When somebody says the parties switched sides in an effort to rewrite history, I think the best comeback is that the parties did not switch sides. What did change was the democrats, they definitely switched. When Republicans pushed for civil rights in the late 50's, the democrats started to see the power of the black vote. They saw that blacks were trending toward Republican, not huge, but Eisenhower was pushing for civil rights and gaining black voter support. This has always been the stance of the republican party. Heck, the democrats were the ones filibustering and fighting against civil rights, even in 1964. But LBJ saw this differently, and he took the opportunity to try to get black people more reliant on the government. The nuclear family was breaking up and more blacks were going on welfare.... and the black support for democrats went up as LBJ planned.

LBJ said:

We'll have these niggers voting democrat for 200 years

No, the parties never switched. Republicans always fought for civil rights. Republican party was created to fight slavery. Democrats created the KKK. Republicans has many of the first black congressmen. Republicans overwhelmingly passed civil rights that Democrats fought against. It was the democrats who shifted their position to be more like the Republican's position.

Republicans didn't change, Democrats did. They go with the tide...