Striving for Civil Rights: Senator Edward W. Brooke, President Richard Nixon's “Southern Strategy” and the Supreme Court

President Richard Nixon’s nominations of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and Judge G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court in 1969 and 1970 demonstrated his allegiance to the White South and Sunbelt South. Nixon used the election victory as an opportunity to repay his one million southern constituents for their votes while disregarding the interests of Black Americans. His Supreme Court nominees would fill the vacancy of Associate Justice Abe Fortas, who resigned from the Supreme Court amid allegations of involvement in a financial scandal. The nominations were a larger ploy in President Nixon’s strategy of appealing to disillusioned White southern voters. They felt betrayed by the Democratic Party as the national coalition gradually became more inclusive of Black Americans and adopted a stronger civil rights platform throughout the 1950s and 1960s.1 Thus, the president attempted to fulfill three objectives: (1) roll back the civil rights gains of the Warren Court, which many conservatives viewed as increasingly liberal; (2) placate the majority of southern Christians throughout the region who were angry with the High Court’s decisions removing prayer (1962) and Bible reading (1963) from the public schools; and (3) solidify his power base among the White South. Nixon, who was looking ahead to the 1972 presidential election, wanted not only to deprive George Wallace, the hardright segregationist governor of Alabama, of votes but also to demonstrate to the White South that his racial views had changed since leaving political office in 1961.2