Historian David Barton says (Barton’s citations have been deleted),

Unlike FDR, Harry Truman worked boldly and openly to change his party. In 1946, he became the first modern President to institute a comprehensive review of race relations and, not surprisingly, faced strenuous opposition from within his own party.…

In 1963, following the Birmingham riots, Democratic President John F. Kennedy proposed a strong civil rights bill. Its language was taken from the wording of Eisenhower’s original civil rights bill (before it was gutted by Democrats) and from proposals made by Eisenhower’s civil rights commission. Kennedy’s tragic assassination halted his bill.