"was eisenhower a republican? johnson?"
Yes, Eisenhower WAS a Republican. Pick up a book once in awhile. Or at least hit Wikipedia.
As in two-term Republican president of the United States.
In fact, Eisenhower also used Presidential executive orders to combat segregation and racism.
From AfricanAmerican.com:
Eisenhower therefore issued executive orders ending any segregationist practices that remained in the District of Columbia, in the military, and in the U.S. Government bureaucracy. He was the first president to appoint a black, Frederic Morrow, to an executive position on the White House staff. Eisenhower's record of achievement in the civil rights field was sufficiently impressive that he gained considerable support among black voters when he successfully ran for reelection to the presidency in 1956.
And keep warping farther back in time than the 1950s/60s and you'll find very different picture of the Democratic and Republican parties.
It was, by and large, Richard Nixon's reluctance to meet with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King that really started turning the tide against Republicans as being the progressive party on race in the United States.
Kennedy made a major coup when he had highly publicized meetings with King.
