GOP History Lesson: First Lilly White Primary

[Vogon_Glory]

Yes, yes, I know this is the Democratic Underground, but I need some historical information concerning--those people. I need to know when the Texas Republicans banned racial minorities from voting in their primaries. I know they did it sometime in the late 1890's, but I don't remember the specific date. I know they called the first few the "Lilly White primaries."

The reason I'm asking is to slam the door on Republican weaseling. As many of us know, one of the favorite dodges of GOP reactionaries is to pretend that they've always supported civil rights and that today they're only interested in "equal rights, not special rights." While most of us are quite aware that the present-day GOP is dominated by former Dixiecrats, the "old" GOP's civil rights record outside the Northeast and certain parts of the Midwest and Northwest wasn't too pretty, either. I think the little mothers' darlings in such organizations as the Young Republicans and the Young Conservatives of Texas deserve to have their noses thoroughly rubbed into the more sordid elements of their "conservative" past.

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. Actually the Democrats controlled the state when this was enacted

It was not a party rule but an actual state law.

http://www.rra.dst.tx.us/c_t/History1/WHITE%20PRIMARY.cfm

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Thanks, But the Law Covered the Democratic Primary...

Thanks for your research, but I'm not sure it quite adequately answers my question. I appreciate the response, but the article indicates that only the Democratic Party was affected. I think that the Texas GOP passed its own internal rule for their own "Lilly White" primary.

Of course I'm asking the original question for partisan Democratic reasons. Todays Texas Republican reactionaries seem to think that they can brush off their segregationist Dixiecrat past by claiming that they've been "borned again" as Republicans with supposedly a clean slate. I don't think that the Texas Republican civil rights record was anything to write home about even before the 1950's.

The reason I'm curious is because I was visiting a Galveston Texas local history museum. There was an exhibit on a once-prominent Afro-American businessman who managed to rise to a position of prominence in Texas Republican politics--until a "Lilly White" primary rule forced him out of politics. I still believe that this Texas Republican "Lilly White" primary was something white Texas Republicans did themselves without state help, and it's a little something from the past that today's Texas GOPster reactionaries richly deserve to be reminded of.

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. The sad truth is

that both parties were blatantly racist. The big difference is that the GOP was almost nonexistent in Texas until the 1960's.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Indeed, Both Parties Were Racist

Indeed, both major political parties in Texas were racist in the bad old days. I'd just like to make sure that there's a proper amount of carbon black available for the paint bucket when Republican Party apologists try to whitewash the not-so-pretty parts of their party's pre-1960 past.