Yes. Following the American Civil War, the Democratic party was the primary haven for America's most machiavellian racists, (some of which set also included active criminals and terrorists), who labored tirelessly to subvert, frustrate, and stymie many of the postwar reforms, in a too often successful effort to continue a de facto slavery by other means and under other names.
Around the mid-20th century the Democrats grew to be somewhat less racist, leaving the more racist southern "Dixiecrats" without a party, which was when the Republican party resorted to what's been called the Southern Strategy to assimilate the Dixiecrats. Having done so, the Republican party has never been quite the same...