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[[File:Nixon-and-Martin-Luther-King.png|right|300px|thumb|Dr. King's meeting with Vice President Nixon  marked national recognition of King as leader of the civil rights movement.<ref>https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/29/the-switch-that-never-happened-how-the-south-really-went-gop/</ref>]]

[[File:Nixon-and-Martin-Luther-King.png|right|300px|thumb|Dr. King's meeting with Vice President Nixon  marked national recognition of King as leader of the civil rights movement.<ref>https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/29/the-switch-that-never-happened-how-the-south-really-went-gop/</ref>]]

Vice President [[Richard Nixon]] invited Dr. [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] to Washington, D.C., for a meeting on 13 June 1957. This meeting, described by [[Bayard Rustin]] as a “summit conference,” marked [[national]] recognition of King’s role in the civil rights movement (Rustin, 13 June 1957). Seeking support for a voter registration initiative in the South, King appealed to Nixon to urge Republicans in Congress to pass the 1957 Civil Rights Act and to visit [[the South]] to express support for civil rights. Optimistic about Nixon’s commitment to improving race relations in the United States, King told Nixon, “How deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the civil rights bill a reality.”  

Vice President [[Richard Nixon]] invited Dr. [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] to Washington, D.C., for a meeting on 13 June 1957. This meeting, described by [[Bayard Rustin]] as a “summit conference,” marked national recognition of King’s role in the civil rights movement (Rustin, 13 June 1957). Seeking support for a voter registration initiative in the South, King appealed to Nixon to urge Republicans in Congress to pass the 1957 Civil Rights Act and to visit [[the South]] to express support for civil rights. Optimistic about Nixon’s commitment to improving race relations in the United States, King told Nixon, “How deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the civil rights bill a reality.”  

An even longer reign of power characterized GOP machine control of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a rural and suburban area south of Philadelphia. William McClure controlled the GOP from 1875 until his death in 1907; his son John J. McClure, was in control from 1907 until his death in 1965. McLarnon (1998) has four main findings. First, political machines were not confined to big cities; the demographic and political peculiarities of suburban counties lent themselves to continued domination by political machines long after the heyday of the city machine had passed. Secondly, neither the New Deal, immigration restriction, nor the rise of organized labor destroyed all the old Republican machines. Delaware was one of several similar counties in southeastern Pennsylvania where the GOP continued to hold sway throughout the 20th century. Thirdly, not all blacks switched their electoral loyalties to the Democrat Party in 1936. The black population of Chester, Delaware County's industrial city, generally voted Republican for offices below the presidential level. Finally, the citizens of Delaware County supported and continues to support the Republican machine because the machine delivered and continues to deliver those things that the citizens want most. At the beginning of the century, the machine provided food, work, and police protection to Chester's European and black immigrants. During Prohibition, it supplied the county with liquor. Through the Depression, patronage and close alliances with local industrialists kept a significant portion of machine loyalists employed. In the 1950s and 1960s the machine kept taxes low, initiated a war on organized vice, successfully defeated all threats to home rule, and discouraged blacks from settling in historically white communities. The trash was collected, the snow plowed, the streets repaired. The buses ran on time, the playgrounds and parks were clean, and the schools acceptably average. These were the most important concerns of a majority of county's citizens. While the citizens and their concerns changed over time, two things seem to have remained constant: the McClures', and their successors' ability to read and react to the needs of the electorate; and the fact that rarely, if ever, has a desire for honest, democratic government been high on Delaware County voters' list of priorities.<ref>John Morrison McLarnon, "Ruling Suburbia: A Biography of the McClure Machine of Delaware County, Pennsylvania."  PhD dissertation U. of Delaware 1998. 616 pp.  DAI 1998 58(12): 4780-A. DA9819160</ref>

An even longer reign of power characterized GOP machine control of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a rural and suburban area south of Philadelphia. William McClure controlled the GOP from 1875 until his death in 1907; his son John J. McClure, was in control from 1907 until his death in 1965. McLarnon (1998) has four main findings. First, political machines were not confined to big cities; the demographic and political peculiarities of suburban counties lent themselves to continued domination by political machines long after the heyday of the city machine had passed. Secondly, neither the New Deal, immigration restriction, nor the rise of organized labor destroyed all the old Republican machines. Delaware was one of several similar counties in southeastern Pennsylvania where the GOP continued to hold sway throughout the 20th century. Thirdly, not all blacks switched their electoral loyalties to the Democrat Party in 1936. The black population of Chester, Delaware County's industrial city, generally voted Republican for offices below the presidential level. Finally, the citizens of Delaware County supported and continues to support the Republican machine because the machine delivered and continues to deliver those things that the citizens want most. At the beginning of the century, the machine provided food, work, and police protection to Chester's European and black immigrants. During Prohibition, it supplied the county with liquor. Through the Depression, patronage and close alliances with local industrialists kept a significant portion of machine loyalists employed. In the 1950s and 1960s the machine kept taxes low, initiated a war on organized vice, successfully defeated all threats to home rule, and discouraged blacks from settling in historically white communities. The trash was collected, the snow plowed, the streets repaired. The buses ran on time, the playgrounds and parks were clean, and the schools acceptably average. These were the most important concerns of a majority of county's citizens. While the citizens and their concerns changed over time, two things seem to have remained constant: the McClures', and their successors' ability to read and react to the needs of the electorate; and the fact that rarely, if ever, has a desire for honest, democratic government been high on Delaware County voters' list of priorities.<ref>John Morrison McLarnon, "Ruling Suburbia: A Biography of the McClure Machine of Delaware County, Pennsylvania."  PhD dissertation U. of Delaware 1998. 616 pp.  DAI 1998 58(12): 4780-A. DA9819160</ref>