You'd be shocked as to how many people think Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were Democrats.
Only 58% of Americans know that Lincoln was a Republican. Of course, I doubt that many of these folks know that Andrew Jackson was a Democrat. It's pretty sad if, in fact, Donald Trump (who is NOT Mr. Civics) has actually done something to increase that awareness.
But he hasn't, has He? At all.
The uber-racialized discussion of politics over recent years has brought about more of a discussion of how Lincoln and the Republicans freed the slaves, how Robert "KKK" Byrd was Democratic Senate Majority Leader, etc. It's not so much Trump (who isn't that much of a civics guy) as the tenor of the times.
The truth of American history was that the GOP WAS the "Civil Rights Party" until 1964. Even then, most Republicans (and a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats) supported Civil Rights Legislation. It is unfair, of course, to portray the Democrats as the party of Segregation; indeed, the Democratic Party gave up the most to become the more ardently pro-Civil Rights party in the 1960s. It cost them their hegemony in Presidential elections, to the point where they elected one (1) President in the next six (6) Presidential elections. But the truth is also that the GOP, and those that made up the GOP in Congress prior to the Goldwater nomination of 1964, were supporters of Civil Rights legislation, and were some of the best friends of the Civil Rights bills that there were.
Not really after the New Deal. African-Americans heavily voted democratic starting in 1936. It wasn't the 95-ish% we are used to now, but they definitely became part of the democratic New Deal coalition from that point forward.
Eisenhower was the only Republican Administration during this period, and he did do well by sending troops in the Little Rock to enforce the Brown versus Board of Education decision, even though to his shame he disagreed with the ruling privately. Other than that though, how much did the GOP really do for civil rights between 52 and 60?
