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Actually Nixon got 32% of the Black vote and Goldwater only got 6%.
In 1960, Nixon got forty-five percent of the Black vote. In 1964 Goldwater only got about twenty percent. It's been declining ever since. But why did Goldwater, who was not racist, get far less Black votes than Nixon? Steele briefly mentions the Goldwater debacle. Goldwater opposed the 1964 Civil Rights bill in its entirety. A good part of the bill certainly was flawed, but when Goldwater rejected the bill (he later said he made a mistake), that doomed the GOP in the minds of many Black voters. The GOP became the party of evil, white racists who wanted to keep minorities down.
That perception, wrong as it is, has remained in the consciousness of Black americans ever since. If today Republicans got forty percent of the Black vote, there would be virtually no Democrats in congress.
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Actually Nixon got 32% of the Black vote and Goldwater only got 6%.
good post. I think MLK Sr was a Republican and was on the verge of endorsing Nixon in 60 but when Jr was arrested RFK was able to get some phone call pushed through to have him released of something like that and a few days before the election, Sr came out and backed JFK. They say that sealed the black vote for him and if Nixon had been more proactive in backing JR, he was nervous about bleeding Southern support, he probably would have beaten Kennedy.