As the Civil Rights movement intensified in the early 1960s, Nelson Rockefeller envisioned a Republican Party recommitted to its Lincoln-ian heritage as a defender of Black equality. But the party's extreme right wing, encouraged by its successful outreach to segregationists before and after the nomination of Barry Goldwater, pushed the party to the right. In her new book, Nelson Rockefeller's Dilemma, Marsha Barrett details how the standard-bearer of moderate Republicanism lost the battle for the soul of the Party of Lincoln, leading to mainlining of white-grievance populism for the post-civil rights era.
Marsha E. Barrett is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Policy History, New York History, and Politico.
