Lonzie Cox, Jr. – 2/13/05

This page was last updated on February 13, 2005.

A time of uncertainty; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; February 13, 2005. I am not related to Mr. Cox.

Two racism related letters within a week; who would have thought? This one revises history a tad to promote the idea that Republicans are racists and Democrats are/were the party of civil rights.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“President Dwight Eisenhower was the kind of Republican who existed before the 1964 Civil Rights Bill sent Southern segregationists scurrying to join the GOP.”

[RWC] What does this mean? It was Republican senators who provided the votes necessary to break the Democrat-led filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If “Southern segregationists” scurried to join the GOP because of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they sure had a poor sense of direction. Democrats have championed every program (affirmative action, Welfare, et cetera) whose side effect was to keep down minorities.

“The southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) had been looking for somewhere to hide after President Harry Truman pushed a civil rights program in 1948. During the F.D. Roosevelt administration, the liberal northern Democrats had begun to reject the oppression of blacks as practiced by the southern Democrats.”

[RWC] Read carefully and you see Mr. Cox implies Democrat segregationists joined the Republican Party while “good” Democrats stayed behind. What crap! If you believe this, the obvious conclusion is that Republicans were racists. If you’ve followed Mr. Cox’s letters, you know this is exactly the conclusion he wants us to reach.

“In the post-war period the conservative Republicans became very good at playing the northern Democrats (liberals) against the southern Democrats (segregationists.) The result of this political maneuvering was a log jam where civil rights and labor laws were concerned. Anti-lynching laws also were ignored.

“The Eisenhower era was marked by government inactivity in the field of civil rights. The president’s lack of enthusiasm for school desegregation in 1954 probably encouraged resistance to civil rights in the south.”

[RWC] Nothing like revisionist history. In 1954, the Republican Eisenhower administration sided with the NAACP (Brown v. Board of Education – separate is not equal) for school integration.

Charging, “The Eisenhower era was marked by government inactivity in the field of civil rights” is a tad unfair given the intent is to blame President Eisenhower. President Eisenhower’s proposed 1957 Civil Rights Act was fairly expansive for the time. Then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) watered down President Eisenhower’s proposal, however. This was possible because Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for all but one early session during Eisenhower’s presidency. Johnson was worried Eisenhower’s more expansive proposal would prove divisive for the Democrat Party. As we learned in 1964, his concerns were well founded.

“So in 1957 when nine students tried to desegregate the Little Rock High school, there was a lot of tension and fear among all U.S. students.

“There was no guarantee at the time that the citizens of Little Rock wouldn’t injure the nine students.

“It had only been two years since Emmitt Till was murdered, with his killers going unpunished and becoming celebrities.

“Would there be the same mock trial with the same verdict? We didn’t know. Up to that point the federal government had shown no interest in protecting black citizens from what was really racial terrorism.

“When Eisenhower decided to act, the public (especially blacks) didn’t know whose side he would be on.”

[RWC] Is Mr. Cox kidding? From the time Gov. Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block the school to keep out the black students, President Eisenhower wrote Faubus, “When I became President, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The only assurance I can give you is that the Federal Constitution will be upheld by me by every legal means at my command.” This was part of a September 5, 1957, press release detailing a telegram sent by President Eisenhower to Gov. Faubus. I don’t know about you, but I believe President Eisenhower left no doubt as to his position.

“Would the 101st Airborne protect the students or the angry crowd?”

[RWC] Possibly protect an angry crowd of racists? Is he kidding, again? If President Eisenhower was to send federal troops to Little Rock, everyone knew their mission based on two+ weeks of warnings President Eisenhower gave Gov. Faubus. That’s what had to make the decision even more difficult. Can you imagine how tough it was for Eisenhower – himself a former five-star general – to pit one part of the U.S. armed services against another?

“Or would they just tell everyone to go home.

“It’s so clear now, but at the time we didn’t know what would happen.”

[RWC] No one knew what would happen, but not for the reason Mr. Cox would have us believe.