President Joe Biden made a false claim on Monday when he said that he “literally” convinced former Dixiecrat Sen. Strom Thurmond (SC) to vote for the Civil Rights Act.
The president made his outlandish claim while speaking on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the civil rights legal group, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“Pause for just a moment. I thought things had changed. I was able to literally, not figuratively, talk Strom Thurmond into voting for the Civil Rights Act before he died, and I thought, ‘Well maybe there’s real progress,’ But hate never dies. It just hides, it hides under the rocks,” he said.
Strom Thurmond, who switched to the Republican Party after years as a Democrat, voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before Joe Biden had entered politics, being that he was just 21 years old at the time. Strom Thurmond also died in 2003, many decades after the passing of civil rights.
Thurmond not only voted against the…