A party platform is a document that contains principal goals of the two major parties that comes out every four years before the presidential election and contains the party’s beliefs, values, and political positions. Party platforms are the blueprints for what guides a party’s actions. Party platform documents included here are the exact words of each party. Party platform documents began in 1840 and are at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php
The Democratic Party’s sordid history of civil rights and racial injustice begins in 1852 when the party states, “The Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing – in Congress or out of it – the agitation of slavery question (i.e., will oppose all efforts to abolish slavery). https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1852-democratic-party-platform
By 1856, the Republican Party’s first party platform stated, “As our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or the property without process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in the territories of the United States…” https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1856
This remarkable platform history that dates from 1840 to 2016 is found in these documents; they are invaluable in researching the history of each party.