racism then and now

In the 1950s and early 1960s those times had more in common with the 1900 and before than now. I actually met people born before or during the Civil war for example.I also met people who didn't see a car or anything like that until the early 1900s where they lived. I met people who had traveled across the U.S. in wagons or on horseback and some who had come west on the trains. So, their point of view is very different than now. People generally were more clannish and ethnocentric and prone to violence and unrealistic racism too. It was just something you saw a lot back in the 1950s which was just a carryover from the 1800s.

But racism was much different then in that if you were Scottish and Irish or Italian often you were discriminated against in the 1800s or early 1900s. People were just getting over this in the 1950s and 1960s. There was what might be described as more "Ethnic Racism" but the truth of it is there was more discrimination about anyone who wasn't just English based and a WASP and Republcian and wealthy in the 1950s still. It wasn't just about dsicrimination against black people. That was just one aspect of discrimination.

No. You could be disriminated against for being Gay or Catholic or Jewish or Italian or Mexican or Eastern European of French or anything but rich and with English Ancestors. This is what many people don't realize today as much now.

This is one reason why Jewish people identified with Black people so much in the 1950s and to some degree Italians and Mexicans and anyone south of the border also identified with Black people or Native Americans because of all the discrimination by rich white Republicans too.

But, another interesting thing is early in the 20th Century the Republicans were the party of the common people but this started to change with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s. Then there were the Blue Dog Southern Democrats who all eventually became Republicans during the Eisenhower Administration and during the Nixon Administration.

So, parties change. For example, in the 1920s the KKK was involved in the Democratic convention picking a candidate for president and their candidate almost was nominated for president.

So, the parties didn't start to switch as to who was for the downtrodden until FDR and Kennedy were
president and also Truman.