As the country is divided and we see the evil of our past resurface in today’s world, seeing our president, whose rhetoric seems to empower those who call themselves white supremacists, in the past, we had another president who seemed to mirror what Trump is doing with race relations in our country today. The 37th president, Richard Nixon was a man who made it his agenda to attack and disrupt African Americans during his presidency. Prior to Nixon’s election, southern voters were primarily Democratic voters. Since Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was responsible for the emancipation of the slaves, and for foiling the secession of the confederacy, you can see why for so long the southerners were majority Democrat voters. When John F. Kennedy supported, and Lyndon B. Johnson executed the Civil Rights Act, southerners started to withdraw their support of the Democratic Party, and Nixon saw an opportunity, which he seized in his 1968 campaign. He later continued his assault by implementing a system, the war on drugs, which can still be felt today.
During his campaign, Nixon adopted a “southern strategy”, which was a promise he made to the southern voters to move away from the civil rights agenda. Part of his strategy was confirmed in 2007, when notes left behind by his aid H. R. Haldeman was opened, and it revealed how during the 1968 campaign, Nixon made a promise to southern republicans that he would withdraw from the civil rights and “pro-Negro crap” if elected. The notes were telling of Nixon’s attitude towards the black community and his role in protecting white supremacy, and the fear among white Americans towards the change happening in the country. In Nixon’s the One: The ’68 Election, it is documented that in order to win the southern support, Nixon courted one of the top segregationist in the government, US Sen. Strom Thurmond. Nixon promised Thurmond and other southern voters that he would appoint “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court, which was a strategy, used to combat desegregation, a major goal of the civil rights movement. It is only natural since the southern support basically won Nixon the election, that he would continue his promises during his presidential terms.
As you would expect from a pro-war president with an anti-black agenda, he would help create the policy and coin the phrase “the war on drugs”. What Nixon did not disclose was his secret agenda in creating this policy. Nixon’s top advisor, John Ehrlichman stated in an interview that the war on drugs was a political tool created to fight blacks and hippies. By criminalizing both marijuana and heroine, and getting the public to associate them with hippies and blacks, they can disrupt their communities. The majority of blacks live in impoverished neighborhoods and inner cities, causing desperation for money. Keeping these drugs illegal creates a demand for them, which, in effect, creates a lucrative business to be apart of. The parts of society who do not have other options, which are the African American community, usually take this opportunity. The war on drugs is a direct way to attack the blacks, and since it also feeds the prison industrial complex system, its cheap labor is the closest form of modern slavery that is legally accepted.
