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Thursday, November 10, 2011

World Ahead Publishing: Kasey S. Pipes- 'Dwight Eisenhower, Not Lyndon Johnson, Was First Civil Rights Champ'


Source:World Ahead Publishing- Little Rock, Arkansas, is literally one of the first battles of the American civil rights movement.

"Kasey Pipes, author of "Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality," describes how Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower -- not LBJ, as liberals often claim -- was America's first civil rights president." 


Dwight Eisenhower was the first American civil rights President, at least post-Abraham Lincoln. The only thing I would add to that is that he didn’t run for President to be that, but it sort of hit his desk with the school segregation issues that hit the American South in the 1950s with President Eisenhower believing he needed to act on that.

Source:Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, Kansas) meeting with Dr. Martin L. King and other American civil rights leaders, probably in the 1950s.

Dwight Eisenhower, was not the first President to come out in favor of civil rights or human rights for everyone in America. Abraham Lincoln deserves the credit for that for the Civil War that ended slavery and freed the African slaves. And Harry Truman allowed soldiers of different races to serve together with an executive order in I believe in 1945. 

What President Dwight Eisenhower deserves credit for and I believe its accurately reported in his presidential legacy, was enforcing rule of law in America for all the people. Rule of law as a Progressive Republican, is something that Dwight Eisenhower believed in deeply and I believe he picked that up in the military. If Rule of law is not properly enforced, then rules and laws become meaningless.

Ike Eisenhower, saw his job as President to enforce rule of law. Something he did very well as President, with enforcing all of those U.S. Supreme Court decisions that allowed students of different races to go to school together and sending the Army into Little Rock, Arkansas to make sure the Governor of Arkansas allowed those African-American students go to school with the Caucasian- American students there at Central High School in Little Rock. 

And these types of decisions not just enforcing laws that you agree with, but enforcing all laws which is what rule of law is about, would not play well today with the Far-Right of the Republican Party. Which is one reason why I believe Ike Eisenhower wouldn’t be able to get the Republican nomination for president today, because he was a Center-Right, Progressive Republican, who not only believe in the Constitution, but equal rights and constitutional rights for all Americans. 

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