Maggie's Farm

Well, Republicans aren't evil, but the history Whittle is presenting is typically mangled. For instance, he oversimplifies Dr. King's position, who positively advocated for affirmative action. In addition, Whittle distorts why the Democratic Party is so strongly supported by the African American community today. For much of the 20th century, the Democratic Party gathered more and more black support, as they were seen as the party most friendly to the lower and working classes, and as the Democratic Party moved to reject racists policies, with symbolic acts, such as Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, to integrating the military, even to the point of causing the segregationists to split from the party as Dixiecrats. But when Barry Goldwater repudiated the Civil Rights Act, that spelled the end of any significant black support for the Republican Party.

Sherman Broder: Just curious, as blacks today slowly but surely move out of the "lower and working classes" and into the so-called "middle" and "upper" classes, do you think the Democratic Party will begin to lose its 20th century black support?

Possibly. After all, they support the Democratic Party, which was long allied with the segregationists. There are certainly many conservative blacks, but the Republicans continue to alienate them, such as by claiming their 90% support of Democrats is because they've been bought off.

Sherman Broder: Also, do you think the Democratic Party's welfare state friendliness to the "lower and working classes" helped or harmed blacks trying to escape the lower classes?

Every human action has unintended consequences, but there have been many other social factors that inhibited black progress.