Richard Nixon’s Black Cabinet

This chapter talks about how Richard Nixon's classist appeals for minority enterprise mirrored a theme central to black Republican thought and action. As previously seen, African American party members consistently proposed variations on a single core agenda, wedding liberal appeals for racial equality with a belief in traditional Republican principles. In particular, they had long called for the creation and implementation of a movement for economic civil rights, as an alternative means of reaching full equality. A June 1968 article in Time highlighted the prominent position of this centerpiece of black Republican thought, noting that all three Republican presidential primary candidates had incorporated the concept into their campaign rhetoric. The chapter shows how even as prominent white politicians echoed black Republicans' ideas, blacks themselves were divided about those same politicians.