I guess I do not understand.
On the 50th anniversity of the CRA of 1964 that is plenty of credit to go around.
Republicans were mostly in Northern states then and their courage in acting was admirable. Democrats supported the bill with a majority but were unable to deliver votes from the South. So much so that after the bill passed many of them moved to the Republican Party in the South or lost their seats in congress.
The passage of the bill took compromise and courage, with many knowing their seats would be at risk. Yet they did the right thing.
So why can't we do the right thing and simply acknowledge that this was a good thing, a good decision, and a good law?
Sadly, there was nothing courageous about it--it was pure political calculation--and the last admirable Republican was Teddy Roosevelt...and before him Lincoln, Stanton and Thaddeus Stevens. Admirable folks come very few and very far apart in that party.
No, this was the easiest political calculation ever--as Johnson knew, "We have lost the south for a generation."
Dems wouldn't pick up any new votes in the north, but they would lose them in the south.
Republicans wouldn't LOSE any new votes in the north (or few enough to matter) but they would gain HORDES (barbarian hordes) of them in the south.
Let us be frank, without the CRA, which gave them the south, the Republican party would already be extinct, rather than on the verge of falling apart as it is today. Republican ideology was proven bankrupt as early as 1929, with the onset of the Depression. It experienced a brief chance at redemption under Eisenhower, but even then, with the alliance of the Republicans to Southern Dems, in return for those Dems support on Taft-Hartley, they were already breathing their last gasp as a national party.
Without the hatreds, racism and religious extremism of the south, there would BE no Republican Party today. They saw what was happening--Americans were turning towards the Dems in droves--so realized that sometimes, unless you can divide and conquer, you yourself will die.
So that's all the GOP has done for nigh on 60 years now, stoke the fires of hatred, racism and religious extremism in the south, and the desert west areas, and in Texas, against anyone they can find.
So no, I find nothing courageous or noble in the GOP Senators FINALLY, after multiple attempts by Northern Democrats to pass CR, breaking their alliance with Southern Dems. It was pure political strategy, their last lifeline, and they grasped it for they were worth.
And America is FAR worse off as a result.