Setting The Record Straight - Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms? Some allege that those who left the Democrat Party to form the Dixiecrats then became Republicans and that the Republicans of today are nothing more than the old racist Dixiecrats. However, this charge is demonstrably false. The records show, with only a very few exceptions, prominent Dixiecrats returned to and remained in the Democratic Party. Civil Rights for African-Americans were gained by the Republican Party. In this episode, you will learn why Civil Rights Bills were so hard to pass, how poll taxes were ended, and why the Democratic official website skips over their own history from 1848 to 1900.