On 8/30/2013 8:43 PM, Donald Clarke wrote:
> Interesting. Evidently in 1964 the Southern Dems were true to themselves, and in those days, let us remember, there were still "liberal" Republicans, now an extinct species. Nevertheless, LBJ said to Martin Luther King as he signed the civil rights bill that what they were doing was handing the South to the Republicans, and so it proved.
Some of the Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were
not particularly liberal by the standards of the time. Everett Dirksen
comes to mind -- he was Senate minority leader, and was responsible for
a lot of the language in the bill that was passed. By today's standards,
of course, Dirksen would be a flaming lefty.
Peace,
Paul (Dirksen was my Senator, along with Chuck Percy, who actually was a
liberal)
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