In an address before a Benedict College audience in 1997, Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis renounced the party’s racially polarizing “Southern strategy” that Richard Nixon used in the late 1960s to woo disgruntled white voters and win the presidency.

The Greenville congressman branded the strategy a moral failure and said it should be abandoned because it was designed to offend black people and stir up “rednecks.”

“The Southern strategy is a failure,” he declared in 1997.

Those words were repeated earlier this month by Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman in comments to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Mehlman told the NAACP that Republicans had been wrong to try to make use of racially divisive issues.

“Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization,” he said. “I’m here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”

Under a strategy devised by South Carolina’s Harry Dent in 1968 and 1972, Nixon won impressive presidential victories by opposing school busing and urging appointment of conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I believe the strategy is a failed approach that ... saddles our state with a divisiveness that’s not healthy,” Inglis said in 1997.

Later, he told the Greenville County Republican Convention, “This party is not just open to white folks.”

Enough, irate Republicans said. They wanted to run him out of town and cast him out of the party. It got real ugly.

What a difference eight years makes. Attitudes change.

Mehlman’s comments were warmly received by Republicans. They didn’t revolt. They acknowledged past mistakes and said they were ready to move on .

GOP officials — including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — in recent years have extended outreach efforts to African-Americans, one of the most reliably Democratic voting blocs.

Republicans have argued that blacks would benefit from a range of Bush administration policies, including those aimed at building wealth, fighting AIDS in Africa and giving faith-based groups a bigger role in providing government-funded social services.

“This has more to do with recruiting moderate whites and middle-class blacks,” said Willie Legette, a political scientist at South Carolina State University. “You are going to see more moving to the GOP.”

Clarence Davis, a prominent Columbia attorney and Republican activist, was encouraged by Mehlman’s remarks.

“The Southern strategy has been a problem for blacks. People have long memories This apology is an earnest effort to clear up any misunderstanding. The past is the past. We need to move on. This will help in the healing process.”

Ron Thomas of Columbia, a member of Mehlman’s black advisory committee, said Democrats are “afraid and upset” because younger blacks are moving toward the GOP.

Inglis said if he had to say it all over again, he would be more diplomatic.

“The substance was fine. I could have spoken more artfully,” he said last week.

But some civil rights leaders are unmoved.

Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP, said he didn’t think much of Mehlman’s apology.

“What does it mean when your actions and your words are not consistent? It means absolutely nothing,” he said. “Cliche talk is cheap.

“Neither party can hang out a banner of greatness.

“Unfortunately, blacks have always had to choose the lesser of two evils. I want to see the day when we can choose between a good party and a great party, and that day has not arrived.”