[Unassuaged]

While I do not necessarily agree with this, the counter argument is:

The Democrats that were pro-slavery/pro-Jim Crow became Republicians.

[marron]

The Democrats that were pro-slavery/pro-Jim Crow became Republicians.

If that was your history, you'd say that too.

The Democrats who became Republicans accepted our view. The ones who remained Democrats are to this day obsessed with race politics.

[GloriaJane]

"The Democrats that were pro-slavery/pro-Jim Crow became Republicians."

That argument doesn't hold water since the Republican party was founded by Christians, abolitionists, free blacks and anti-slavery activists who wanted to put an end to the abomination of slavery.

[katana]

Actually, most of them just died off. In the 50's and 60's south Republicans were on the same KKK death squad lists with blacks, Jews, and Catholics. Areas of the south where Republicans had any numbers and political strength at that time were the same regions which supported the Union cause in the Civil War, i.e. Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, and the mountainous areas of the Carolinas. My father's ancestry is from that region and the family has been solidly Republican since that time. His grandfather (my great grandfather) fought with a volunteer Kentucky regiment in the Union Army.

The most virulent racists (whether it was against blacks or, as in the case of Andrew Jackson Indian tribes like the Cherokee - another part of my ancestry) have always been card carrying Democrats. Goebbels could have only dreamed about the kind of successful "Big Lie" propaganda that has for fifty years been foisted on the US public by the American press on behalf of the Democratic Party.