With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Dixiecrats

SOURCE: The New Republic
2/23/2023

Why is a Senate Office Building Still Named for an Unrepentant Segregationist and White Supremacist?

Texas Senator Ted Cruz decried efforts to "sanitize history" and argued that "the journey of the United States has been a steady journey toward freedom" by way of explaining why he did not support removing segregationist Senator Richard Russell's name from a Senate office building. But few Democrats will candidly support change either.

SOURCE: MSNBC
4/19/2021

On the Legacy of Jim Crow, Ted Cruz Picks the Wrong Partisan Fight (Opinion)

Ted Cruz imagines that the partisan affiliation of Jim Crow segregationists is a "gotcha" against the Democratic Party today, which only makes sense if you ignore everything that's happened since 1964.

SOURCE: New York Times
2/8/2021

The Filibuster That Saved the Electoral College

Powerful Southern conservatives Strom Thurmond, Sam Ervin, and James Eastland led the 1970 filibuster that stopped the Senate from approving a constitutional amendment to elect the president by the popular vote.