More proof that Republicans were not more pro-civil rights than the Democrats pre-1964

[President Johnson]

Not directly related to the Republican Party and their base as such, but their 1940 presidential nominee, Businessman Wendell Willkie, was a staunch supporter of Civil Rights throughout his political activities. While a Democrat in the 1920s, he fought the KKK in Akron, Ohio, where he lived at the time. During his presidential campaigns of 1940 and 1944 as a Republican, he called for far reaching civil rights legislation, an end of segregation and said he would appoint African American cabinet secretaries and judges. That brought him support from a number of black leaders such as boxer Joe Louis. He was certainly ready to go much further than Franklin Roosevelt, who tried to help African Americans more through social programs. Willkie biographer Steve Neal wrote that Willkie was actually 20 years ahead of Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy. Unfortunately, he didn't live longer and never became president.