Sex in the Senate - Todd S. Purdum - POLITICO Magazine: Russell was the most revered—and feared—senator of his day. But his staunch segregationist views and implacable opposition to civil rights legislation made him anathema to the national Democratic Party…
“Being from Georgia and being much more conservative than the Democratic Party, there was no chance that he would take any position. Had he conceded that the South lost the Civil War, and after the Brown v. Board of Education had he stated that our customs in the South are totally different, but if you’ll go with me, we’ll start in kindergarten and we’ll integrate, he would have been president. He actually could have been president and he wanted to be president. But civil rights killed him, and that’s all he knew, Rule 22 [the filibuster rule.]”