November 22, 2000: The Brooks Brothers Riot

November 22, 2000: An election that began to be stolen on Election Day itself, November 7, takes a big step closer to being stolen, with "The Brooks Brothers Riot."

The Republican nominee for President, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, lost the national popular vote to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore. But he appeared to have won enough Statewide popular votes to win 271 Electoral Votes to Gore's 269.

In dispute was the State of Florida, where Bush was originally certified to have won by 1,784 votes. It's important to note that the Governor of Florida was his brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush. Through his Secretary of State -- and, it was rumored, his mistress -- Katharine Harris, Jeb had the Florida vote fixed for his brother, including the deletion of the names of 55,000 people, nearly all black men, from the voter rolls.

In other words, if those 55,000 people were permitted to vote, even if less than half of them ended up voting at all, there was no way Gore wouldn't have gotten enough of those 55,000 votes to offset a 1,784-vote lead for "Dubya."

A clause in Florida's State Constitution mandated that, since the election was so close, a Statewide recount had to be done. The recount for Dade County, including the City of Miami, was done at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, at 111 Northwest 1st Street in downtown Miami. (Clark was Mayor of Miami from 1967 to 1972, and again from 1993 to 1996.)

The Stephen P. Clark Government Center

The recount began, but Representative John E. Sweeney, then a freshman Congressman from New York's Capital Region, including the State capital of Albany, told an aide to "Shut it down." And so dozens of people, many of them wearing sharp suits typical of Republican staffers at the time -- hence the name of the demonstration, as Brooks Brothers is a popular store chain with them -- found their way into the building, and pounded on the doors of the room where the recount was being done, making it unsafe for the counters.

They got what they wanted. Bush's lead got down to 537 votes, when a local court ordered that the recount be stopped. In other words, some votes were never counted, not even once. The State Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to resume.

But on December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to stop. And so, Bush's 537-vote win in Florida was certified by the State of Florida, and later by Congress.

Strange: For decades, conservatives -- first in the Democratic Party, then in the 1960s they began to shift to the Republican Party -- were in favor of States' rights over civil rights. But when States' rights and civil rights came together in Florida in 2000, the conservatives wanted the State of Florida to have no rights.

Did Democratic protestors try to stop Congress from certifying this apparently stolen election, as Republican ones tried 20 years later? No. Every Democratic demonstration, including outside Bush's Inauguration as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001, was peaceful.

But the Republicans have now tried this sort of thing twice in the 21st Century. Indeed, the Brooks Brothers Riot has been called a "dress rehearsal" for the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.

Many of the Miami demonstrators later took jobs in the Bush Administration. One of them was Roger Stone, a self-described "GOP Hitman," with a history of Republican dirty tricks going back to his work for Richard Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President, the group behind the Watergate burglary of 1972.

Nobody was ever charged with a crime in connection with the Brooks Brothers Riot -- not with election fraud, not with property damage, not with assault, not even with trespassing, of which they were all guilty.

*

November 22, 2000 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. As was tradition in my family, I spent Thanksgiving weekend at my grandmother's house, including the Thursday night with my parents and sister, and we sat transfixed at the TV, watching not football games -- the Detroit Lions beat the New England Patriots 34-9 at the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, Michigan; while the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 27-15 at Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, Texas -- but footage of the Brooks Brothers Riot, on a seemingly endless loop, as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC tried to make sense of the most blatant election theft in American history.

Other Presidential elections have had accusations of fraud. But this was on television. Even the alleged theft of Illinois' votes by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago in 1960 -- the overturning of which wouldn't have swung the election from John F. Kennedy to Nixon anyway -- wasn't caught by TV or film cameras. The Brooks Brothers Riot was, and the news networks were all too happy to show it over and over again, refusing to say that it was wrong.

The fact that Al Gore's rightly-won Presidency was being assassinated on November 22, the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, seemed not to have occurred to most people. Certainly, I didn't think of it at the time. With the chaos of the election, the JFK anniversary may have been mentioned less than on any November 22 since 1963.

As I said, it was a Wednesday in November, midweek for the NFL, and the off-season for baseball. There were 11 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 78-74 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta. It's now named the State Farm Arena. Allan Houston led the Knicks with 21 points, but it wasn't enough.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Phoenix Suns, 97-85 at the AmericaWest Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix. Stephon Marbury scored 30 for the Meadowlands team, and Jason Kidd 8 for the Suns.

At the end of the 2000-01 season, they would be traded for each other, a classic "My headache for your headache" trade. Marbury did little for the Suns, while Kidd singlehandedly turned the Nets from a terrible team to back-to-back NBA Finalists.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 96-81 at the FleetCenter in Boston. (It's now the TD Garden.)

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 88-73 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* Elsewhere in Miami that day, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Miami Heat, 86-67 at the American Airlines Arena. (It's now the Kaseya Center.) Eighty-six to sixty-seven? I know this was a defensive era in the NBA, especially with a post-Lakers Pat Riley coaching the Heat, but it looks like votes weren't the only thing being undercounted in Miami!

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 93-84 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Vancouver Grizzlies, 101-100 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. This would be the Grizzlies' 6th and last season in Vancouver, as they moved to Memphis for 2001-02.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 112-85 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Utah Jazz beat their arch-rivals, the Denver Nuggets, 116-78 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors, 111-91 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. At the time, the Warriors thought of the Lakers as their arch-rivals, but the feeling was not reciprocated. Despite the Warriors' success of the 2010s, it still isn't.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-71 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento. (It's now the Sleep Train Arena.)

There were 12 NHL games that night. All 3 New York Tri-State Area teams were in action, including 2 of them against each other:

* The New Jersey Devils, defending Stanley Cup Champions (and also my team, so it's my prerogative to list them first if I want to), beat the team then known as "The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim," 5-2 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. (The team is now the Anaheim Ducks, and the arena is the Honda Center.) The Devils got goals from Patrik Elias in the 1st period, Jay Pandolfo and Scott Gomez in the 2nd, and Jason Arnott and Pandolfo again in the 3rd.

* In an arch-rivalry game, the New York Rangers beat the New York Islanders, 4-3 at the Nassau Coliseum. Theoren Fleury got the winner for the Broadway Blueshirts, with 35 seconds left in overtime.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at the MCI Center in Washington. (It's now the Capital One Arena.) Andrei Nikolishin scored the winner in overtime.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 8-2 at the Ice Palace in Tampa. (It's now the Amalie Arena.)

* In an All-Canadian matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now the Scotiabank Arena.)

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. (It's now the KeyBank Center.)

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. (It had previously been known as the Civic Arena.)

* In an Original Six matchup, the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-4 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Calgary Flames and the Minnesota Wild played to a tie, 1-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Nashville Predators, 1-0 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. (It's now the Bridgestone Arena.)

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-2 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now the Ball Arena.)

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1 at the San Jose Arena. (It's now the SAP Center.)

Also, Arsenal played a UEFA Champions League Group Stage match, losing to Spartak Moscow, 4-1 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

July 14, 1948: The Democrats Split Over Civil Rights

Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis.

He was 37 years old.

July 14, 1948: The Democratic National Convention is being conducted at the Convention Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center. It's not going well. Their nominee for President, the incumbent, Harry S Truman, is not popular, having had a very rough 1st term, which wasn't even intended as his: He became President when Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.

The Republicans had a successful Convention, in the same building, nominating Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for President, and Governor Earl Warren of California for Vice President. What's more, the Democrats were divided between North and South, on the issue of civil rights: The Northern Delegates wanted to expand them, while the Southern Delegates, based on white supremacy, were determined that there would be no progress at all.

The Convention's Chairman was Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, the Senate Minority Leader, the Majority Leader from 1941 to 1946. The Republicans had proposed "to clean the cobwebs" from the federal government. Barkley invoked the Republicans' guilt over the Great Depression, telling the Convention, "I am not an expert on cobwebs. But if my memory does not betray me, when the Democratic Party took over, 16 years ago, even the spiders were so weak from starvation, they could not weave a cobweb in any department of the government in Washington!" 

But the Republicans had ridden to victory in the Congressional elections of 1946, reminding the American people of the regulations of FDR's New Deal, which Truman had kept in place, and summarized it in two words: "Had enough?" The answer seemed to be, "Yes." The Democrats' goal of more federal government action seemed to be out of step with what the country wanted. And civil rights? For most white Americans, this issue was not on the front burner, or even on the back burner.

But 2 Delegates proposed a strong civil rights plank for the Party's platform, including an endorsement of the pro-civil rights actions already taken by Truman. (Just 12 days after this, Truman ordered the racial desegregation of the U.S. armed forces.) They were Hubert Humphrey, the Mayor of Minneapolis, and Paul Douglas, a former member of the Chicago City Council. Both men were candidates for the U.S. Senate that year.

In a speech heard on nationwide radio -- and, for the 1st time, seen on nationwide television (the 1940 Conventions were televised, but not nationally) -- Humphrey made it a moral crusade, connecting it with the American Revolution and the spirit of 1776:

To those who say, my friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late! To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on States' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of States' rights, and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!

The Northern Delegates erupted in cheers. The Southern Delegates were dead silent. The plank was voted on, and it passed, 651½–582½.

Of the 278 Southern Delegates, 35 walked out: All 22 from Mississippi, and 13 from Alabama. The remaining Southern Delegates gave their support to Senator Richard B. Russell Jr. of Georgia. It wasn't enough to prevent Truman's nomination on the 1st ballot: He won 926 delegates, Russell 266, with the other 42 votes scattered.

The bolted delegates and other Southerners then formed the States' Rights Democratic Party, a.k.a. the Dixiecrats, who nominated Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for President, and Governor Fielding Wright of Mississippi for Vice President.

In addition to this challenge from the right, there was a challenge from the left: Henry Wallace, dumped as Vice President in favor of Truman at the 1944 Convention, formed a new party with an old name, the Progressive Party. The concern was not that Wallace would win any States, but that he would gain enough liberal votes, especially enough black votes, to cost Truman the City of New York, and thus the State of New York; Chicago, and thus Illinois; and Los Angeles, and thus California.

Nobody thought Truman could win. Thurmond, the last survivor of the 4 main candidates, admitted in a 1988 interview, "I thought Dewey would win." Unlike Wallace, Thurmond was under no illusions about his own victory: He wasn't on the ballot in any State outside the South, but he could cost Truman some Southern States, to the point where, even if he finished with more Electoral Votes than Dewey, he would fall short of the 267 necessary to become President, throwing the election into the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Republicans, and would choose Dewey.

Nobody thought Truman could win, not even inside the Convention Hall. Nobody, that is, except Truman himself. He chose Barkley as his nominee for the vacant Vice Presidency, and told the Convention, and told the country, "Senator Barkley and I are going to win this election, and make the Republicans like it, and don't you forget it!" For the 1st time since it was gaveled into session, the Convention had a positive message, and it gave Truman a standing ovation.

Thurmond did cost Truman the States of South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, winning them himself. And Wallace did cost Truman every State in the Northeast except Massachusetts and Rhode Island, throwing them to Dewey.

But Truman won, and brought Democratic majorities to both houses of Congress, returning Rayburn to the Speakership, and making Scott Lucas of Illinois the Senate Majority Leader. Douglas was elected to Illinois' other Senate seat, and Humphrey was elected in Minnesota, beginning a career that would see him be elected Vice President, and run for the Presidency 3 times.

In 1953, Earl Warren, the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1948, was appointed to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He would lead a branch of the civil rights revolution from the highest court of the land.

But the shift from the Republicans being "the Party of Lincoln" to the Democrats being "the Party of Civil Rights" was well underway. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a Civil Rights Act into law. Humphrey, then the Majority Whip, had gotten it pushed through the Senate. Strom Thurmond subsequently became the 1st major politician to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party over the issue of race.

*

July 14, 1948 was a Wednesday. There were no scores on this historic day: The only sport in-season at the time was baseball, and it was the All-Star Break. The day before, the American League won the All-Star Game, beating the National League, 5-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

July 2, 1964: The Civil Rights Act Becomes Law

July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Among those attending the signing ceremony is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then the nation's leading civil rights activist.

Angry over various events holding African-Americans back, President John F. Kennedy gave a nationally-televised speech on June 10, 1963, asking Congress for a bill that would ban racial and religious discrimination "in facilities which are open to the public: Hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments."

There were 3 key hurdles to the bill's passage. Many Congressional committees were then chaired by powerful Southern Democrats, unwilling to help civil rights. The bill had to pass the House Judiciary Committee. Fortunately, it was then chaired by Emmanuel Celler, a Jewish New Yorker, who got it through. The next step was being passed by the House Rules Committee, then chaired by Howard W. Smith, a racist from Virginia.

And before that could happen, Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Johnson, his Vice President and a Texan who favored the bill, became President, and demanded that the bill pass.

Smith knew the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as anyone. But so did Celler, who had a plan: He filed a petition to discharge the bill from the Rules Committee, and move it directly to the House floor, for a vote by the full House. That required the support of a majority of House members.

When the Winter recess began, Celler was 50 votes short, but letters, telegrams and phone calls were coming in to members on the fence. Smith "read the room," and realized that he would be utterly humiliated if the bill was discharged, so he told the Rules Committee members they could vote their conscience, and it passed.

On February 10, 1964, the full House voted 290-130 to pass it. It went on to the Senate, and Southern Democrats filibustered it for 54 days. But Northern and Western Democrats, and Republicans who were conservative but believed that civil rights could be good for business, worked on breaking the filibuster.

In particular, 2 Senators led the way: Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the Democrats' "Whip"; and Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republicans' Leader. Each man's personal popularity was enough. Indeed, it was Humphrey, as Mayor of Minneapolis and a 1st-time candidate for the Senate, who had addressed the 1948 Democratic Convention, and said the Party should move on from States' rights to protecting human rights.

On June 19, 1964, the Senate passed the bill. The vote was 73-27. The Senators who voted No:

* Democrats: Lister Hill and John Sparkman of Alabama, William Fulbright and John McClellan of Arkansas, Spessard Holland and George Smathers of Florida, Richard Russell and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, Allen Ellender and Russell Long of Louisiana, James Eastland and John Stennis of Mississippi, Sam Ervin and Everett Jordan of North Carolina, Strom Thurmond and Olin Johnston of South Carolina, Albert Gore and Herbert Walters of Tennessee, Harry Byrd and Willis Robertson of Virginia, and Harry's cousin Robert Byrd of West Virginia. So, 21 "Dixiecrats."

* Republicans: Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Edwin Mechem of New Mexico, John Tower of Texas, Milward Simpson of Wyoming... and Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

The only Southern Senator of either Party to vote for the bill was Ralph Yarborough of Texas, an ally of LBJ's, who was with him in the car behind the one carrying JFK, Governor John Connally, and their wives when JFK was assassinated in Dallas. One of the reasons JFK went to Dallas in the first place was because, after Tower won LBJ's Senate seat, becoming the 1st Republican Senator in the South since Reconstruction, Texas' Democrats were split between factions led by Yarborough (a liberal) and Connally (a conservative who would later switch to the Republicans).

Robert Byrd, the Senate Majority Leader from 1977 to 1988, had belonged to the Ku Klux Klan during World War II, more for its opposition to Communism than its hatred of blacks, Catholics and Jews. He later called joining the KKK "the greatest mistake I ever made."

In his last book, the 2008 Letter to a New President -- he knew that fellow Senator Barack Obama was a rising star, but did not yet suspect that he would become said new President -- he wrote, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."

Ervin never renounced his anti-civil rights votes, but redeemed himself somewhat with his Chairmanship of the Select Committee investigating Watergate in 1973 and '74.

Thurmond had been Governor of South Carolina in 1948, and briefly left the Democratic Party to run for President on the ticket of the States' Rights Party, all former Democrats. From that point onward, Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights were known as "Dixiecrats." Thurmond launched a filibuster designed to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957, lasting a little over 24 hours, setting a record previously held by Huey Long of Louisiana, Russell's father. When the CRA of 1964 became law, Thurmond became the 1st major Democratic official in the South to switch to the Republican Party.

Gore was running for re-election, and was, by his own later admission, afraid to vote for the bill. He had previously voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. His re-election secure, he went on to vote for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall as the 1st black Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. He lost his next bid for re-election in 1970, but that's been attributed to his opposition to the Vietnam War, rather than to his pro-civil rights votes. His son, usually known as Al Gore, would also be elected to both houses of Congress, serve as Bill Clinton's Vice President, and be the Democratic nominee for President in 2000.

Robertson was the father of Marion G. "Pat" Robertson, the Virginia Beach-based televangelist who ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1988, and has been a major figure in "Christian" conservatism ever since, often on the back of various forms of bigotry. (UPDATE: Pat died in 2023.)

Cotton -- no relation to current Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas -- also ended up voting for every other Civil Rights Act from 1957 to 1968, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the 24th Amendment, banning poll taxes. (Gore was not present for the vote on that Amendment.) He voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he said, on the grounds that part of it was unconstitutional.

Goldwater, like Cotton, claimed the bill was unconstitutional. Although he was the conservative movement's favorite son at the time, he had never previously been accused of racism. Indeed, in Arizona, a State then with few Black people, he had been praised by Hispanics and Native Americans for his efforts on their behalf.

Hickenlooper was the great-uncle of John Hickenlooper, now a Senator from Colorado, previously that State's Governor and Mayor of Denver -- and a Democrat. Simpson was the father of a later Senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson.

The bill the Senate passed was slightly different from the one passed by the House, so the House had to approve it again. That took until July 2, and the vote was 289-126. Now, it headed to the President's desk, and LBJ wasted no time: He called in the media, and he called in key figures, including Dr. King, and the Attorney General, who was also the previous President's brother, Robert F. Kennedy.

It was Johnson who began the tradition of the President using a different pen to sign each letter of his name, including the period after the middle initial B. This way, he could give out 15 ceremonial pens -- 6 for "Lyndon," 2 for "B.," and 7 for "Johnson" -- and 15 different people could truthfully say, "I have the pen that made this bill a law."

On the film, he can be heard telling RFK to give pens to his deputies, Nicholas Katzenbach and Burke Marshall, as well as to take one for himself. The best-known photograph of the ceremony, shown above, shows LBJ giving a pen to MLK.

A generous gesture, given that LBJ and RFK couldn't stand each other, for reasons that don't matter here. RFK resigned as Attorney General on September 3 -- he probably would have if his brother lived, anyway, to run the re-election campaign -- and ran for a U.S. Senate seat from New York. He won it -- but won by a smaller margin than Johnson did in the State.

By this point, Goldwater had already secured the Republican nomination for President, beating out pro-civil rights candidates like Governors Nelson Rockefeller of New York and William Scranton of Pennsylvania, and former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts.

But people who cared about civil rights -- for or against -- didn't care why Goldwater voted against the Act, only that he did. Southerners who would never have voted for the nominee of "the Party of Lincoln" before this voted for Goldwater, because he voted the way they wanted. And Midwesterners and Westerners that would have normally voted Republican went for Johnson.

On Election Day, November 3, Johnson won 61.0 percent of the national popular vote, still an all-time record, while Goldwater got just 38.4 percent. Johnson won 44 States with 486 Electoral Votes, Goldwater 6 with 52. Goldwater won Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia, all in the South; and his home State of Arizona, barely, with 50.4 percent, a winning margin of 4,782 votes.

He came close in some other Southern States. He got 48.8 percent in Florida, 46.1 in Virginia, and was the 1st Republican in the 20th Century to top 40 percent in Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Arkansas.

He also got 49.1 percent in Idaho, 47.4 in Nebraska, 45.1 in Utah and 45.0 in Kansas. But if he had won every State where he got at least 45 percent, that still would have given him only 98 Electoral Votes. Even if he had won every State where he got at least 40 percent, including California (40.8, then with 40 EVs) and Illinois (40.5, 26), he still would have had only 199, well short of the necessary majority of 270.

To be fair, the false perception that Goldwater was racist was not the only reason he lost. But it didn't help. As no less than Jackie Robinson, a Republican who had worked for Rockefeller, put it, "It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball were integrated, but America's political parties were segregated."

Johnson knew it, too: "I think we have just given the South to the Republican Party for a generation." It's now been 3 generations. There have been blips since, but:

* Virginia has voted for the Democratic nominee for President in every election since 2008. But, before that, it hadn't voted for one since 1976, Jimmy Carter; and not for a non-Southern Democratic nominee since 1948, Harry Truman.

* Georgia voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Other than that, they haven't voted for the Democratic nominee since Bill Clinton in 1992.

* Florida last voted for the Democratic nominee in 2012, Barack Obama.

* North Carolina last voted for the Democratic nominee in 2008, Obama. Other than that, they haven't voted for the Democratic nominee since 1976; and not for a non-Southern Democratic nominee since 1948.

* Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana last voted for the Democratic nominee in 1996, Bill Clinton. Arkansas last voted for a non-Southern Democratic nominee in 1956, Adlai Stevenson; Louisiana in 1952, Stevenson; and Tennessee in 1948. Tennessee didn't even vote for native son Al Gore in 2000, although that's been attributed to guns as much as to race. This is also the case for West Virginia, which was a reliably Democratic State until 2000.

* Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina last voted for the Democratic nominee in 1976, and haven't voted for a non-Southern Democratic nominee since 1960, John F. Kennedy.

* Oklahoma last voted for the Democratic nominee in 1976, and hasn't voted for a non-Southern Democratic nominee since 1948.

We will never know how many of the 21 Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have done so if they weren't afraid of their respective electorates dumping them for more racist candidates in Democratic Primaries, or switching to Republican candidates. The two Mississippians, Eastland and Stennis, were true believers in segregation. Thurmond, however, did begin to hire black staffers in 1971.

What we do know is that racism, like all other forms of bigotry, is an inherently conservative trait, and the American Southeast remains conservative. And when conservatism meant switching from Democratic to Republican, they did, and have stayed as such.

And what has voting Republican gotten them? Extended poverty and lousy services.

Neil Young may be Canadian, and didn't gain American citizenship until 2020, specificially so he could vote against Donald Trump, but he was right: "Southern man, better use your head." And Lynyrd Skynyrd were wrong: A Southern man does need him around, anyhow.

The last serving Senator who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was Ted Kennedy, brother of Jack and Bobby, who died in office in 2009. The last surviving Senator who voted for it was Birch Bayh of Indiana, who lived until 2019. The last serving and the last surviving Senator who voted against it was Robert Byrd, who died in office in 2010.

*

July 2, 1964 was a Thursday. Scandal-ridden baseball star Jose Canseco, and his identical but far less successful twin brother Ozzie, were born on this day.

It was the off-season for the NFL, the AFL, the NBA and the NHL. But nearly a full slate of Major League Baseball games was played, with every team except the Chicago White Sox and the Washington Senators scheduled:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Athletics, 4-3 in 15 innings at Yankee Stadium. Despite the game's length, only 1 home run was hit, and not by somebody you might expect, like Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris or Joe Pepitone. It was Bobby Richardson. (Mantle and Maris did both get 2 hits in the game.)

Richardson led off the bottom of the 15th with a groundout. But Mantle hit a triple to left field. With the winning run on 3rd, and 1st and 2nd open, the A's intentionally walked Tom Tresh and then Pepitone, hoping for a forceout at any based, preferably an infield-to-home-to-1st double play. Instead, Hector Lopez -- appropriately for the day, both Black and Hispanic -- singled to left to bring Mantle home with the winning run. Rollie Sheldon started for the Yankees, but the winning pitcher was Steve Hamilton.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Colt .45s, 7-1 at Colt Stadium in Houston. The next season, the Colts moved into their new home, the Astrodome, and changed their name to the Houston Astros.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 15-9 at Fenway Park in Boston. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-5. He didn't hit a home run, but Tony Oliva, Rich Rollins and Don Mincher did. For the Red Sox, Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Boston homers were hit by Felix Mantilla and Dick Williams -- who, 3 years later, would manage the Sox to the "Impossible Dream" Pennant, led by Yastrzemski's Triple Crown and Most Valuable Player performance.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Baltimore Orioles, 10-6 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. In defeat, Jackie Brandt hit 2 home runs, and Brooks Robinson went 1-for-5.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Jim Maloney pitched a 4-hit shutout. Marty Keough hit a home run, Frank Robinson went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs, and Pete Rose went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs. For the Cubs, Ernie Banks went 1-for-4.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 2-for-3.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Braves, 4-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4, and Joe Torre went 0-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays drew a walk and scored in the 1st inning, but was injured, and had to leave the game. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-3.