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Richard Nixon on Civil Rights
President of the U.S., 1968-1974
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1959: Tie-breaking vote to strengthen black Southern voting
In 1952 and 1956, a majority of blacks backed the Republican Party. And Eisenhower gave them good reason to stay Republican. As soon as the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education was handed down, Eisenhower ordered desegregation
of the Washington DC public schools. In 1957 and 1959, Eisenhower proposed strong civil rights bills to enforce the long-neglected 15th Amendment and give Southern blacks the right to vote. Senate Southern Democrats filibustered the bills and succeeded
in watering down their strongest provisions. And when the Southerners demanded that violators of the new civil rights bill have the right to jury trials (before all-white Southern juries), Democratic senator John F. Kennedy voted with the South, while
Republican vice president Richard Nixon broke a tie in the Senate to kill the Southern amendment. [In 1960], blacks voted for Kennedy by a margin of 70-30, more than enough to give the Democrat the victory over Richard Nixon.
Source: Condi vs. Hillary, by Dick Morris, p. 56-57
, Oct 11, 2005
1971: Required affirmative action for federal contractors
In Dec. 1971, Nixon's Labor Department required all federal contractors to develop "an acceptable affirmative action program," including "an analysis of areas within which the contractor is deficient in the utilization of minority groups and women,
and further, goals and timetables to correct the deficiencies." In the decades that followed, government programs mandated a variety of requirements specifying preference be given to minorities in employment and in awarding of certain contracts.
Source: They Think You're Stupid, by Herman Cain, p. 24
, Jun 14, 2005
Should not glorify homosexuality on television
I do not think that you [should] glorify homosexuality on public television. You don’t glorify it anymore than you glorify whores. Now we all know that people do that-we all have weaknesses-but God damn it, what do you think that does to kids? What do
you think that does to 11 and 12 year old boys when they see that? Why is it that in the Scouts and the Boys Clubs, that we constantly had to clean up the staffs to keep the Goddamned fags out of it? By God can I tell you it outraged me. Not for any
moral reason. Most people are outraged for moral reasons. It outraged me because I don’t want to see this country go that way. You know what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo, so was Socrates. The last
six Roman emperors were fags. You know what happened to the Popes? It’s all right that Popes were laying the nuns, that’s been going on for centuries, but when the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual.
Source: White House tapes: meeting with Haldeman and Ehrlichman
, May 13, 1971
Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013
