Summary
1964 Republican convention - Cover Story
The reaction of black Republicans to the frankly anti-segregationist tone of Barry Goldwater signaled a philosophical change in the GOP in 1964. Combined with Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the US political landscape was permanently altered.See the full content of this document
Extract
The year the GOP went South.
Republicans opened their national convention in the San Francisco Cow Palace on Monday, July 13. All three television networks covered the four-day national pageant more or less continuously, anticipating an abrupt regional and ideological shift of power toward Sen. Barry Goldwater's Western conservatives from the long-dominant Eastern business interests. There was little suspense beyond a slight possibility that Dwight Eisenhower, the only Republican president of the past 30 years, might throw his transcendent influence publicly against Goldwater. Eisenhower was known to resent Goldwater for calling his administration a "dime store New Deal," and privately he had threatened to renounce the Goldwater forces for reckless exploitation on civil rights, saying that if Republicans "begin to count on the `white backlash,' we will have a big civil war." Rumors of a decisive Eisenhower statement quickened when his brother Milton delivered a passionate nominating address on behalf of William Scr...
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