George,

I wonder if Mr.Lyster has ever investigated the Republican political movement known as the "Southern Strategy" initially started under Richard Nixon and later, aggressively pursued by Ronald Reagan. Reagan went so far as to make a speech in Neshoba County, Mississippi,where three civil rights workers were brutally murdered and buried under an earthen dam. Reagan said,"I am for states rights!" The crowd went wild because even the dumbest of the dumb knew the meaning of those code words. The Klan and The White Citizens Councils were emboldened. (Parenthetically, not one of the accused murderers of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner or James Cheney was ever convicted in state courts).

To say the Republican party has not engaged in racist politics strains the credulity of even the most naive individual. Over night, the Republican Party became the party of Jim Crow in the Southland. The most recent example was the winning Republican candidate for governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour. He used racist Judge Pickering, the confederate flag
and virtually every race baiter he could embrace in his successful defeat of Governor Musgrove. In the words of Casey Stengel, "you can look it up."

If you scratch a current Southern Republican,you will often find a scion of a boll weevil Democrat that usually won by "outsegging" his opponent. After the Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act, the GOP saw an irresistible opportunity in the "Solid South". Their strategy worked.

Harry Tenney (electronic mail, November 10, 2003)

Harry Tenney adds,

"You might remind Mr Lyster that Strom Thurmond ran as a "Dixiecrat"; Harry S.Truman was the candidate of the Democratic Party. Mr. Lyster is right, however, Strom Thurmond, who was a Republican for the largest part of his political career, did run on a racist, segregationist platform. Make no mistake, what Trent Lott said at Senator Thurmond's retirement was abundantly clear as to what "things" might have been different had Strom Thurmond won! Clever code words, notwithstanding!"