Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) died July 11, 2026, at age 71, after what his office described as a brief and sudden illness. The three-decade Republican fixture in Washington is being remembered by allies as a fighter and a patriot. But behind the tributes lies a three-decade record on race that civil rights organizations, Black voters, and his own public statements paint as far more complicated than the send-off suggests.
Judicial confirmations civil rights groups fought
As a senior member and later chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham voted for and advanced a long line of conservative judicial nominees that organizations including the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund actively opposed, citing records they considered hostile to civil rights. Those confirmations will continue shaping how discrimination, voting rights, and policing cases are decided in federal courtrooms for years to come.
Earlier in his congressional career, the ACLU rated Graham at 0% on the civil rights votes it tracked.
A reversal forced by tragedy in Charleston
In June 2015, a white supremacist murdered nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. In the days immediately following the massacre, Graham defended South Carolina’s decision to fly the Confederate flag at its statehouse, telling CNN it was “part of who we are” and adding, “I fly this flag at my house; I haven’t killed anybody.”
Graham reversed course after attending Sunday service at a predominantly Black church in the massacre’s aftermath. “The Sunday service closed the deal for me,” he told NBC News. “I don’t know how I would ever go back into that church and be able to justify denying their request to remove the flag.” South Carolina’s legislature voted to remove the flag from statehouse grounds the following month, a decision Graham publicly applauded.
Graham stopped short of a full reckoning, however. Asked whether Confederate figures such as Robert E. Lee should be removed from schools and roads, he declined, calling Lee “one of the great figures in American history.”
Days after the shooting, addressing the Senate floor, Graham described the killer’s actions as inexplicable “Mideast hate,” a remark that drew criticism for downplaying the specifically anti-Black nature of the attack.
“Go anywhere” — on the condition of being conservative
In 2020, during a Senate debate held at the height of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence and racial profiling, Graham said Black South Carolinians — 90% of whom, he noted, voted Democrat — could “go anywhere” in the state, provided they were “conservative.”
Graham has also repeatedly said systemic racism does not exist in the United States, pointing to the elections of former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris as evidence the country had moved past it.
Defense of Obama against his own party
Graham’s record includes at least one notable break from the right flank of his party: he publicly defended President Obama against “birther” conspiracy theories, calling the hostility “unhealthy.” “There’s a dislike of Obama in my party that’s unhealthy,” Graham told CNN in 2015. “He is my President.”
Limited support among Black voters
Throughout his Senate tenure, Graham had little relationship with South Carolina’s Black community and drew little to no support from Black voters in the state, according to voting data and reporting on his campaigns.
- Black voters overall (26% of the electorate): 93% Jamie Harrison, 6% Lindsey Graham
- Black men (13% of the electorate): 89% Jamie Harrison, 9% Lindsey Graham
- Black women (14% of the electorate): 96% Jamie Harrison, 4% Lindsey Graham
The bottom line
Lindsey Graham‘s Senate record shows a lawmaker who often shifted position only when tragedy and political pressure left few other options. The clearest example came after the Charleston massacre, when he publicly supported removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds. Outside of moments like that, Graham frequently voted and spoke in ways that put him at odds with the priorities of civil rights organizations and many Black constituents throughout his career.
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