Goldwater wasnt a racist he voted for the 1957 and 1960 civil rights and likely would have voted for the Voting rights acts. And lets remember a certain republican senate majority leader who watered down the 1957 civil rights for political reasons, oh wait that wasnt a republican that was a Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson
Goldwater voted against the most important civil rights legislation in American history. If he did not do this out of racism, then he did it for political gain. Either way it makes him terrible. The sins of Lyndon Johnson do not exonerate Barry Goldwater.
That was the voting rights act people some how mix those two up.