Republican President Abraham Lincoln lead the country into Civil War with the aim of abolishing slavery. Democrats started the KKK with the intention of intimidating the black population.
Blacks identified more with the Republican Party in its early history. Eisenhower captured around 30 percent of the black vote. MLK was a Republican, but warned that Goldwater's conservatism energized and emboldened the wrong people. Conservatism in both parties opposed the civil rights efforts. Conservatism soon became the mainstay of the GOP. Rockefeller Republicans had been defeated. Southern strategy was applied to win bigots over to the GOP.
Liberals on both sides of the aisle fought for stronger crime bills, targeted at minorities and youth (1990s). The Republican Party is the main modern force in playing voter suppression tactics, you see this with their current attack on the USPS. Republicans today are ardently opposed to most or all forms of protest by modern day civil rights activists, and even claim the Confederacy as "heritage", even though they pride themselves in having fought against it. Republicans today fervently back the police and justify their systemic murder and oppression of the black population.
