An Anniversary Of Intolerance

(Posting is iffy for tomorrow, by the way…)

Fifty years ago today, former Repug senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina conducted the longest filibuster in U.S. Senate history (24 hours and 18 minutes, believe it or not) in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

As Joshua Zeitz tells us here…

Staunchly opposed to racial integration, he gave a campaign speech in 1948 in which he promised that “there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.” He warned his followers, “Think about the situation which would exist when the annual office party is held or the union sponsors a dance.” His focus on constitutional questions like “states’ rights” and “federalism” was a matter of political expediency rather than noble conviction. After World War II, in which America had defeated a state built on racist ideology, it was simply no longer fashionable or acceptable to shout racial epithets from the rostrum.

The 1948 Dixiecrat revolt was the segregationist South’s last show of real strength. A decade later, the great postwar migration of African-Americans from the rural South to urban centers in the North, the Midwest, and California had created a new political equation, as Northern politicians from both parties were forced to consider the concerns of their new black constituents. In 1957 a coalition of Northern Democrats and Republicans worked to pass President Dwight Eisenhower’s relatively strong civil rights legislation, which imposed federal penalties on anyone who interfered with the right of citizens to register and vote. Though Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson ultimately had to water down the bill to get it passed—he did so by, among other things, stripping it of a provision that allowed federal judges to jail violators for contempt of court without a jury trial—it was anathema to the solid South.

Thurmond’s filibuster made for good political theater, but it never stood a chance of derailing the bill. Most of his Southern colleagues were reluctantly willing to swallow the watered-down and ultimately ineffective bill rather than risk outraging Northern legislators who might very well respond by eliminating the right to filibuster altogether. Such a move would make it impossible for Southerners to stave off even stronger civil rights measures in the future. Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia (the son of Eugene) denounced the bill but also rebuked Thurmond for his “grandstand” performance. “If I had undertaken a filibuster for personal aggrandizement,” added Sen. Richard Russell, of Georgia, “I would have forever reproached myself for being guilty of a form of treason against the people of the South.”

But outside the nation’s capital, many Southerners loved Thurmond’s performance. Georgia’s governor, Marvin Griffin, defiantly promised, “We’re not going to let a Federal judge tell us who can vote,” while South Carolina’s governor, George Bell Timmerman, Jr., proudly announced, “I don’t have any intention of cooperating.” Thurmond’s grandstand may have been legislatively ineffectual, but it almost certainly encouraged white Southerners in resisting federal law, as they had begun doing three years earlier after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

And as noted here (and alluded to in the cartoon), Thurmond misrepresented himself with his theatrics and, over time, severely damaged the lives of both his white niece and black daughter (revelation of the latter emerged shortly after his death four years ago).

This Wikipedia article notes that the Air Force named a C-17 Globemaster “The Spirit of Strom Thurmond.” The aircraft served with a distinction far beyond anything ever achieved by its wretched namesake, but production of the line was shut down last year.

Just a bit of trivia there…