It was Nixon who tried to make school desegregation fair and equal North and South. It was during his administration that affirmative discrimination was first implemented. Nixon always supported civil rights. It was because of Nixon that the Eisenhower administration produced the first civil rights bill since reconstruction only to see it gutted by the Democrats. He received the thanks of Martin Luther King for his efforts. Nixon was raised as a Quaker with black dinner guests at his grandmother's table. His daughters went to integrated private schools and he refused to sign a race-restrictive covenant when he sold his house.