A History Lesson

“Dangerous men, who are trying to win followers for their war on democracy, are attacking Catholics and Jews and Negroes and other minority races and religions.”
Harry S. Truman, October 25, 1948, Chicago, Ill.

“Our determination to attain the goal of equal rights and equal opportunity must be resolute and unswerving.”
Harry S. Truman, October 29, 1948, Harlem, NY.

"All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."
Strom Thurmond, 1948

“Pressed by ADA leaders to cut Wallace’s lead on civil rights, Truman issued executive orders in July 1948 desegregating the armed forces and banning discrimination in the federal civil service. He also endorsed a plank on racial equality that he personally considered too strongly worded. In response, some 300 southern delegates bolted from the Democratic National Convention and formed a States’ Rights (“Dixiecrat”) ticket headed by Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, known for his segregationist views.”
John Mack Faragher et al. Out of Many A History of the American People.

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
Trent Lott, 2002

Trent Lott should resign as Speaker of the House. It is a sign of how comfortable the Republicans are that he won’t and won’t be asked to. Rush and others have pointed out that many democrats (Robert Byrd, Al Gore’s Father) are not exactly clean on this issue. Fair enough. But neither Robert Byrd nor Al Gore are calling for segregation today, as Trent Lott apparently was.