Joe Biden, the 2020 Democratic candidate, once said that Republicans provided a needed balance to Democrats, traditionally the party of segregation, that was "good for the Negro."
Biden's remarks were revealed in an audio recording of a May 1973 appearance at the City Club of Cleveland in which he discussed the politics of civil rights in the South, where Democrats still dominated. The audio was released this year.
In much of the Deep South, including Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, both senators in a state were Democrats. Among them were Mississippi's James Eastland, known as the "Voice of the White South," and Georgia's Herman Talmadge, who had said that "God advocates segregation."
"It's not confined to a party," Biden said regarding attitudes about race. "And I think the two-party system, although my Democratic colleagues don't like me saying this, I think the two-party system is good for the South, good for the Negro, good for the black in the South, and other than the fact that they still call me boy, I don't think they've changed their mind on this."
The former vice president's comments came after he was asked by an audience member about whether he believed attitudes toward blacks by Democratic senators were changing in the South. Biden praised Democratic Sens. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina and Lawton Chiles of Florida, who he said took a "moderate" positions on civil rights.
Hollings and Biden developed a long-standing friendship, so intimate that Biden eventually called the senator his "political soulmate" and a "giant" of U.S. politics. As governor of South Carolina, Hollings oversaw the raising of the Confederate flag over the state's capitol building in 1961.
At the time of Biden's speech, Hollings was in the midst of a dramatic change in his views on racial issues. While he initially ran for governor opposing integration and defending states' rights, he broke with the rest of his Southern colleagues in the Senate and lobbied for anti-poverty programs after witnessing the poor economic conditions of rural blacks.
Chiles, another centrist Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1970 and spent 18 years in Congress before becoming governor of Florida in 1990. During his campaigns for Senate, he largely avoided racial issues and instead focused on economic initiatives that would help his state.
Earlier in the speech, Biden said that U.S. political institutions — and not the country's diversity — made the nation unique. "Really and truly, America is a very unique nation in one regard: Unlike France or China or any other nation you can name, we are peculiarly a product of our political institutions — our political institutions," Biden said.
"Tomorrow, if a monarchy returned to France, substantively the make of that country wouldn’t change. Tomorrow, if a capitalist system moved into China, substantively the make of that country wouldn’t change because their ties are cultural ties that keep their nation together. Ours is a uniquely political tie," he said.
"From the time the pilgrims got off the Mayflower to today, that which has bound us together has not been our cultural heritage. Look on this stage, you have a black man and a white man involved in the system. Our cultural backgrounds are totally different in terms of our ancestors. What ties us together, and he may not want to be tied with me today, what ties us together are the political institutions that have made this country great."
Biden added: "We spend a lot of time talking about the United States being a melting pot. Well, that's true, but quite frankly, I think that's overrated. We've been able to move forward because of politics and, in my opinion, politics needs not necessarily be a dirty word."
The remarks shed light on the tensions between northern, more liberal Democrats like Biden and Southern segregationists who opposed civil rights initiatives by politicians like President Lyndon Johnson and Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York.
Early in his White House run, Biden received fierce criticism for recalling wistfully his relationships with Eastland and Talmadge.
"Well guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done," Biden said. "We got it finished. But today, you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don't talk to each other anymore.”
During the same event, he contradicted his 1973 account of what Eastland had called him, saying: "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me boy, he always called me son."
