Grand Old Partisan

a Republican wrote the Brown v. Board of Education decision

As they struggle to regain the political initiative, Republicans would do well to remember the GOP's heritage of civil rights achievement.

On this day in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.  The author of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren, was a life-long Republican, appointed to the bench by a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower.

Warren entered politics in 1939 when he was elected, as a Republican, Attorney General of California.  Three years later, he was elected Governor.  At the 1944 Republican National Convention, he delivered the keynote address and criticized the Democrats repeatedly.  In 1948, Earl Warren was the Republican vice presidential nominee.  After election to the presidency, Dwight Eisenhower promised him an appointment to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court.  When Chief Justice Vinson died in the fall of 1953, Warren got the nod to succeed him as Chief Justice.  Instrumental in the appointment was Warren's old friend, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, a former chairman of the RNC.   

In December 1952, the Supreme Court had first heard arguments on the challenge to the Topeka, Kansas public school racial segregation policy.  In June 1953, the Court ordered the case reargued that fall to consider whether the 14th Amendment (written and passed by Republicans nearly a century before) had been intended to end segregation in public schools.

The federal government was not a party to the case, but Attorney General Brownell filed a brief in favor of overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that sanctioned "separate but equal."  Arguing in favor of Linda Brown was Thurgood Marshall, director of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, who a decade earlier had convinced the Supreme Court to strike down the Democratic Party's all-white primary in Texas.  On the other side, the chief lawyer for the segregationists was John Davis, the 1924 Democrat presidential nominee.

The very next day, President Eisenhower ordered the District of Columbia to desegregate its public schools immediately, even before a specific court order to do so.  The following year, Eisenhower personally rewrote the federal government's brief for the second Brown case to argue that the Supreme Court should order immediate nationwide desegregation of public schools.  Lamentably, the Court instead opted for "all deliberate speed" on the part of individual federal judges.

This article is based on Back to Basics for the Republican Party, the acclaimed history of the GOP from the civil rights perspective.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country, showing office-holders, candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating our Party's heritage of civil rights achievement.  Each day, his Grand Old Partisan blog -- http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com -- celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.  See www.republicanbasics.com for more information.

the Republican Party should get Back to Basics

Why is it that we Republicans are so easily outmaneuvered by Democrats?

Why do Republicans so readily fight among themselves?

Why is it so difficult for Republicans to advance their policy agenda?

Here's why.  Having forgotten our roots, modern Republicans can be thrown on the defensive on nearly any issue. Democrats control most of the media, but they also write most of the history books, thereby controlling what even Republican activists think they know about our Grand Old Party.

What we must do is to draw upon the strength and clarity to be found in the GOP's heritage of civil rights achievement.  Our heritage is the moral high ground, and giving that up costs us the political initiative.  Republican office-holders and candidates and activists would benefit tremendously from integrating this truth into political campaigns.

In the words of Mary Terrell, an African-American Republican who co-founded the NAACP: "Every right that has been bestowed upon blacks was initiated by the Republican Party."

Each day, Grand Old Partisan -- http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com -- celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.  For example, today the blog salutes David Wilmot, the anti-slavery activist who co-founded the Republican Party.  An article on March 13 honored Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), father of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

"Michael Zak should be giving the talk that he gave to us 3-5 days per week in a different city in the country until he had spoken in every city with a population of 100,000 or more at least two times. In my opinion, he would be worth his weight in gold; and within a decade, the Republican Party would have a registration of 1.5 times the Democrat registration."

"Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan."

Democrats would regret you informing Republican leaders about this message of opportunity for our Grand Old Party.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country.  He is the author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, the acclaimed history of the GOP cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision.  See www.republicanbasics.com for more information.

Levi Morton, Republican vice president

Grand Old Partisan salutes Levi Morton (R-NY), born this day in 1824.  As a young man he moved from Vermont to New York City, becoming a successful banker.  In 1878, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Just two years later, James Garfield (R-OH), looking for a New Yorker as his running mate, offered Morton the vice presidential nomination.  Morton turned him down, asking for instead the ambassadorship to France.  So, when Garfield was assassinated, not Morton but another New Yorker, Chester Arthur, became president.

While in Paris, Ambassador Morton was given the honor of making the first rivet during the construction of the Statue of Liberty.  A year after returning from France, in 1893, he was elected to a term as governor of New York.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country, showing office-holders, candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating our Party's heritage of civil rights achievement.  Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP from the Republican point of view.  Each day, his Grand Old Partisan blog -- http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com -- celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.  See www.republicanbasics.com for more information.

David Wilmot, co-founder of the Republican Party

On this day in 1860, anti-slavery activist David Wilmot (R-PA) delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention that first nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.  Wilmot, who wrote the GOP's 1856 national platform, was a Republican icon.  In 1846, he had introduced into Congress the famous "Wilmot Proviso," which, had Democrats not blocked it, would have banned slavery in any territories acquired during the Mexican-American War.

Wilmot later served as a U.S. Senator during the Civil War and then as a federal judge.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country, showing office-holders, candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating our Party's heritage of civil rights achievement.  Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP from the Republican point of view.  Each day, his Grand Old Partisan blog -- http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com -- celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.  See www.republicanbasics.com for more information.