Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican civil rights hero
Grand Old Partisan salutes Dwight Eisenhower, born in northeastern Texas, October 14th 1890. The title of his autobiography, Crusade in Europe, summed up nicely the wartime actions of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
Though the Democrat leadership offered him their party's presidential nomination in 1952, General Eisenhower declared himself a Republican and contested for the GOP nomination. Resigning from the army in order to run was, he said, one of the most difficult things he ever did. He accepted Richard Nixon as his running mate in order to reach out to the party establishment.
President Eisenhower does not receive enough credit for his civil rights achievements. It was his Attorney General, Herbert Brownell, who wrote the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which congressional Republicans later strengthened with their 1960 Civil Rights Act. He appointed fellow Republican Earl Warren, who would write the Brown v. Board of Education decision, to be Chief Justice. The day after that decision, he ordered public schools in Washington, DC desegregated immediately, not waiting for judges to make "all deliberate speed".
His administration opposed the Democrats’ racist policies. Eisenhower appointed to the federal bench southern Republicans such as Frank Johnson and John Wisdom and Elbert Tuttle, who became civil rights champions. He compelled the Democrat Governor of Arkansas to obey a federal court order ending racial segregation of public schools. Page 187 of Back to Basics for the Republican Party notes that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson criticized the President for this act to uphold the Constitution.
Contrasting with his Democrat predecessors' indifference, he met with Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders at the White House. They discussed plans to end racial discrimination.
Dwight Eisenhower's last words were "I'm ready to go. God take me."
https://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2022/10/dwight-eisenhower.html