During the 1950s, Eastland earned a reputation as an open and unashamed racist and a vociferous opponent of the civil rights movement. When the United States Supreme Court decision in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 347 US 483 (1954) was delivered Eastland denounced it, saying:
"On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court's decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent [and based on] sociological considerations."
In 1956 Eastland while addressing a rally of the White Citizens' Council said:
"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, slingshots and knives.... All whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers."
And guess what did Democrats do with this guy? Ehhh, in the same year in which he gave his nice speech, they appointed him as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served until his retirement in 1978. You would think that this new, very important position changed him? Wrong! Many years later Eastland would stare coldly down a committee table at Sen. Jacob Javits of New York, who was Jewish (and, of course, Republican) and say, "I don't like you-or your kind." Nice guy, wasn't he? So what did the Democrats do? They made him President pro-tempore of the Senate in 1972! Hey this guy was 3rd in line of presidential succession (and even 2nd in the short periods after Agnew's and Nixon's resignations, when there was no Vice-President). Imagine this nice fellow becoming POTUS! Oh and don't forget that he also served as a director of the Pioneer Fund, a "foundation dedicated to improving the race". Oh, and when three civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman went missing in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, he told President Lyndon Johnson that the incident was a hoax and there was no Ku Klux Klan in the state, surmising that the three had gone to Chicago, Illinois. So overall, he was a nice guy, wasn't he? Now you can see why the Democrats made him Chairman of the Judiciary Comittee and President pro-tempore of the Senate, right? BTW, don't forget that all Republicans are racists ;-)
Oh, and as to the vote statistics regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (or any other civil rights legislation of the 1950s and 1960s for that matter) it was of course supported by almost all Republicans:
Vote tally by Party:
The Original House Version:
Democratic Party: 153-96 Republican Party: 138-34
The Senate Version:
Democratic Party: 46-22 Republican Party: 27-6
The Senate Version, voted on by the House:
Democratic Party: 153-91 Republican Party: 136-35
Ooops, my mistake, the Senate Democrats voted 46-21, not 46-22 :-)