I think the Republican party has gotten much more conservative over time, in response to the Tea Party demands, and other factors. Identifying as, or with, the Republicans in the 1960s might not have meant espousing the discriminatory policies that the party trades in today. I think the Republican party has also been hijacked by the white supremacist/neo-nazi spoutings of people like Steve Bannon. Back in the 1950s, Rice's father would have been more worried about who wanted to lynch him than in a political party's tax policies. Fast-forward to the current era, and we realize that the ability to "lynch" someone (figuratively or literally kill) someone is built into our system as a whole.

In his book, "Blink" Malcolm Gladwell shows a series of experiments were black and white people were asked to answer a series of questions quickly... without being given time to think... It turned out that both black men, and white men were prone to be more nervous when a black man entered a room.

He goes into far more detail, but it's an amazing read. It explains a lot of ways racism has been so pervasive and we don't even recognize it. In fact, most of those taking the tests, even those who claimed they weren't racist had to "think" (or hijack their immediate response) before they could give a non-racist answer. It was just so ingrained.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
[amazon.com]

Be a Republican or Don't Vote-Blackmail pure and simple.

And yet, just because he registered Republican, didn't mean he had to vote that way.

But I understand how personal gratitude to a single Republican could result in overlooking all the negative factors of the party's policies. Look at the number of people who voted for Reagan, "because he's such a nice man". Never mind that he was borderline senile and dangerously incompetent, he was so nice.