed., The School Busing Controversy, 1970–1975 (New York: Facts on File, 1975), 100–101, 207; Gallup poll, March 12, 1970, box 5, Dent Papers. 40. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 114, 207; John Brown III to John Ehrlichman, February 18, 1970, box 83, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Staff Secretary, NPP; Gallup poll, March 12, 1970, box 5, Dent Papers; NYT, February 12, 1970; Peter Binzen, Whitetown, U.S.A. (New York: Random House, 1970), 66; National Observer, January 16, 1970; Patrick Buchanan to Richard Nixon, January 30, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting Files, NPP; Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Staff Secretary, March 5, 1970, box 9, WHCF, EX HU 2-1, NPP. 41. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 109, 114, 207; Michael Long, ed., First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson (New York: Times Books, 2007), 298. 42. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Richard Nixon, January 16, 1970, series I, box 244, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; John Brown III to John Ehrlichman, February 3, 1970, series I, box 255, Moynihan Papers; Daniel Patrick Moynihan to John Ehrlichman, January 26, 1970, series I, box 261, Moynihan Papers; NYT, March 6, 1970; Philadelphia Bulletin, March 15, 1970. 43. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 129–130; Safire, Before the Fall, 236–239; John Ehrlichman notes of meeting, February 7, 1970, box 1, Ehrlichman Papers. 44. Safire, Before the Fall, 238; John Ehrlichman to Richard Nixon, January 26, 1970, box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Bryce Harlow to Richard Nixon, February 11, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting Files, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Bryce Harlow, January 23, 1969, box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Thurmond Papers; John Edward Courson to Harry Dent, February 6, 1970, box 1, Mardian Papers; Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, February 13, 1970, box 13, WHCF, EX HU 21, NPP; Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, February 11, 1970, box 80, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; NYT, February 13, 1970; Orfield, Must We Bus? 330–331.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 467

notes to pages 299–302 [ 467 ]

45. Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, February 21, 1970, and Bryce Harlow to Richard Nixon, February 23, 1970, both in box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 132–133; Leonard Garment to Richard Nixon, February 27, 1970, and Patrick Buchanan to John Ehrlichman, March 4, 1970, both in box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Patrick Buchanan to Richard Nixon, February 12 and March 4, 1970, box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 376– 380; Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon, March 9, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting Files, NPP. 46. Jet, April 9, 1970; Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 128–139, 138; John Brown III to Harry Dent, March 25, 1970, box 83, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Staff Secretary, NPP. 47. Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 159; Robert Finch to John Ehrlichman, October 6, 1969, box 23, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 200; press release, February 16, 1970, box 7, Dent Papers; Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, February 21, 1970, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; memo, March 6, 1970, box 30, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Robert Mardian to Spiro Agnew, March 3, 1970, box 7, Mardian Papers. 48. Safire, Before the Fall, 238–240. 49. Richard Nixon, “Statement about Desegregation of Elementary and Secondary Schools,” March 24, 1970, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =2923&st=&st1= (accessed January 31, 2011). 50. Ibid.; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 207. 51. NYT, March 25, 1970; Jet, April 9, 1970. 52. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 25, 121; Bolner and Shanley, Busing, 147; Safire, Before the Fall, 242; Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 145. 53. Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, March 25, 1970, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, April 30, 1970, box 6, Dent Papers; The Public Appraises the Nixon Administration on Key Issues, May 1970, box 10, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Clarke Reed to Richard Nixon, March 25, 1970, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Samuel Lubell, The Hidden Crisis in American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 163–165. 54. Bolner and Shanley, Busing, 164; Jet, February 5, 1970; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 125; Perlstein, Nixonland, 459, 465–466; Transcript of the President’s News Conference, January 30, 1970, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =2558 (accessed October 20, 2010); press releases, January 21 and March 12, 1970, series VI, box A24, NAACP Papers; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, January 30, 1970, and Dorothy Height et al. to Richard Nixon, both in series VI, box A26, NAACP Papers; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 126. 55. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 126–129; Cutler, Edward Brooke, 324–328; NYT, April 19, 1970; Patrick Buchanan to Richard Nixon, March 3, 1970, box 80, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; Jet, April 23, 1970; excerpts from Capitol Cloakroom, March 11, 1970, box 422, Brooke Papers. 56. 1970 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1971),

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 468

[ 468 ] not e s to page s 3 0 3 – 3 0 5

197–199; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, June 22, 1970, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 57. Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 128–131; Ehrlichman notes, June 19, 1970, box 3, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files— John Ehrlichman, NPP; NYT, June 23, 1970; Richard Nixon, “Statement on Signing the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970,” June 22, 1970, http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2553 (accessed December 3, 2010). 58. Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, June 23, 1970, box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Thurmond Papers. 59. WP, April 20, 1970; Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, April 30, 1970, box 6, Dent Papers; Strom Thurmond to John Mitchell, May 15, 1970, box 2, Subject Correspondence Files, 1970, Thurmond Papers; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 174; notes of White House meeting, January 9, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting Files, NPP; press release, January 13, 1970, box 23, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 228–241; WP, July 23, 1970; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 21, 1970, H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, July 23, 1970, and Larry Higby to H. R. Haldeman, July 28, 1970, all in box 122, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—H. R. Haldeman, NPP; Bryce Harlow to Peter Flanigan, May 12, 1970, Lamar Alexander to Bryce Harlow, April 6, 1970, and memo for the President, June 4, 1970, all in box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 388–395; Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, July 15, 1970, box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Thurmond Papers. 60. Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 230–233. 61. Press release, July 10, 1970, box 7, Dent Papers; John Ehrlichman to Richard Nixon, July 18, 1970, box 6, WHCF, President’s Office Files, Handwriting Files, NPP; Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 180–184; Patrick Buchanan to Richard Nixon, July 7, 1970, box 2, WHCF, Subject Files, ED, NPP; Leonard Garment to Richard Nixon, June 6, 1970, and Bryce Harlow to H. R. Haldeman, June 17, 1970, both in box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP. 62. Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 21, 1970, box 122, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—H. R. Haldeman, NPP; Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 232–233. 63. Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1970; Larry Higby to H. R. Haldeman, July 28, 1970, H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, July 23, 1970, and Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 21, 1970, all in box 122, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—H. R. Haldeman, NPP; WP, July 23 and 26, 1970; James Moye to Harry Dent, August 13, 1970, box 5, Dent Papers. 64. H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, July 23, 1970, and Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, July 21, 1970, both in box 122, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—H. R. Haldeman, NPP. 65. Notes of meeting, August 4, 1970, box 1, Ehrlichman Papers; Leonard Garment to Richard Nixon, August 5, 1970, box 5, President’s Office Files, President’s

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 469

notes to pages 306–312 [ 469 ]

Handwriting Files, NPP; Bryce Harlow to Staff Secretary, August 13, 1970, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP. 66. Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, n.d., box 19, Dent Papers. 67. Stephen Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 139; NYT, August 15, 1970; Evans and Novak, Nixon in the White House, 175. 68. Leonard Garment, Crazy Rhythm: My Journey from Brooklyn, Jazz, and Wall Street to Nixon’s White House, Watergate, and Beyond (New York: Random House, 1997), 217. 69. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 208; Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 37; Orfield, “Congress, the President, and Anti-Busing Legislation,” 18; The Emergency School Assistance Program: An Evaluation, n.d., box 74, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; Davies, “Nixon and Desegregation of Southern Schools,” 380–388; press release, January 14, 1971, and Elliott Richardson to Richard Nixon, January 21, 1971, both in box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; James Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 156. 70. NYT, October 14, 1970.

chapter 11. integration revisited 1. Richard Nixon, “Annual Message on the State of the Union,” January 22, 1971, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3110 (accessed February 15, 2011); Shirley Chisholm et al. to Richard Nixon, January 21, 1971, box 7, White House Special Files, Special Staff Files, NPP; Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 194–195. 2. Jet, December 31, 1970, and January 14, 1971; Report on the Polls—Blacks, n.d., in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1986), reel 10, part 2. 3. Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman, November 30, 1970, box 24, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Leonard Garment to Richard Nixon, January 25, 1971, and Synopsis of Black Caucus Recommendations, n.d., both in box 4, Leonard Garment Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Dennis Dickerson, Militant Mediator: Whitney M. Young, Jr. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 266–267; Leonard Garment to John Haldeman, February 9, 1971, box 4, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; Jet, April 1, 1971; WP, March 26, May 19 and 24, 1971; Jet, August 22, 1974. 4. NYT, January 15, 1971; Elliott Richardson to Richard Nixon, January 21, 1971, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 199. 5. NYT, April 21, 1971. 6. CQ Weekly Report, April 30, 1971. 7. Notes of meeting, April 21, 1971, box 5, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Ray Price to Richard Nixon, April 21,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 470

[ 470 ] not e s to page s 3 1 2 – 3 1 6

1971, box 9, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP; Edward Morgan to Richard Nixon, May 24, 1971, box 11, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP. 8. Christopher Bonastia, Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 92–100; Dean Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001); 48–55; John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 104–105. 9. Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 100–103. 10. Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 49. 11. Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 105–107; Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 58–61; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 104–106; memorandum for the president, October 21, 1970, box 1, John Ehrlichman Papers, Herbert Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. 12. Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 60–62; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 104– 106; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 107–108; memorandum for the president, October 21, 1970, box 1, Ehrlichman Papers; Transcript of the President’s News Conference, December 10, 1970, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =2840 (accessed November 22, 2010); H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 210–211. 13. Richard Nixon, “Statement about Federal Policies Relative to Equal Housing Opportunity,” June 11, 1971, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =3042&st=&st1= (accessed November 29, 2010). 14. Ibid. 15. Matthew D. Lassiter, “De Jure/de Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism, ed. Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 43; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 115; NYT, June 13, 1971; Jet, July 29, 1971. 16. NYT, June 15, 1971; Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 63–70; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 124–139. 17. Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 38; WP, May 20 and 27, 1971; Edward Morgan to Richard Nixon, June 6, 1971, box 11, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, June 4, 1971, box 9, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, July 2, 1971, box 14, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; NYT, August 14, 1971; H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, July 22, 1971, box 272, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—H. R. Haldeman, NPP. 18. H. R. Haldeman to John Ehrlichman, July 22, 1971; statement by the president, August 3, 1971, box 52, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; Judith Buncher, ed., The School Busing Controversy, 1970–1975 (New York: Facts on File, 1975), 105. 19. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 125, 210; WP, February 21, 1972; Statement of the United States Commission on Civil Rights Concerning the Statement of the President on Busing, August 1971, box 71, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP; New Republic, August 21 and 28, 1971; Leonard

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 471

notes to pages 316–320 [ 471 ]

Garment to Robert Haldeman, August 12, 1971, box 52, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files—Leonard Garment, NPP. 20. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 21, 206–207; Jet, October 21, 1971. 21. James Bolner and William Shanley, Busing: The Political and Judicial Process (New York: Praeger, 1974), 150; NYT, September 1, October 4 and 18, 1971; Joyce Baugh, The Detroit School Busing Case: Milliken v. Bradley and the Controversy over Desegregation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 114–120; NYT, October 3, 1971. 22. Roland Elliott to David Gergen, October 27, 1971, box 14, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP: William Timmons to Attorney General, September 9, 1971, and Leonard Garment to John Ehrlichman, October 7, 1971, both in box 65, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Dean, NPP; Explanation of Attachment of Northern House Democratic Support for Anti-Busing Amendments, box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; WP, November 7, 1971. 23. Harry Dent to AG and Johnnie Walters, October 28, 1971, box 10, Harry Dent Papers, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.; Richard Cook to Richard Nixon, November 30, 1971, box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Leonard Garment to John Ehrlichman, December 6, 1971, box 52, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files— Leonard Garment, NPP. 24. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Richard Nixon, November 9, 1971, box 12, White House Special Files, President’s Personal File, NPP. 25. Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 139; press release, November 6, 1971, series VI, box A26, NAACP Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Jet, November 11, 1971; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, November 3, 1971, box 43, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 383–384; NYT, December 6, 1971. 26. NYT, November 16 and December 11, 1971; John Dean, The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment That Redefined the Supreme Court (New York: Free Press, 2001), 270–273. Only three Republicans (Javits, Brooke, and Case) voted against Rehnquist. 27. Transcript, Alternatives to Busing, December 21, 1971, box 39, Garment Papers. 28. Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 280–293; National Journal, April 15, 1972. 29. Transcript of telephone conversation, January 27, 1972, Presidential Studies Recordings Program, Miller Center for Public Affairs, http://whitehousetapes.net /transcript/nixon/019-132 (accessed April 10, 2011). 30. Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman, January 28, 1972, box 20, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Dana Meade to John Ehrlichman, n.d., box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP. 31. Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman, January 28, 1972, box 20, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP. 32. Edward Morgan and Bill Timmons to Richard Nixon, February 11, 1972,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 472

[ 472 ] not e s to page s 3 2 1 – 3 2 3

William Timmons to Vinegar Bond, February 15, 1972, and William Timmons to Richard Nixon, February 15, 1972, all in box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 136; press release, February 16, 1972, box 422, Edward Brooke Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; notes of meeting, February 16, 1972, box 2, Ehrlichman Papers; William Timmons to Strom Thurmond, February 16, 1972, box 1, White House Correspondence Series, Strom Thurmond Papers, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C. 33. Edward Morgan and Bill Timmons to Richard Nixon, February 11, 1972, box 6, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP. 34. NYT, February 22 and 25, 1972; Gary Orfield, “Congress, the President, and Anti-Busing Legislation, 1966–1974,” in School Busing: Constitutional and Political Developments, vol. 2, The Public Debate over Busing and Attempts to Restrict Its Use, ed. Davison Douglas (New York: Garland, 1994), 29; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 136; CQ Weekly Report, March 4, 1972. 35. William Safire, Before the Fall: An Insider’s View of the Pre-Watergate White House (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 480–482; memoranda for the president’s files, March 6 and 7, 1972, box 88, President’s Office Files, NPP; NYT, March 17, 1972; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 137. 36. NYT, March 17, 1972. Liberals still saw violence as a reason for federal action. Later that spring, a study by the Conference on Displaced Students and Educators, a pro-integration group, alarmingly observed that during the 1970–1971 school year, “hundreds of the public schools resembled armed camps, with guns, knives, and fire bombs.” Vandalism, assault, robbery, bomb threats, student suspensions (many of which were illegal), and intimidation were commonplace. See Jet, May 18, 1972. 37. NYT, March 18, 1972; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 139. 38. National Journal, April 15, 1972; NYT, March 18, 1972; Ehrlichman, Witness to Power, 194–195; Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 409, 424; Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 157. 39. Memorandum for the president’s files, March 6, 1972, box 88, President’s Office Files, NPP; NAACP and Segregated Schools, n.d., box 20, Roy Wilkins Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Ripon Forum, April 1972, box 29, Ripon Society Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; news summary, March 18, 1972, box 39, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; NYT, March 23 and 25, 1972; Statement of the United States Commission on Civil Rights Concerning the President’s Message to Congress and Proposed Legislation on Busing and Equal Educational Opportunities, n.d., box 141, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; statement by Clarence Mitchell, March 28, 1972, box 20, Wilkins Papers; Jet, May 11 and 18, 1972; WP, March 22, 1972; WSJ, March 11, 1972; Des Barker to Charles Colson, March 23, 1972, box 114, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Charles Colson, NPP; Jet, May 4, 1972. 40. Strom Thurmond to Richard Nixon, March 24, 1972, and Max Friedersdorf to Richard Nixon, March 22, 1972, both in box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 139–140, 227–228; National Journal, April 15, 1972.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 473

notes to pages 323–328 [ 473 ]

41. NYT, April 8, 1972; memorandum for the president’s files, March 28, 1972, box 88, President’s Office Files, NPP; press release, May 17, 1972, box 163, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.; Edward Morgan to John Ehrlichman, April 11, 1972, box 51, WHCF, Staff Member and Office Files— Leonard Garment, NPP; Bolner and Shanley, Busing, 161–163; Long Island Newsday, April 13, 1972. 42. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 140; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, May 24, 1972, box 20, Wilkins Papers; statement of Roy Wilkins, May 25, 1972, box 116, LCCR Papers, Library of Congress; WP, June 24, 1972; Jet, July 20, 1972. 43. Memorandum on House Action on H.R. 13915, August 18, 1972, box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; press release, October 10, 1972, box 38, Robert Hartmann Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Arnold Aronson to Participating Organizations, October 17, 1972, box 1, LCCR Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.; Human Events, October 21, 1972; WP, October 12, 1972.

chapter 12. economic policy: nixon’s first term 1. Jet, January 9, 1969; memorandum for the president’s file, February 7, 1969, box 77, White House Special Files, President’s Office Files, NPP; Robert E. Weems Jr. and Lewis Randolph, Business in Black and White: American Presidents & Black Entrepreneurs in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 127–137. 2. Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 3–4. 3. Jet, May 8, 1969; William Safire, Before the Fall: An Insider’s View of the PreWatergate White House (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 237. 4. Richard Nixon, “Statement about a National Program for Minority Business Enterprise,” March 5, 1969, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid =1943&st=&st1= (accessed December 21, 2010); Hugh Davis Graham, “The Incoherence of the Civil Rights Policy in the Nixon Administration,” in Richard M. Nixon: Politician, President, Administrator, ed. Leon Friedman and William Levantrosser (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 166; Dean Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 134. 5. KevinYuill, Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action: The Pursuit of Racial Equality (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 74–75; Jerris Leonard to John Ehrlichman, n.d., box 10, Arthur Burns Papers, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich. 6. Hugh Davis Graham, The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 420–429; NYT, March 28, 1969; Jet, April 10, 1969; Jennifer Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 1940–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 178–192; Herbert Hill, “The Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972: A Critical Analysis of the Legislative History and Administration of the Law,” Industrial Relations Law Journal 2 (Spring 1977): 76; Herbert Hill, “Black Workers, Organized Labor, and Ti-

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 474

[ 474 ] not e s to page s 3 2 8 – 3 3 3

tle VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: Legislative History and Litigation Record,” in Race in America: The Struggle for Equality, ed. Herbert Hill and James E. Jones Jr. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 320–323; 1969 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1970), 411–414; Diary of White House Leadership Meetings, April 29, 1969, box 106, Robert Hartmann Files, Ford Library; Arthur Burns to Richard Nixon, August 8, 1969, box 17, WHCF, HU 2-2, NPP. 7. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 426–431. 8. NYT, August 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1969. 9. NYT, June 28, 1969; Thomas Sugrue, “Affirmative Action from Below: Civil Rights, the Building Trades, and the Politics of Racial Equality in the Urban North, 1945–1969,” in African American Urban History since World War II, ed. Kenneth Kusmer and Joe Trotter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 219–220; NYT, August 7, 1969; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 280. 10. Hugh Davis Graham, “Race, History, and Policy: African Americans and Civil Rights since 1964,” Journal of Policy History 6, 1 (1994): 20–22. 11. Thomas Sugrue, “The Tangled Roots of Affirmative Action,” American Behavioral Scientist 41 (April 1998): 886–890; Paul Moreno, From Direct Action to Affirmative Action: Fair Employment Law and Policy in America, 1933–1972 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 57–64; Terry H. Anderson, The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 88–94; John David Skrentny, The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 37–40. 12. Sugrue, “Affirmative Action from Below,” 242–243; Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 105–107; NYT, January 19, 1969. 13. Judith Stein, “Affirmative Action and the Conservative Agenda: President Richard M. Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan of 1969,” in Labor and the Modern South, ed. Glenn T. Eskew (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), 183–187; Graham, “Race, History, and Policy,” 20–22; Yuill, Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action, 73–75, 108, 127–128, 139, 145–146; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 325–326; Daniel Patrick Moynihan to George Shultz, March 3, 1969, box 17, WHCF, HU 2-2, NPP; Christopher Bonastia, Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 35; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 294–297. 14. Yuill, Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action, 93–99; 1969 CQ Almanac, 417–418; Notes on Republican Leadership Meeting, July 8, 1969, box 8, collection 10200-n, Hugh Scott Papers, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 15. Congressional Digest, March 1970, 67–75. 16. 1969 CQ Almanac, 412–418. 17. NYT, August 28, 1969; Trevor Griffey, “‘The Blacks Should Not Be Administering the Philadelphia Plan’: Nixon, the Hard Hats, and ‘Voluntary’ Affirmative Action,” in Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action, and the Construction Industry, ed. David Goldfield and Trevor Griffey (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010), 134–141; Arthur Fletcher, The Silent Sell Out: Government Betrayal of Blacks to the Craft Unions (New York: Third Press, 1974), 70–74. 18. 1969 CQ Almanac, 418; Sugrue, “Tangled Roots of Affirmative Action,” 893–895.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 475

notes to pages 333–338 [ 475 ]

19. Skrentny, Ironies of Affirmative Action, 37–50; Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 95–120; Peter Binzen, Whitetown, U.S.A. (New York: Random House, 1970), 10–35. 20. Pete Hamill, “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class,” New York, April 14 1969, http://nymag.com/news/features/46801 (accessed January 12, 2011); memo to Daniel Moynihan, May 16, 1969, and Daniel Moynihan to Richard Nixon, May 17 1969, both in box 2, President’s Office Files, President’s Handwriting File, NPP; Jefferson Cowie, “Nixon’s Class Struggle: Romancing the New Right Worker, 1969–1973,” Labor History 43, 3 (2002): 258–264. 21. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on Domestic Programs,” August 8, 1969, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2191&st=&st1=#axzz1 JPWw7jrv (accessed April 13, 2011); Small, Presidency of Nixon, 186–188; Charles Hamilton and Donna Hamilton, The Dual Agenda: The African American Struggle for Civil and Economic Equality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 176–179; Godfrey Hodgson, The Gentleman from New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Biography (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 172–181; A. James Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981), 135. 22. Hamilton and Hamilton, Dual Agenda, 179; Small, Presidency of Nixon, 188. 23. Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change, 144–145; Marissa Chappell, The War on Welfare: Family, Poverty, and Politics in Modern America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 65–92; Ken Cole to John Ehrlichman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, September 9, 1969, box 275, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 24. Congressional Digest, March 1970, 83–94. 25. Press release, December 20, 1969, box 68, Records of the Department of Labor, National Archives II, College Park, Md.; WP, December 22, 1969; Skrentny, Ironies of Affirmative Action, 205–208; Stein, “Affirmative Action and the Conservative Agenda,” 189–190; NYT, December 26, 1969; Graham, Civil Rights Era, 339– 340. 26. NYT, February 4 and 10, 1970; NYT, January 25, 1970; Jet, April 2, 1970. 27. Lawrence Silberman to Kenneth Cole, April 6, 1971, box 27, Lawrence Silberman Papers, Hoover Institution, Palo Alto, Calif.; CR, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., 580; 1971 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1972), 645– 649; CQ Weekly Report, September 25, 1971. 28. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 434–437; Jet, February 10, 1972; Hill, “Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972,” 32–33. 29. CR, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., 2492. 30. Hill, “Equal Employment Opportunity Acts of 1964 and 1972,” 32–48; Congressional Digest, October 1971, 270–274; 1972 CQ Almanac (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1973), 249; CR, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., 700, 731, 933, 3800. 31. CQ Weekly Report, February 12, 1972, 317. 32. Graham, Civil Rights Era, 440–443; 1972 CQ Almanac, 247–255. 33. Peter Flanigan to David Parker, March 17, 1972, box 17, WHCF, HU 2-2,

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 476

[ 476 ] not e s to page s 3 3 8 – 3 4 4

NPP; Nina Moore, Governing by Race: Policy, Process, and the Politics of Race (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), 105–107; Patrick Buchanan to John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, et al., January 31, 1972, box 17, WHCF, HU 2-2, NPP; Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 217–224. 34. Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 118–121; Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 139– 142; Jet, May 2, 1974; Delton, Racial Integration in Corporate America, 226–238; Black Enterprise, September 1977. 35. Black Enterprise, September 1977, March 1974, September 1974, and June 1978.

chapter 13. a new republican majority? 1. Robert Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 2–3. 2. Matthew Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 2–5. 3. Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan, Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 99–196. 4. Ibid. 5. New Republic, May 22, 2006; Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1969), 464–471. 6. NYT, May 17, 1970; Lassiter, Silent Majority, 240. 7. Thomas J. Sugrue and John D. Skrentny, “The White Ethnic Strategy,” in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Shulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 173–179; Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 45–50; Dean Kotlowski, “Nixon’s Southern Strategy Revisited,” Journal of Policy History 10, 2 (1998): 211; Ripon Forum, July 1970; Ripon Society, The Lessons of Victory (New York: Dial Press, 1969), 268. 8. Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 55; Harry Dent to Richard Nixon, November 17, 1969, box 10, WHCF, Subject Files, FG, NPP; Charlotte Observer, October 10, 1969; Joseph Crespino, In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 184–185, 227; Gary Orfield, Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), 290. 9. Frank B. Atkinson, The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of TwoParty Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980, rev. 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 218–221, 230–232, 262–263; Gordon Brownell to Harry Dent, October 31, 1969, box 1, Harry Dent Papers, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C. Holton told Nixon in June 1971 that integrated education was helping black and white students become friends, and in ten years “you’re not gonna have any damn all-white suburbs.” See Transcript of Oval Office Meeting, June 6, 1971, Miller Center for Public Affairs, http://whitehousetapes.net/exhibit/linwood-holton-nixon -tapes (accessed April 10, 2011). The fact that Holton sent his children to an integrated public school rankled Nixon. In March 1972 the president told aides, “I think he’s lying through his teeth. . . . Goddamnit, you don’t do that.” He added, “Black

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 477

notes to pages 344–347 [ 477 ]

children are not equal to white children and black teachers are not as good as white teachers. Now, goddamn it, that happens to be the truth. . . . Now, you can’t tell them that. That’s the problem.” See Transcript of Oval Office Meeting, March 14, 1972, Miller Center for Public Affairs, http://whitehousetapes.net/exhibit/linwood -holton-nixon-tapes (accessed April 10, 2011). 10. NYT, December 7, 1969. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid.; H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 113. 13. Samuel Lubell, The Hidden Crisis in American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 130–137; Mark R. Levy and Michael S. Kramer, The Ethnic Factor: How America’s Minorities Decide Elections (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 64–65; Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 67–69. 14. Richard Nixon, “Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam,” November 3, 1969, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2303&st=&st1=#axzz1 VIWwuthv (accessed August 17, 2011); Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 63–65. 15. Daniel J. Galvin, Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 76–77; John Brown III to H. R. Haldeman and Leonard Garment, December 31, 1969, box 3, Leonard Garment Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 16. Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real Majority: An Extraordinary Examination of the American Electorate (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1970), 43–47. 17. Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, 192; Trevor Griffey, “‘The Blacks Should Not Be Administering the Philadelphia Plan’: Nixon, the Hard Hats, and ‘Voluntary’ Affirmative Action,” in Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action, and the Construction Industry, ed. David Goldfield and Trevor Griffey (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010), 147–150; Sugrue and Skrentny, “White Ethnic Strategy,” 173–179; H. R. Haldeman to Murray Chotiner and Harry Dent, September 10, 1970, box 10, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Jefferson Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class (New York: Free Press, 2010), 124–145. 18. How Senate Candidates Are Using Busing Issue, n.d., box 10, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Harry Dent, NPP; Lassiter, Silent Majority, 256–275. 19. Atkinson, Dynamic Dominion, 242–249; Lassiter, Silent Majority, 267–275. 20. Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 109–111. 21. Samuel Lubell, The Future while It Happened (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 48–49, 57, 144–145; Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 389–439; Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 101–107; Levy and Kramer, The Ethnic Factor, 62–63. 22. Lassiter, Silent Majority, 261–275; Levy and Kramer, The Ethnic Factor, 58–61.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 478

[ 478 ] not e s to page s 3 4 8 – 3 5 2

23. Pat Buchanan to John Mitchell and H. R. Haldeman, September 8, 1971, box 1, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Pat Buchanan, NPP; Cowie, Stayin’ Alive, 156–157; U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities of the United States Senate, Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972, 93rd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 4381. Prior to the New Hampshire primary, Republican operatives pretended to be Harlem residents when they called Granite State voters. 24. Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 431–435; Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman, May 17, 1972, box 24, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Presidential Meetings and Conversations, May 18, 1972, box 18, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Charles Colson, NPP; Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman, May 19, 1972, box 162, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—John Ehrlichman, NPP; Michael Balzano to Charles Colson, June 12, 1972, box 114, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files— Charles Colson, NPP. 25. WP, May 21, 1972; Jet, June 8, 1972; Edward Morgan to Richard Nixon, June 16, 1972, box 10, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; Judith Buncher, ed., The School Busing Controversy, 1970–1975 (New York: Facts on File, 1975), 62; Detroit News, June 29, 1972; William Milliken to Richard Nixon, July 13, 1972, box 13, WHCF, HU 2-1, NPP; John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 237–239. 26. Cowie, Stayin’ Alive, 80–89. 27. Ibid., 99–112. 28. Jet, August 31 and September 21, 1972. 29. Cowie, Stayin’ Alive, 110–113. 30. Ibid. 31. Carter, Politics of Rage, 449–450. 32. Devin Fergus, “Black Power, Soft Power: Floyd McKissick, Soul City, and the Death of Moderate Black Republicanism,” Journal of Policy History 22, 2 (2010): 158–159; Jet, September 7, July 27, and August 3, 1972. 33. Catherine Rymph, Republican Women: Feminism and Conservatism from Suffrage through the Rise of the New Right (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 191–205. 34. Ibid., 201–205; NYT, August 23, 1972. 35. Jet, August 3 and September 7, 1972. 36. Donald Bruce Johnson, ed., National Party Platforms, vol 1, 1840–1956 (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 883–884; Andrew Kilberg, “Moderate Republicans and the Conservative Rise, 1962–1982” (M.A. thesis, Princeton University, 2010), 81. 37. Richard Nixon, “Remarks at Accepting the Presidential Nomination of the Republican National Convention,” August 23, 1972, http://www.presidency.ucsb .edu/ws/index.php?pid=3537&st=&st1 (accessed January 11, 2011). 38. Griffey, “‘Blacks Should Not Be Administering the Philadelphia Plan,’” 137–

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 479

notes to pages 353–357 [ 479 ]

157; Jet, September 21, 1972; Ripon Forum, September 1972, box 29, Ripon Society Papers, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 39. Nixon, “Remarks at Accepting the Presidential Nomination.” 40. Schuman et al., Racial Attitudes in America, 153–166. 41. “President Nixon. Now More than Ever,” http://www.livingroomcandidate .org/commercials/1972 (accessed February 23, 2011); Lubell, The Future while It Happened, 94–96; Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 181. 42. Lubell, The Future while It Happened, 13, 58–61, 92–96; 1972 Campaign Factbook, n.d., in Papers of the Republican Party, ed. Paul Kesaris (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1986), reel 11, part 2; Jet, October 12, 1972. 43. Lubell, The Future while It Happened, 50–59; Joyce Baugh, The Detroit School Busing Case: Milliken v. Bradley and the Controversy over Desegregation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 130–133; Jet, October 19 and November 30, 1972. 44. Richard Nixon, “Radio Address on the Philosophy of Government,” October 21, 1972, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3637&st=&st1= (accessed February 21, 2011). 45. Richard Nixon, “Remarks at a Campaign Reception for Southern Supporters in Atlanta, Georgia,” October 12, 1972, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=3627&st=&st1 (accessed February 21, 2011); Raymond Price, With Nixon (New York: Viking, 1977), 120–121. 46. Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 173–177; Crespino, In Search of Another Country, 219; Levy and Kramer, The Ethnic Factor, 61. 47. Republican National Committee, Research Report: Black Political Participation, n.d., box 5, Stanley Scott Files, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48. Ibid. 49. Memo by Robert Brown, n.d., box 5, Scott Files, Ford Library; Pat Buchanan to Richard Nixon, August 7, 1971, box 1, White House Special Files, Staff Member and Office Files—Pat Buchanan, NPP; 1972 Campaign Factbook; Jet, October 12, 1972. 50. Jet, June 29, 1972; NYT, June 12, 1972; Devin Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965–1980 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 196–231. 51. NYT, October 17, 1972. Brown penned a rebuttal to charges he had sold out to Nixon. Blacks, he argued, had already been sold out by the political system; he met with the president “to sell black people in.” Brown welcomed Nixon’s appointment of African Americans as well as increased funding for sickle cell anemia research and black colleges. See Jet, November 9 and 23, 1972. 52. NYT Magazine, October 15, 1972; NYT, October 17, 1972; WP, September 14, 2003; Jet, November 23, 1972; Wil Haygood, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr. (New York: Knopf, 2003), 130, 151, 303–304, 422–440; Library of Congress, Hope for America: Performers, Politics, and Pop Culture, http://myloc .gov/Exhibitions/hopeforamerica/causesandcontroversies/entertainingthetroops/Ex hibitObjects/SammyDavisJrInVietnam.aspx (accessed February 23, 2011); Jet, September 21 and November 2, 1972.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 480

[ 480 ] not e s to page s 3 5 8 – 3 6 4

53. Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 169–170; NYT, October 17 and 26, 1972; Jet, November 2, 1972; NYT, November 18, 1973; Fergus, “Black Power, Soft Power,” 157. 54. Lubell, The Future while It Happened, 55–56; Baugh, Detroit School Busing Case, 132–133. 55. Popular Vote and Electoral College Vote by State, http://psephos.adam-carr .net/countries/u/usa/pres/1972.txt (accessed February 24, 2011); Nelson Prysby, “Electoral Behavior in the U.S. South,” in Party Politics in the South, ed. Robert Steed, Laurence Moreland, and Tod Baker (New York: Praeger, 1980), 102–107; Bob Moser, Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Majority (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 4. 56. Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism: Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 167–172; Mark D. Brewer and Jeffrey M. Stonecash, “Class, Racial Issues, and Declining White Support for the Democratic Party in the South,” Political Behavior 23 (June 2001): 140; David Lublin, The Republican South (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004). 57. Ripon Society and Clifford W. Brown Jr., Jaws of Victory: The Game-Plan Politics of 1972, the Crisis of the Republican Party, and the Future of the Constitution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 187–195; Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 189–191; Jet, November 23, 1972. 58. Press release, November 10, 1972, box 6, Scott Files, Ford Library; Mason, Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 189; Ripon Society and Brown, Jaws of Victory, 197–198. 59. Levy and Kramer, The Ethnic Factor, 246–248; NYT, August 19 and 28, 1973; Jet, August 24, 1972. 60. New York Post, November 24, 1972; NYT, January 7 and 20, 1973.

chapter 14. denouement: the gop and race, 1973–1974 1. Jet, February 8, 1973; Ebony, March 1973; NYT, January 21, 1973. 2. Jet, February 8, 1973; CQ Weekly Report, January 20, 1973. 3. NYT, February 25, 1973; Jet, May 24 and September 27, 1973; NYT, September 12, 1973. 4. Jet, August 23, 1973. 5. Richard Nixon, “Oath of Office and Second Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1973, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/index.php?pid=4141 (accessed March 25, 2011); Christopher Bonastia, Knocking on the Door: The Federal Government’s Attempt to Desegregate the Suburbs (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), 137–138; Jet, February 15, 1973; Black Enterprise, March 1973. 6. Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), 191–195; Black Enterprise, March 1973. 7. Jet, January 25 and February 15, 1973; NYT, February 27, 1973; Jet, March 1 and 8, 1973. 8. Jet, March 1 and 8, 1973; NYT, March 3, 1973.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 481

notes to pages 364–370 [ 481 ]

9. Jet, April 5, January 25, and November 5, 1973. 10. Mark Levy and Michael Kramer, The Ethnic Factor: How America’s Minorities Decide Elections (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 32; Jet, February 22, 1973; NYT, March 12, 1973; Jet, March 29, 1973. 11. Jet, March 8 and April 19, 1973. 12. Jet, April 12, 1973; NYT, February 27, 1973; Jet, March 8, April 5, and June 7, 1973. 13. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 181; NYT, April 17, 1970; A. James Reichley, Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981), 150–151. 14. Jet, April 26, May 3, November 1 and 8, 1973; Richard Nixon, “Veto of the Minimum Wage Bill,” September 6, 1973, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index .php?pid=3950#axzz1GCmto9rY (accessed March 10, 2011); Richard Nixon, “Statement on Signing the Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1974,” April 8, 1974, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4169&st=&st1=#axzz1G Cmto9rY (accessed March 10, 2011). 15. Time, July 9, 1973; NYT, November 18, 1973; Black Enterprise, June 1973 and June 1977. 16. Black Enterprise, June 1978; Time, July 9, 1973; Black Enterprise, June 1977 and January 1975; NYT, November 18, 1973. 17. Jet, May 10, 1973. 18. U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972, Book 18 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 8256–8280, 8406–8415; U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972, Book 19 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973), 8613–8616, 8713–8741, 8744–8747, 8850–8860, 8862–8871; U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, The Senate Watergate Report (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1974), 376–382, 413–414. 19. Presidential Campaign Activities of 1972, Book 19, 8613–8616, 8837–8847; Senate Watergate Report, 417–422. 20. Jet, July 19, 1973. 21. Jet, February 22 and April 12, 1973. 22. Gary Orfield, Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), 293–296, 342–343; CQ Weekly Report, February 24, 1973; James Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 160– 162; NYT, April 18, 1973; Jet, May 17, June 14, and July 5, 1973. 23. Judith Buncher, ed., The School Busing Controversy, 1970–1975 (New York: Facts on File, 1975), 231; Jet, September 13, 1973; NYT, September 11, 1973. 24. Jet, December 6, 1973. 25. Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 143; Orfield, Must We Bus? 255–257. 26. Press release, August 31, 1973, and President Nixon’s Views on the Future of American Education, March 23, 1974, both in box 138, Gerald Ford Vice Presidential

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 482

[ 482 ] not e s to page s 3 7 1 – 3 7 7

Files, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Buncher, School Busing Controversy, 185–186; CQ Weekly Report, March 30, 1974. 27. WP, May 16, 1974; Gary Orfield, “Congress, the President, and Anti-Busing Legislation, 1966–1974,” in School Busing: Constitutional and Political Developments, vol. 2, The Public Debate over Busing and Attempts to Restrict Its Use, ed. Davison Douglas (New York: Garland, 1994), 44; WP, May 17, 1974; Baltimore Sun, May 16, 1974; CQ, May 18, 1974; NYT, March 17, May 16 and 21, 1974; CR, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., 14,859–14,861. 28. Robert Norrell, The House I Live In: Race in the American Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 288–290; Joyce Baugh, The Detroit School Busing Case: Milliken v. Bradley and the Controversy over Desegregation (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 60–67, 83–85, 114–120, 138–177; Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 179–183. 29. Ken Cole to Richard Nixon, June 26, 1974, Dana Mead to Caspar Weinberger, June 29, 1974, Ken Cole to Richard Nixon, July 26, 1974, and Gene Snyder et al. to Richard Nixon, n.d., all in box 16, WHCF, Fa 3, NPP; Orfield, “Congress, the President, and Anti-Busing Legislation,” 55–56; Orfield, Must We Bus? 268. 30. Jet, April 4 and May 16, 1974. 31. Jet, December 6, 1973. 32. Jet, August 29, 1974. 33. Ibid.; Orfield, Must We Bus? 268; Transcript of the President’s Press Conference, October 9, 1974, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4440 #axzz1LKFks8LJ (accessed May 3, 2011); Baugh, Detroit School Busing Case, 174; Bonastia, Knocking on the Door, 138–139. 34. Jet, August 22, 1974. 35. Ibid.; Jet, July 4, 1974.

epilogue 1. NYT, August 6, 1980; Jeremy D. Mayer, “Reagan and Race: Prophet of Color Blindness, Baiter of the Backlash,” in Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America’s Fortieth President, ed. Kyle Longley, Jeremy D. Mayer, Michael Shaller, and John W. Sloan (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2007), 76–79; Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 518–519; Thomas Edsall and Mary Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 148; Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, and Lawrence Bobo, Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 153–166; Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 67–72, 168–170. 2. NYT, August 6, 1980; Black Enterprise, September 1980; NYT, August 4, 1980; Mayer, “Reagan and Race,” 79; Ronald Reagan, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Detroit,” July 17, 1980, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25970 (accessed August 7, 2012); WP, August 4, 1980. Jimmy Carter had carried Mississippi by just 14,000 votes in 1976, so the state seemed to be a good target for the GOP.

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 483

notes to pages 377–379 [ 483 ]

3. NYT, August 6, 1980; WP, August 6, 1980; “Republican Party Platform of 1980,” July 15, 1980, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25844 (accessed August 15, 2012). Reagan was originally scheduled to appear at the Urban League meeting and then go to the Neshoba fair, but some advisers worried that this would make the Urban League speech seem insincere. So the order of the appearances was reversed, in the hope of demonstrating Reagan’s sincerity toward blacks. 4. David Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention (Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2012), 4, 14; Black Enterprise, July 1980; Louis Bolce, Gerald De Maio, and Douglas Muzzio, “Blacks and the Republican Party: The 20 Percent Solution,” Political Science Quarterly 107 (Spring 1992): 65; Pearl Robinson, “Whither the Future of Blacks in the Republican Party?” Political Science Quarterly 97, 2 (Summer 1982): 216–226. 5. Mayer, “Reagan and Race,” 80–81; NYT, November 27, 1980; WP, November 6, 1980; Black Enterprise, July 1980. 6. Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention, 2–17; David Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Democratic National Convention (Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2012), 7; Clarence Thomas, “The Loneliness of the Black Conservative,” Policy Review (Fall 1991): 72–79. 7. Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” June 29, 1981, http://www.presi dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=44016&st=&st1= (accessed September 1, 2012); Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a National Black Republican Council Dinner,” September 15, 1982, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42989&st=&st1= (accessed September 1, 2012); Dan Quayle, “Address to the Commonwealth Club,” May 19, 1992, http://www.vicepresidentdanquayle.com/speeches_StandingFirm _CCC_1.html (accessed August 17, 2012); Thomas Edsall, The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics (New York: Doubleday, 2012), 72; Dan Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Revolution, 1963–1994 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 110; NYT, January 28, 2005. 8. Terry Anderson, The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 162–163; Robinson, “Whither the Future of Blacks,” 230; Algernon Austin, “For African Americans, 50 Years of High Unemployment,” http://www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-50-years-high-un employment (accessed September 3, 2012); NYT, August 24 and 28, October 5, 1981; “African Americans and Social Security: The Implications of Reform Proposals,” http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=885 (accessed August 14, 2012); “Social Security’s Cruelest Cut,” http://www.epi.org/publication/ib211 (accessed August 14, 2012); “Black Groups Hesitant about Bush Proposal,” http://www.usa today.com/news/nation/2005-02-28-socsec-blacks_x.htm (accessed August 14, 2012). 9.“Racial Divides in Public Opinion,” http://www.michaeldawson.net/projects /racial-divides/#presidents (accessed September 9, 2012); “Bush and Public Opinion,” http://www.people-press.org/2008/12/18/bush-and-public-opinion (accessed September 10, 2012); Michael Dawson, Not in Our Lifetimes: The Future of Black Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 2–3; Michael Dawson, Behind

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 484

[ 484 ] not e s to page s 3 8 0 – 3 8 2

the Mule: Race and Class in African American Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). 10. Hugh Davis Graham, Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 65–68, 88–91; Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith, Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), 107–122. 11. Hugh Davis Graham, “Civil Rights Policy,” in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism & Its Legacies, ed. W. Elliott Brownlee and Hugh Davis Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 286; Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 185–191; King and Smith, Still a House Divided, 112–116. 12. Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 206–207; Graham, “Civil Rights Policy,” 286– 287. 13. Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 179–185; Hugh Davis Graham, “Race, History, and Policy: African Americans and Civil Rights since 1964,” Journal of Policy History 6, 1 (1994): 28. 14. Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 303–312; Graham, “Civil Rights Policy,” 284–288; Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 172–176, 248–257; John David Skrentny, “Republican Efforts to End Affirmative Action: Walking a Fine Line,” in Seeking the Center: Politics and Policymaking in the New Century, ed. Martin A. Levin, Marc K. Landy, and Martin Shapiro (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001), 140–149; Hugh Davis Graham, “Since 1964: The Paradox of American Civil Rights Regulation,” in Taking Stock: American Government in the Twentieth Century, ed. Morton Keller and R. Shep Melnick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 216–218. 15. Gil Troy, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 97; Graham, Collision Course, 7, 88–91; Graham, “Race, History, and Policy,” 25–27. 16. Hugh Davis Graham, “The Politics of Clientele Capture: Civil Rights Policy and the Reagan Administration,” in Redefining Equality, ed. Neal Devins and Davison Douglas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 109–113; Anderson, Pursuit of Fairness, 184, 192, 206–207; Stephen Tuck, “African American Protest during the Reagan Years: Forging New Agendas, Defending Old Victories,” in Ronald Reagan and the 1980s: Perceptions, Policies, Legacies, ed. Cheryl Hudson and Gareth Davies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 124; John Patrick Diggins, Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 311–312; Cannon, President Reagan, 522; Will Bunch, Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future (New York: Free Press, 2009), 110; Michael Fauntroy, Republicans and the Black Vote (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2007), 97–99; Michael Deaver, A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Reagan (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 98. 17.“Inveterate Confederates,” http://prospect.org/article/inveterate-confederates (accessed July 11, 2012); Nation, August 29, 2005; Jet, January 6, 2003. 18. Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 485

notes to pages 382–385 [ 485 ]

American City (New York: Random House, 2006), 85–86; Jacob Weisburg, “An Imperfect Storm: How Race Shaped Bush’s Response to Katrina,” http://www.slate .com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2005/09/an_imperfect_storm.html (accessed July 19, 2012). 19. WP, September 3, 2005; Dawson, Not in Our Lifetimes, 21–25; “Two-inThree Critical of Bush’s Relief Efforts,” http://www.people-press.org/2005/09/08 /two-in-three-critical-of-bushs-relief-efforts (accessed July 19, 2012); “In Memoir, Bush Strikes Back at Kanye West,” http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/03 /in-memoir-bush-strikes-back-at-kanye-west (accessed August 31, 2012). 20. Austin, “For African Americans, 50 Years of High Unemployment”; NYT, August 24 and October 5, 1981; William Schneider and I. A. Lewis, “Black Voting, Bloc Voting, and the Democrats,” Public Opinion (October/November 1983): 13–15; Robert Collins, Transforming America: Politics and Culture during the Reagan Years (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 241; “Remembering Reagan’s Civil Rights Legacy,” http://www.npr.org/2011/02/04/133497430/Remembering-Presi dents-Reagan-Civil-Rights-Legacy (accessed August 25, 2012); Joe Davidson, “Ronald Reagan: A Contrary View,” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5158315/# .UCvhnkSYRQM (accessed August 15, 2012); Bunch, Tear Down This Myth, 190. 21.“Candidate Ads: 1988 George Bush ‘Revolving Door,’” http://www.inside politics.org/ps111/candidateads.html (accessed July 18, 2012); Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich, 78–79. 22. John Brady, Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 176–194, 200–209; NYT, October 25, 1988. 23. Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 182–185, 205–211; Paul Frymer, Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 114–115; Bolce, De Maio, and Muzzio, “Blacks and the Republican Party,” 78; David O. Sears, Jack Citrin, and Rick Kosterman, “Jesse Jackson and the Southern White Electorate in 1984,” in Blacks in Southern Politics, ed. L. W. Moreland and R. P. Steed (New York: Praeger, 1987), 219–222; WP, April 16, 1991; Brady, Bad Boy, 200–209; Alexander Lamis, Southern Politics in the 1990s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), 7–8; NYT, October 6, 2005. 24. Bunch, Tear Down This Myth, 99, 110; King and Smith, Still a House Divided, 176–179; Frymer, Uneasy Alliances, 169–170; Mayer, “Reagan and Race,” 85. 25. Frances Fox Piven, Lorraine C. Minnite, and Margaret Groarke, Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters (New York: New Press, 2009), 118–121. 26. Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention, 4, 13, 17; “GOP Has Always Been Dominated by White Voters,” http://www.fivethirtyeight.com /2009/06/gop-has-always-been-dominated-by-white.html (accessed September 3, 2012); Crisis, November/December 2000; Jet, February 19, 2001. 27. Piven, Minnite, and Groarke, Keeping Down the Black Vote, 48–97; Crisis, November/December 2000; Tova Andrea Wang, The Politics of Voter Suppression: Defending and Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012), 37–41, 54–58; Chandler Davidson, Tanya Dunlap, Gale Kenny, and Benjamin Wise, “Vote Caging as a Republican Ballot Security Technique,” William

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 486

[ 486 ] not e s to page s 3 8 5 – 3 8 6

Mitchell Law Review 34, 2 (2008): 543–562; People for the American Way and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today,” http://www .pfaw.org/media-center/publications/long-shadow-jim-crow-voter-suppression -america (accessed August 19, 2012). 28. Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention, 4; Piven, Minnite, and Groarke, Keeping Down the Black Vote, 172–179; Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2007), 125–135, 153–154; Wang, Politics of Voter Suppression, 84–88; People for the American Way and NAACP, “Long Shadow of Jim Crow.” 29. Thomas Sugrue, Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 128–129; NYT, April 12, 2007; Lorraine C. Minnite, The Myth of Voter Fraud (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010), 85. 30. Michael Tesler and David O. Sears, Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 2–4; Dawson, Not in Our Lifetimes, 86–88; Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam, Us against Them: The Ethnocentric Foundations of Public Opinion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 184–201. 31. Tesler and Sears, Obama’s Race, 8–9, 111; “Steele Cage,” http://www.tnr .com/article/politics/steele-cage (accessed February 19, 2011); Randall Kennedy, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (New York: Pantheon, 2011), 10–11; Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention, 4–6; Philip Klinkner and Thomas Schaller, “LBJ’s Revenge: The 2008 Election and the Rise of the Great Society Coalition,” Forum 6, 4 (2008): article 9; “Base Turnout Strategy May Be Too Narrow for Romney,” http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com /2012/08/30/base-turnout-strategy-may-be-too-narrow-for-romney/#more-33879 (accessed September 11, 2012); Alan Abramowitz, The Polarized Public? Why American Government Is so Dysfunctional (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2012), 17; Alan Abramowitz, The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010), 127–130; Ruy Teixera, “Demographic Change and the Future of the Parties,” http://www .americanprogressaction.org/issues/progressive-movement/report/2010/06/16 /7953/demographic-change-and-the-future-of-the-parties (accessed July 18, 2011). 32.“Steele: GOP Needs ‘Hip-Hop’ Makeover,” http://www.washingtontimes .com/news/2009/feb/19/steele-gop-needs-hip-hop-makeover (accessed January 11, 2010); “Steele Cage”; “Steele: African Americans Really Don’t Have a Reason to Vote GOP,” http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/steele-african-ameri cans-really-dont-have-a-reason-to-vote-gop.php?ref=fpb (accessed April 27, 2010); “At RNC, Steele Is a Man Who Doesn’t Exist,” http://washingtonexaminer.com/at -rnc-michael-steele-is-man-who-doesnt-exist/article/2505914#.UF4KLhgrgjE (accessed September 7, 2012); “Behind the GOP.com Re-launch: Meet the Writer Steele Used to Buff Party’s Image,” http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com /2009/10/for_re-launch_steele_turns_to_crank_historian_to_b.php (accessed April

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 487

notes to pages 387–388 [ 487 ]

27, 2010); “RNC: Jackie Robinson Was a Republican,” http://www.huffingtonpost .com/2009/10/13/rnc-jackie-robinson-was-a_n_318618.html (accessed December 3, 2009). 33. “Reversal of Fortune,” http://www.epi.org/publication/bp220 (accessed August 3, 2012); “Wealth Gap Rises to Record High between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics,” http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs -between-whites-blacks-hispanics (accessed May 5, 2012); “Blacks See Largest Decline in Health Insurance Coverage,” http://www.epi.org/publication/blacks-largest -decline-health-insurance (accessed June 19, 2012); Edsall, Age of Austerity, 13–15; Kennedy, Persistence of the Color Line, 18–19. 34. U.S. Department of Labor, “The African American Labor Force in the Recovery,” http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/reports/blacklaborforce (accessed May 19, 2012); NYT, November 29, 2011; Edsall, Age of Austerity, 13–15, 20–23, 128; Wilhelminia A. Leigh and Anna Wheatley, African American Perspectives on the Social Security System, 1998 and 2009 (Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2009). 35. Ta Nahesi-Coates, “Fear of a Black President,” http://www.theatlantic.com /magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064 (accessed September 1, 2012); Tesler and Sears, Obama’s Race, 144–159; “Let’s Rescue the Race Debate,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20blow.html (accessed November 21, 2010); Michael Tesler, “The Spillover of Racialization into Health Care: How President Obama Polarized Public Opinion by Racial Attitudes and Race,” American Journal of Political Science 56 (July 2012): 690–704. Bill Posey of Iowa introduced legislation to require presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates, while his colleague Steve King publicly charged that the president “favors the black person.” 36. NYT, April 12, 2007; Piven, Minnite, and Groarke, Keeping Down the Black Vote, 14; Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden, Voting Law Changes in 2012 (New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2012); http://projectvote.org/newsreleases /431-new-project-vote-media-memo-assesing-gops-record-of-voter-caging-and -other-so-called-qballot-securityq-measures.html (accessed September 20, 2012); Minnite, Myth of Voter Fraud, 3–5, 85, 153; “Voting in Ohio: Fight over Poll Hours Isn’t Just Political,” http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/08/19 /fight-over-poll-hours-isnt-just-political.html (accessed September 11, 2012); 2012 Republican Platform, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=101961 (accessed September 8, 2012). 37. Bositis, Blacks & the 2012 Republican National Convention, 1–2, 14; “A Closer Look at the Parties in 2012: GOP Makes Big Gains among White Working Class Voters,” http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-parties -in-2012 (accessed September 17, 2012); Edsall, Age of Austerity, 97–98; “Romney Blasts Obama for Waging a ‘Vituperative’ Campaign,” http://www.usatoday.com /news/politics/story/2012-08-26/romney-interview-campaign/57331498/1 (accessed August 20, 2012); Ronald Brownstein, “The New Math,” http://nationaljour nal .com/columns/political-connections/the-new-math-of-presidential-elections -20120823 (accessed August 26, 2012); Ronald Fournier, “Why (and How) Romney

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 488

[ 488 ] not e s to page s 3 8 8 – 3 8 9

Is Playing the Race Card,” http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-election/why-and -how-romney-is-playing-the-race-card-20120829?page=1 (accessed September 2, 2012). 38. Nate Cohn, “The GOP Has Problems with White Voters, Too,” http://www .tnr.com/blog/electionate/11039/the-gop-has-problems-white-voters-too (accessed November 16, 2012); Paul Taylor, “The Growing Electoral Clout of Blacks Is Driven by Turnout, Not Demographics,” http://www.pewsocialtrends.org /2012/12/26.the -growing-electoral-clout-of-blacks-is-driven-by-turnout-not-demographics (accessed December 28, 2012). 39. Whit Ayers and Jennifer Sevilla Korn to Interested Parties, December 12, 2012, hispanicleadershipnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/RRHLNDec12 HispanicMemo.pdf (accessed December 16, 2012). 40. Ashley Parker, “Romney Blames Loss on Obama’s ‘Gifts’ to Minorities and Young Voters,” thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/romney-blames-loss-on -obamas-gifts-to-minorities-and-young-voters (accessed November 16, 2012).

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 489

index Abernathy, Ralph, 80, 247, 365, 372 and Richard Nixon, 272, 279, 282– 283, 369, 413n70 See also Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Adams, Sherman, 42, 66–67, 80, 89 affirmative action, 1, 181, 379–381, 384 and housing segregation, 313–314 See also Philadelphia Plan; Nixon, Richard African American vote as balance of power, 27, 46, 131, 138, 179 congressional elections and, 21, 262, 347 presidential elections and, (1948) 27– 28, (1952), 46, (1956) 76–77, (1960) 130–131, (1964) 202, (1968) 280, (1972) 356, 359, (1980) 377, (2008) 386, (2012) 388 Republican politics and, 30–32, 172– 178, 255–258 Agnew, Spiro as vice president, 288, 298–299, 344, 352 presidential election of 1968 and, 263, 273, 278 Alabama, University of, 68 Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 292 Anderson, John, 246–247 Baker, Howard, 262–263 Barnett, Ross, 139–140 Belafonte, Harry, Jr., 87, 90 Birmingham (Alabama), 141–142, 150 Bliss, Ray, 172, 251, 253–256, 259, 261, 272 Booker, Simeon, 253, 263, 362 on assassination of John F. Kennedy, 150

interviews Dwight Eisenhower, 35, 109, 116 writes letter to Richard Nixon, 283 Brock, William, 346, 351 Brooke, Edward, 247, 262, 286, 302, 359 and busing, 321, 370 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 242–243, 245 opposition to extension of deadline for desegregation in the South, 289 and presidential election of 1968, 271, 274, 276, 278–279 and presidential election of 1972, 352 Republican politics and, 251 support for Philadelphia Plan, 335 views on riots of the 1960s, 240–241 Brown, James, 282, 357, 479n51 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 59–62, 129, 235, 321, 323 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 156, 159–160 denounced in Southern Manifesto, 70 implementation decision (Brown II) and, 63 white southern hostility to, 62, 69 See also Brownell, Herbert, Jr.; Eisenhower, Dwight; Nixon, Richard Brownell, Herbert, Jr., 12, 42, 116, 188 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and, 58, 61, 70 and desegregation of the District of Columbia, 49 on importance of Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott, 95 and Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis, 82–85, 87, 174 and Mansfield (Texas) school desegregation, 73 [ 489 ]

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 490

[ 490 ] i nde x

Brownell, Herbert, Jr., continued and passage of Civil Rights Act (1957), 100–102, 104–105 response to lynching of Emmett Till, 65 Buchanan, Patrick, 287, 297–299, 338 Burch, Dean, 194, 197, 251–252 Bush, George H. W., 200, 247, 288, 346, 361–362, 381, 383 Bush, George W., 1–2, 379, 381–382, 384–385 Bush, Prescott, 74, 104, 135 busing, 154, 235, 346 as issue in presidential elections, 199, 267, 276–277, 348–349, 353–355 congressional efforts to restrict, 235, 317–318, 321, 323–324, 370–372 federal courts and, 295, 311, 369, 371 Nixon administration policies and, 298, 300, 311–312, 315–316, 319, 320–323 white opposition to, 306, 316–317, 319–320, 360, 370 See also Civil Rights Act (1964); Milliken v. Bradley; Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education Byrnes, James and equal employment opportunity, 53, 126 and presidential elections and, 43, 45–46, 76, 130 and segregation, 54, 61 Carmichael, Stokely, 228, 239–240 Carswell, G. Harrold, 301–302 Case, Clifford and civil rights legislation, 106, 238, 156, 158, 161, 311 and Republican politics, 31–32, 199 response to Poor People’s Campaign, 247 Chicago (Illinois), 226, 233, 246 elections and, 201, 264, 359 housing segregation and, 41, 136, 150

racial conflict during the summer of 1966, 228–229, 261 racial tensions regarding jobs, 262, 336, 341, 366 school segregation and, 199, 236, 297, 354, 370 Church, Robert R., Jr., 23, 30 Civil Rights Act (1957), 113 jury trial issue and, 100, 103–104, 106–107 school desegregation and, 100, 104– 106 voting rights and, 99–101, 104–107 See also Brownell, Herbert, Jr.; Eisenhower, Dwight; Johnson, Lyndon B. Civil Rights Act (1960), 112–115 Civil Rights Act (1964) busing and, 156, 159–160, 166 employment discrimination and, 144–146, 147–148, 150, 153–156, 158, 160–164 enforcement of, 227, 237, 276 House passage of, 156–157 school segregation and, 149, 156, 159–160, 166 segregation in public accommodations and, 143–144, 164 Senate passage of, 164–166 voting rights and, 149 Civil Rights Act (1968), 242–248 Claiborne, Clay J., 194, 200, 259 Clark, Joseph, 134, 162 Clark, Kenneth, 129, 227 Clark, Ramsey, 240, 247, 264 Commission on Civil Rights, U.S., 135, 137, 140, 272 Civil Rights Act (1957) and creation of, 98, 107 Civil Rights Act (1960) and, 112–113 housing discrimination and, 118 Richard Nixon and, 283, 291, 307 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 134, 147, 150, 159

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 491

index [ 491 ]

Congressional Black Caucus, 324 Congressional elections, (1946) 20–21, (1962) 176, 178, (1966) 261–264, (1970) 346–347 Cooper, John Sherman, 158, 263, 359 Cooper v. Aaron, 87 Coordinating Committee for Fundamental American Freedoms, 159 Cotton, Norris, 165, 337 Cramer, William, 156, 242, 346–347 crime, 260 as issue in congressional elections of 1966, 261–262 as issue in presidential elections, (1964) 186, 197–198, (1968) 269, 274, 277–278, (1972) 346, 352, (1988) 383 Davis, Sammy, Jr., 197, 255, 357, 361 Dent, Harry, 62, 256, 287, 293 and presidential election of 1968, 245, 268, 276 and presidential election of 1972, 358, 368 and school segregation in the South, 288–290, 301, 304–305, 315, 318 Detroit (Michigan), 30, 142, 385 school segregation and, 316, 318–319, 348, 370–371 See also riots Dewey, Thomas, 24–28, 32, 43, 121 Dirksen, Everett, 106, 113–114, 136, 140, 190 and Civil Rights Act (1964) and, 144, 157–159, 162–166 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 244–245 denouncement of Philadelphia Plan, 331–332 housing discrimination and, 229, 232–234 presidential election of 1964 and, 188 resentment of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 328 and school segregation in Chicago, 236

views on riots of the 1960s, 240 and Voting Rights Act, 221, 224 District of Columbia, 48–49, 58, 59–60, 62, 197, 273, 302 Douglas, Paul, 134, 137, 261 Eastland, James, 18, 62, 90, 113, 134, 159, 233, 355 Edens, J. Drake, Jr., 183, 194, 253 Ehrlichman, John, 291, 304, 313, 323 school segregation and, 315, 318–320, 348–349 Eisenhower, Dwight, 3, 34–35, 175, 179, 268, 376, 421n36 appointments of African Americans and, 55 and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 58–64, 69–70, 74, 81, 86, 88, 90–91, 99 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 99, 101– 102, 104–108 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 112–115 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 164 and civil rights legislation, 96, 98–99 comments on Southern Manifesto, 70 condemnation of lynching of Mack Parker, 91 and desegregation of armed forces, 54–55 and desegregation of District of Columbia, 48, 62 and desegregation of the University of Alabama, 68 and desegregation of the University of Mississippi, 139 and direct action protests in the South (1960), 92–93 and fair employment practices legislation, 35, 40, 42, 45 judicial appointments of, 56 leadership style of, 116–117 and Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis, 81–88 and lynching of Emmett Till, 65

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 492

[ 492 ] i nde x

Eisenhower, Dwight, continued and Mansfield (Texas) school desegregation controversy, 72–73 meets with African American leaders (1958), 109–110 and Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott, 67–68, 71–72 and New Orleans school desegregation crisis, 93–94 and President’s Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC) and, 49–50 and President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy and, 53–54 and presidential elections, (1952) 36– 47, (1956) 73–77, (1960) 126, 133, (1964) 191, 194, 203 support for school construction, 99 and Supreme Court, 71 views on African Americans, 36–38 views on riots of the 1960s, 249 Emerging Republican Majority, The. See Phillips, Kevin Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 374 legislation to grant cease-and-desist powers to, 238, 242, 328, 336–337 See also Civil Rights Act (1964) Ervin, Sam, 104, 295, 302, 311, 337, 367– 368, 370–371 Evers, Medgar, 91, 143 Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), 8, 96, 141, 144 as issue in presidential elections, (1952) 36, 40–42, 44–45, (1956) 74, (1960) 128 federal legislation to create, 6–19, 22– 23, 28–29, 97, 101, 118, 248 Family Assistance Plan (FAP), 334, 365– 366 See also welfare Farmer, James and Civil Rights Act (1964), 147, 150, 163, 166

on Freedom Ride, 134 and Richard Nixon, 288, 299, 368 Faubus, Orval, 82–84, 86, 88, 254 Finch, Robert, 287–291, 295, 303 Fino, Paul, 234, 236 Fletcher, Arthur, 329, 332, 362 Ford, Gerald, 233, 317, 335 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 245, 247 and civil rights policies while president, 372–373 views on riots of the 1960s, 229 and Voting Rights Act, 221–222, 293– 294 Freedom Ride, 134–135 Gabrielson, Guy, 31, 39 Garment, Leonard, 287, 298, 302, 306, 316–317, 345 Gaston County v. United States, 293 Goldwater, Barry, 378 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 160–161, 164, 166, 170–171 opposition to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 337 and presidential election of 1960, 122 and presidential election of 1964, 177, 179–203, 260 and racial violence, 186, 227 and strategy to improve the Republican Party’s standing in the South, 172–173, 176 views on civil rights issues, 122–123, 173, 224 views on desegregation of the University of Mississippi, 140 Goodell, Charles, 154, 225 Gore, Albert, Jr., 1–2 Graham, Billy, 71, 130, 306 Granger, Lester, 109–110 Greensboro (North Carolina), 92 Green v. New Kent County, 270 Griffin, Robert, 148, 262, 354 Haldeman, H. R., 284–285, 287, 292, 298–299, 304–305, 345

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 493

index [ 493 ]

Hampton, Lionel, 282, 356, 361 Hatfield, Mark, 262 Haynsworth, Clement, Jr., 292 Hawkes, Albert, 15, 17 Hawkins, Augustus, 335 Health, Education and Welfare, Department of (HEW), 284 Hickenlooper, Bourke, 104, 165 Hill, Herbert, 53, 155, 329 Hoffman, Clare 15–18, 31, 103 Holton, Linwood, 254, 319, 343–344, 361, 476n9 Hoover, J. Edgar, 65, 100, 265 housing segregation, 118, 121, 135, 150, 230–231 as issue in presidential election of 1964, 186 as issue in presidential election of 1972, 348 federal legislation and, 229, 232–234 real estate industry and, 231, 244–245 Richard Nixon’s policies and, 312– 315 See also Civil Rights Act (1968) Howard, T. R. M., 73 Howe, Harold II, 236, 238, 288 Humphrey, Hubert, 13, 26, 158–159, 163, 169 Innis, Roy, 247, 271, 326 interposition, 78–79 Ives, Irving, 13–14, 22, 29, 30, 41 Jackson, Jesse, 357, 364–365, 368 Javits, Jacob, 13–14, 119, 194, 237, 286 African American support for, 281 attendance at Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral, 270 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 113 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 145, 158, 160, 165, 168, 171 and direct action protests in the South, 134, 138, 142 and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 238, 328, 336

and fair employment practices legislation, 13 and housing discrimination, 233 and Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis, 94 and presidential elections, (1960) 124, 130, (1964) 189, 194, 250, (1968) 276 and Republican politics, 30, 111–112, 359 response to Poor People’s Campaign, 247 and riots of the 1960s, 239, 242 and school desegregation, 137, 276, 296, 311, 321 support for desegregation of the University of Mississippi, 139 support for Philadelphia Plan, 331 John Birch Society, 186, 190 Johnson, Lyndon B., 97, 112, 219, 259, 364, 378 boosts federal aid for public schools, 235 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 102, 105–107 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 114 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 151, 162, 164, 166, 169 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 244–245 and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 328 and legislation to combat housing discrimination, 229, 232–233, 238 and presidential election of 1960, 123–124, 128 and presidential election of 1964, 185, 192, 196–199, 201–202 and riots of the 1960s, 239, 241, 330 school desegregation and, 227, 236– 237, 290 and violence against African Americans in the South, 228 and Voting Rights Act, 221–226 and War on Poverty, 219, 234, 237– 238, 260, 326

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 494

[ 494 ] i nde x

Johnson, Lyndon B., continued See also Philadelphia Plan Johnston, Olin, 90 Justice Department, U.S., 68, 93, 126, 142, 380 busing and, 315, 321 Civil Rights Act (1957) and, 98, 100– 101, 107 Civil Rights Act (1964) and 158, 163– 165 employment discrimination and, 318 housing discrimination and, 312–315 Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis and, 82–83 school desegregation and, 290–291, 304, 307, 349 and tax-exempt status of private schools, 303 violence against African Americans in the South and, 68, 91, 138 voting rights and, 72, 91, 109, 136, 221, 294, 385 Keating, Kenneth, 119, 189, 200 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 101, 103 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 158, 160 on March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 147 and presidential election of 1964, 194 and Republican politics, 176 support for school desegregation in the North, 137 Kennedy, John F., 115, 119, 177–179, 182–184, 378 African American views of, 150–151, 259 assassination of, 150–151, 168–169 and civil rights legislation, 119, 133– 136 and desegregation of the University of Alabama, 143 and desegregation of the University of Mississippi, 139 and Freedom Ride, 134 and March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 147

and presidential election of 1960, 119, 123, 125, 128, 130–133, 427n27 Kennedy, Robert F., 134, 179, 181, 183 Kerner Commission, 243–244, 269 Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1, 369 Kilpatrick, James, 177, 223–224 King, Coretta Scott, 90, 128–129, 131, 363 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 78, 89, 96, 108, 142, 376 assassination of, 246 on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 150 and calls for black power, 228 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 105, 107 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 113 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 159, 163, 166 and direct action protests, 67–68, 71– 72, 134, 138, 141–142, 220–221, 228–229 Dwight Eisenhower and, 34, 79, 109– 110, 117, 413n70 and Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis, 83, 87 Lyndon B. Johnson and, 228 organizes Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 79 and presidential election of 1960, 125, 128–130 and presidential election of 1964, 186, 188, 189, 191–192, 199–200, 202 and Republican Party, 74, 80, 234 Richard Nixon and, 80–81, 120, 271 and riots of the 1960s, 227, 238–239 speaks at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 147 writes “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 141 See also Poor People’s Campaign; Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Knowland, William, 105–106

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 495

index [ 495 ]

Ku Klux Klan, 21, 44, 63, 71, 134 as issue in the presidential election of 1964, 190, 193–194, 197 Kuchel, Thomas, 158–159, 163, 169, 238 labor unions, 6, 163, 184 discrimination against African Americans and, 146, 158, 329, 332–333, 337, 352 presidential election of 1964 and, 196 presidential election of 1972 and, 350, 352 Richard Nixon’s courtship of, 346 LBJ. See Johnson, Lyndon B. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), 97–98, 100, 163, 245, 292 school desegregation and, 287, 289, 324 Lee, George, W., 172–173, 187 Lindsay, John, 140, 222, 241, 255, 273, 344 literacy tests, 19, 106, 135, 220–221 Little Rock (Arkansas), 81–88, 184 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 42, 125, 128, 185, 190 Lubell, Samuel, 76–77, 347, 353–354, 358 Lucy, Autherine, 68, 103 lynching, 22–23, 98 See also Till, Emmett; Parker, Mack Mansfield, Mike, 136, 144, 164, 321 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 147 Marshall, Thurgood, 60, 63, 73, 83, 115 Martin, James, 178, 220, 227, 234 Mathias, Charles McC., Jr., 140, 233, 262, 311 McCulloch, William, 140, 241, 323, 359 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 145, 148, 154–155, 158–159, 162, 169 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 244–245 and housing discrimination, 229 and Voting Rights Act, 221–222, 293–294 McGill, Ralph, 89–90

McGovern, George, 322, 349–350, 353 McKissick, Floyd, 271, 356 Meany, George, 332, 346 Meredith, James, 139, 177, 227 Miller, William as head of Republican National Committee (RNC), 175, 177, 179, 183–184 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 102 and presidential election of 1964, 191, 198 Milliken v. Bradley, 371 Mississippi Freedom Summer and, 195, 220 Republican politics in, 174–175, 182 school segregation and, 291 white violence against African Americans in, 227–228 Mississippi, University of, 139 Mitchell, Clarence, 91, 113, 140 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 113 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 159, 165 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 245, 247 criticism of Richard Nixon on the issue of busing, 323 and fair employment practices legislation, 29 involvement with Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 79 and legislation to combat discrimination in housing, 234 and Philadelphia Plan, 335 and presidential election of 1952, 40 and presidential election of 1960, 124 response to lynching of Emmett Till, 65 Mitchell, James, 50–51, 80 Mitchell, John, 270, 299, 302, 368 and busing, 320 defense of Philadelphia Plan, 332 and school segregation in the South, 290–291, 315 and Voting Rights Act, 294 Moaney, John, 37–38 Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott, 67–68, 71–72, 95

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 496

[ 496 ] i nde x

Morrow, E. Frederic, 34–35, 55, 74, 105, 111 and African American criticism of Dwight Eisenhower , 68–69, 78, 80, 89, 108 and presidential election of 1960, 129 and presidential election of 1968, 274 and Republican politics, 110–111 response to lynching of Emmett Till, 65–66 Morse, Wayne, 13, 20, 28, 30 Morton, Rogers, 290 Morton, Thruston, 178, 241, 252 as chair of Republican National Committee (RNC), 126, 133, 172 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 285, 297, 317–318, 333–334 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1–2, 21, 35, 55, 97, 140, 234, 364 Barry Goldwater and, 190 Brown v. Board of Education and, 44, 60 Civil Rights Act (1957) and, 100, 107 Civil Rights Act (1964) and, 141, 150, 159 Dwight Eisenhower and, 47–49, 54, 56 employment discrimination and, 11– 12, 146 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) and, 147 opposition to nomination of Clement Haynsworth, Jr. and, 292 presidential elections and, (1952) 40, (1956) 74, 76, (1964) 188, 199, (2000) 1–2 school desegregation and, 62, 72, 87– 88, 135, 142, 156, 311, 317 Richard Nixon and, 42, 127, 283, 289, 290–292, 323, 364, 366 Ronald Reagan and, 378 voting rights and, 20, 385 See also Mitchell, Clarence; White, Walter; Wilkins, Roy

National Council for a Permanent FEPC, 8, 23 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 6–7, 16, 148, 232, 328 National Negro Republican Assembly (NNRA), 194, 252, 259 National Urban League, 67, 146, 186, 254, 309–310, 365–366 National Welfare Rights Organization, 334, 364–365 New Deal, 5–7, 15–16, 122, 232 Nixon, Richard, 3, 55, 65, 116, 175, 378 and Barry Goldwater, 173, 277 and black capitalism, 270–271, 278, 285–286, 327, 366–367 and Brown v. Board of Education, 270, 299–300, 320 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 106–108 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 112 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 170, 268 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 245 and fair employment practices legislation and, 42, 126 and fears of racial violence, 276, 284– 285, 298, 303, 313 and housing discrimination, 312–315 and Martin Luther King, Jr., 78, 80– 81, 271, 413n70 and Philadelphia Plan, 329, 331–332, 335–336, 352, 374 and President’s Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC), 50, 53, 80, 112, 114, 118, 128, 327 and presidential elections, (1952) 42, 45–46, (1956) 75, (1960) 120–133, 427n27, (1964) 192–193, 203–204, 250, (1968) 265–281, (1972) 348– 359 and private schools in the South, 303–304 and proposed budget cuts to social welfare programs, 363–364 proposes the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), 334 racial views of, 284

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 497

index [ 497 ]

and Republican electoral prospects in the South, 120–121, 126–127, 268 and school segregation in the South, 287–291, 295, 297–300, 304–307, 310–312, 476n9 and Silent Majority, 345–346 Supreme Court nominees of, 292, 301–302, 318 and Strom Thurmond, 268, 270, 273, 288–289, 295, 303 and Voting Rights Act, 222, 268, 293–294, 302–303 and Watergate, 367–368, 372 and welfare, 353–354 See also busing Obama, Barack, 386–389 Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), 237–238, 363, 365 Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE), 327, 367 Panetta, Leon, 289–290, 299 Percy, Charles, 193, 200, 251, 286, 359 and congressional elections of 1966, 261–262 and Philadelphia Plan, 335 and riots of the 1960s, 241, 244, 246 Philadelphia Plan, 329–333, 335–336, 352 Phillips, Kevin, 280, 342, 345, 347 See also Emerging Republican Majority, The Plessy v. Ferguson, 59–61, 117 Poor People’s Campaign, 246–248 Potter, I. Lee, 123, 174, 177 poverty, 136 as potential cause for riots, 226–227 Republican views on the causes of, 248–249 Republican proposals to address, 242, 246 President’s Committee on Government Contracts (PCGC), 50–53, 112 President’s Committee on Government Employment Policy, 53–54

public accommodations, 92–93, 130, 144, 164 Rabb, Maxwell, 54, 65–66, 69, 72, 78, 80, 105 Randolph, A. Philip, 125, 237 and Dwight Eisenhower, 109–110 and fair employment practices legislation, 8, 23 and Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott, 67 organizes Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 79 and presidential election of 1948, 25 and presidential election of 1964, 191–192, 199 response to lynching of Emmett Till, 65 and Youth March for Integrated Schools (1958), 90 Reagan, Ronald, 359, 483n3 civil rights policies as president, 376– 378, 380–383 elected governor of California, 261 presidential election of 1968 and, 269–270, 273 Real Majority, The, 345 Rehnquist, William, 318 Republican National Committee (RNC), 12, 172, 250, 385 African Americans and, 30, 67, 110, 172, 178–179, 187, 262, 351, 361– 362, 386 and efforts to boost the Republican Party in the South, 30–31, 39, 132, 174–177 Minorities Division of, 66, 172, 175– 176 National Negro Republican Assembly and, 252, 259 presidential elections and, (1956) 76, (1960) 120, 130, (1964) 200–201 Reynolds, Grant, 176, 179, 194, 252 Ribicoff, Abraham, 310–311 Richardson, Elliott, 310, 315, 320 riots in Detroit, Michigan (1967), 239–240, 330

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 498

[ 498 ] i nde x

riots, continued following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, 246 in Newark, New Jersey (1967), 239 presidential election of 1964 and, 191–192, 195, 197–198 Republican response to, 227, 229, 239–242, 249 in the summer of 1966, 228 in Watts, California (1965), 226–227 World War II and, 9–10, 266 Ripon Society, 251, 352 Robinson, Jackie, 34, 108–109, 255, 261 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 105 and presidential elections, (1960) 129, (1964) 190, (1968) 271, 274 and Republican Party, 188, 264 and Richard Nixon, 120, 297 support for Nelson Rockefeller, 181 views on nomination of Barry Goldwater, 173 Rockefeller, Nelson, 121, 176, 179, 194, 262, 270 and Civil Rights Act (1968), 245 and presidential elections, (1960) 121–122, 129, (1964) 180–182, 185–188, 190, 193–194, 204, (1968) 269, 271–272 and riots of the 1960s, 241 Rockefeller, Winthrop, 200, 254, 263 Rogers, William, 89, 91, 93, 108, 110, 129 Romney, George, 233, 238, 262, 270, 388 as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, 287, 312–315, 363 and presidential election of 1964, 189, 193–194, 250 and presidential election of 1968 and, 265–267, 269 and riot in Detroit, Michigan (1967), 239 and urban problems, 266 Romney, Willard (“Mitt”), 388–389 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 45–46, 427n27 Roosevelt, Franklin, D., 4–5, 9, 110, 179 Rowan, Carl, 117, 128, 369

Russell, Richard, 38, 40, 62, 112, 298 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 104–105 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 164–166 and fair employment practices legislation, 18 Rustin, Bayard, 79, 237, 283, 309, 314, 364, 369 Safire, William, 129, 284, 321, 327 Scammon, Richard. See Real Majority, The school desegregation, 44, 135 as issue in presidential elections, (1964) 185, 197–199, (1968) 267, 270, 273, 276–277, (1972) 348–349, 353–355 children of military personnel and, 54 Civil Rights Act (1957) and, 93–94 Civil Rights Act (1960) and, 112, 114 Civil Rights Act (1964) and, 149, 154, 156, 159–160, 164 Justice Department powers to enforce, 100 public schools in the South and, 58– 62, 69–70, 72, 88, 156, 235, 287– 288, 295–301, 303–307, 310–312, 315–319, 369 public schools outside the South and, 146, 149, 154, 156, 159–160, 185, 197, 235, 295–298, 310–312, 369 Youth March for Integrated Schools and, 90–91 Scott, Hugh, 101, 200 and busing, 321, 324 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 158 and Richard Nixon, 289 and presidential election of 1964, 189 and school segregation, 295, 311 and Voting Rights Act, 293 Scranton, William, 188, 190, 194, 204, 233 Selma (Alabama), 220–221 Shivers, Allan, 43, 72 Shultz, George, 287, 299, 331–332 Smith, H. Alexander, 14, 29, 104

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 499

index [ 499 ]

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 108, 220– 221, 358, 364–365, 369 Southern Manifesto, 70 Stennis, John, 291 Stevenson, Adlai, 42, 45–46, 75–77 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 192 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education, 311– 312, 315 Talmadge, Herman, 43, 49, 60 Taft, Robert, 21, 160, 186, 268, 376 and fair employment practices legislation, 6–11, 17–19, 97 and presidential election of 1948, 26– 27 and presidential election of 1952, 36, 39–40 Thurmond, James Strom, 90, 107, 203 and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 328, 336–337 and presidential elections, (1948) 26, 28, 47, (1952) 40, (1964) 196, (1968) 270, 273–274 and school segregation in the South, 288, 295, 303, 315, 323 views on Poor People’s Campaign, 247–248 and Voting Rights Act, 225, 303 Till, Emmett, 64–65, 103 Tower, John, 124, 132, 174, and Civil Rights Act (1964), 160–161 and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 337 and presidential election of 1968, 273 and school segregation, 306, 315 and Voting Rights Act, 225 Townes, Clarence, Jr., 258–259, 264, 274 Truman, Harry, 23, 33, 36, 110 and fair employment practices legislation, 12 and presidential election of 1948, 24– 28

and presidential election of 1952, 45– 46 and voting rights, 20 Urban Affairs, Department of, 136 voter fraud, 200–201, 264, 293–294, 384– 385, 387–388, 445n84 voting rights, 79–80 federal legislation to protect, 98–108, 135 Justice Department protection of, 91, 109–110, 136, 385 poll tax, 19–20, 22, 26 Voting Rights Act, 248, 255, 384 Ford-McCulloch alternative to, 222– 223, 225 impact of, 226 renewal of (1970), 293, 302–303 renewal of (1975), 373 southern Republican objections to, 222–223 Wallace, George, 223, 295, 315, 344, 358–359 and presidential elections, (1964) 164, (1968) 245, 268, 270, 272, 275– 276, 279–280, (1972) 295, 303– 304, 322, 348, 350 resistance to desegregation of the University of Alabama, 143 Warren, Earl, 24–25, 61 Washington, D.C. See District of Columbia Washington, Val, 66–67 Watson, Albert, 240, 247, 254, 295, 346– 347 Wattenberg, Ben. See Real Majority, The welfare, 182, 347, 353–354, 388 See also Family Assistance Plan (FAP) Wherry, Kenneth, 28–29 White, F. Clifton, 184 White, Walter praise for desegregation of armed forces, 54

03-Thurber_back matter 7/5/13 3:18 PM Page 500

[ 500 ] i nde x

White, Walter, continued and presidential election of 1948 and, 25 and presidential election of 1952 and, 40–41, 44, 47 views of Dwight Eisenhower and, 47, 56 views on voting rights legislation, 20 Wiley, Alexander, 15–17 Wilkins, J. Ernest, 55, 74–75 Wilkins, Roy, 73, 193, 376 on busing, 324 and calls for black power, 228 and Civil Rights Act (1957), 102, 106 and Civil Rights Act (1960), 112 and Civil Rights Act (1964), 156, 159, 165–166 as critic of Richard Nixon, 112

and Dwight Eisenhower, 42, 89, 108– 110, 416n102 and fair employment, 11–12 and Little Rock (Arkansas) school desegregation crisis, 83 on cooperation with Republican Party, 48 organizes Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, 79 and presidential elections, (1960) 124–125, (1964) 181, 188, 191–192, 199, (1968) 272, 274 and school segregation, 88–89, 288, 290, 320 and voting rights, 224 Workman, William, Jr., 178 Yerger, Wirt, Jr., 183, 222, 224, 253 Young, Whitney, Jr., 146, 150, 192, 237, 309–310