Contrary to popular belief, President Lyndon Johnson did not predict a racist exodus to the Republican Party from the Democratic Party because of Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Omitted from the Democrats’ rewritten history is what Johnson actually meant by his prediction.
Johnson feared that the racist Democrats would again form a third party, such as the short-lived States Rights Democratic Party. In fact, Alabama’s Democrat Governor George C. Wallace in 1968 started the American Independent Party that attracted other racist candidates, including Democrat Governor Lester Maddox.
Behind closed doors, Johnson said:
“These Negroes, they’re getting uppity these days. That’s a problem for us, since they got something now they never had before. The political pull to back up their upityness. Now, we’ve got to do something about this. We’ve got to give them a little something. Just enough to quiet them down, but not enough to make a difference. If we don’t move at all, their allies will line up against us. And there’ll be no way to stop them. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”
Little known by many today is the fact that it was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Johnson, who pushed through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, Dirksen was instrumental to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 and 1968. Dirksen wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing.
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