Word: thurmond
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.), long-time leader of the Congressional segregation troops, brought up his old proposal to deny the government its fund-cutting power. But Whitten, whose district includes two of the condemned school systems, was not as important a foe as Sen. Strom Thurmond...
...Thurmond, Nixon's political creditor ever since he delivered the Southern vote at the convention and in the election, didn't waste time with any Whittenesque theatrics. Knowing where the power was, he sent a series of messages to Nixon expressing his "concern" over Finch's cut-off. After Finch gave in to the grace-period plan, Thurmond said that he thought it was wise: "We need to take more time in these things...
...Thurmond's satisfaction with the plan only intensified the dismay of civil rights forces. The liberal Atlanta Journal called the move "a costly Nixon retreat" that "slaps the face of every Southern school board . . . that has moved with great difficulty to obey the law." Six liberal Republicans in the Senate said that they hoped the decision didn't mean that Finch would flag on enforcement, and Senate Democrats threatened committee action if desegregation plans were left...
...real meaning of the grace-period decision depends on one key question: whether Finch's momentary retreat is a hint of weaker stands to come. Both Thurmond in his satisfaction and the Journal in its anguish have worked from the common assumption that it is. So have many Southern schoolmen, who now imagine that the desegregation plans they finally conjure up won't have to be too rigorous to meet Nixon administration standards...
...history to defy his party. The others: Pennsylvanian Samuel Miles, chosen as a Federalist, voted for Thomas Jefferson rather than John Adams in 1796; former Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire voted for John Quincy Adams rather than James Monroe, 1820; Preston Parks of Tennessee voted for Strom Thurmond instead of Harry Truman, 1948; W. F. Turner of Alabama voted for a circuit judge instead of Adlai Stevenson, 1956; Henry D. Irwin of Oklahoma ignored his pledge to Nixon and voted for Virginia Senator Harry Byrd...