History is funny when you don't understand it. It seems you are incredibly stuck in the fact that the parties have changed and the Southern Democrats of old as well as the Southern Republicans were both pretty racist. The Northern Republicans were mostly like Rockefeller Republicans who were socially liberal.
But you seem stuck on party label when the true evil ones are conservatives. The battle for progress has always been between conservatives and liberals. Liberals have always had to drag the knuckle draggers into more progressive policies that helped everyone. If one looks at what has made America great and has made America a better place to live it has been liberals fighting for a better way of life and conservatives opposing it.