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The History of Black Americans within the Republican and Democratic Parties! |
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Written by Steve Sanson
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
Let me start by saying that I am a Republican and I am of mixed race, both Black and White, this makes me a minority. While I was in the US Military from 1985 through 1998 I was a Nonpartisan and it is my belief that while you are in the US Armed Forces you should not be affiliated to any political party, because you do not know who is going to be Commander and Chief.
I became a Republican in 1998 because of my belief, I was not following some family legacy, or keeping up with the Jones's, as a matter of fact my entire family is Democrat except for my two son's and one brother in the Air Force whom are Republican.
I always tell people do not just pick a political party "do your homework" find out about each party and join the party that would best represents you and your values, "do not be a follower, be a leader." Although there are times that I would lean towards the Democratic Party on domestic issues, I am more of a Fiscal Republican.
Let me give you a history lesson on Black Americans within the two major political parties.
The Democratic Party had become the dominant political party in America in the 1820s, and in May 1854, in response to the strong PRO-slavery positions of the Democrats. Several antislavery leaders formed an antislavery party-the Republican Party. It was founded upon the principles of equality originally set forth in the governing documents of the Republic. In an 1865 publication documenting the history of black voting rights, Philadelphia attorney John Hancock confirmed that the Declaration of Independence set forth "equal rights to all.
It contains neither a word nor a clause regarding color. Nor is there any provision of the kind to be found in the Constitution of the United States." The original Republican platform in 1856 had only nine planks -- six of which were dedicated to ending slavery and securing equal rights for African-Americans. The Democratic platform of that year took an opposite position and defended slavery, even warning that "all efforts of the abolitionists [those opposed to slavery] . . . are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences and diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union." The next Democratic platform (1860) endorsed both the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision; Democrats even distributed copies of the Dred Scott ruling to justify their anti-black positions.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican President in 1861 and 16th President of the United States (along with the first ever Republican Congress), southern PRO-slavery Democrats saw the handwriting on the wall.
They left the Union and took their States with them, forming a brand new nation: the Confederate States of America, and their followers became known as Rebels. During the War, Lincoln implemented the first antislavery measures since the early Republic: in 1862, he abolished slavery in Washington, DC; in 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering slaves to be freed in southern States that had not already done so; in 1864, he signed several early civil rights bills; etc. After the war ended in 1865, the Republican Congress passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and the 14th Amendment providing full civil rights for all blacks, thus fulfilling the original promise of the Declaration of Independence.
Most southern States ignored these new Amendments. Congress therefore insisted that the southern States ratify and implement these Amendments before they could be readmitted into the United States. Until their readmission, the civil rights of the Rebels in the South - including their right to vote in elections -- were suspended.
The Constitution authorizes that certain civil rights may be suspended "in cases of rebellion" or when "the public safety may require it." In fact, because the Rebels had taken up arms against their own nation -- an act of treason according to the Constitution ("Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, they could have been executed. Instead, amnesty was granted to the Rebels if they took an oath of fidelity to the United States, which most eventually did. (Regrettably, after their readmission, and after Democrats regained the State legislatures from Republicans, those States worked aggressively to circumvent the 14th Amendment in violation of the pledge they had taken.) Because the Rebels (who had almost exclusively been Democrats) were not allowed to vote in the early parts of Reconstruction, Republicans became the political majority in the South; and since nearly every African-American was a Republican and could now vote, most southern legislatures -- at least for a few years -- became Republican and included many black legislators.
In Texas, 42 blacks were elected to the State Legislature, 50 to the South Carolina Legislature, 127 to Louisiana's, 99 to Alabama's, etc., all as Republicans. These Republican legislatures moved quickly to protect voting rights for blacks, prohibit segregation, and establish public education, and open public transportation, State police, juries, and other institutions to blacks. (It is noteworthy that the blacks serving both in the federal and State legislatures during that time forgivingly voted for amnesty for the Rebels.)
During the time when most southern Democrats had not yet signed the oath of fidelity to the United States and therefore could not vote, they still found ways to intimidate and keep blacks from voting. For example, in 1865-1866, the Ku Klux Klan was formed by Democrats to overthrow Republicans and pave the way for Democrats to regain control -- as when Democrats attacked the State Republican because of such blatant attempts to nullify the guarantees of the 14th Amendment, the Republican Congress passed the 15th Amendment to give explicit voting rights to African-Americans. Significantly, not one of the 56 Democrats serving in Congress at that time voted for the 15th Amendment.
In 1866 there was a Convention in Louisiana, killing 40 blacks, 20 whites, and wounding 150 others. In addition to the use of force, southern Democrats also relied on absurd technicalities to limit blacks. In Georgia, 28 black legislators were elected as Republicans, but Democratic officials decided that even though blacks had the right to vote in Georgia, they did not have the right to hold office; the 28 black members were therefore expelled.
Because of such blatant attempts to nullify the guarantees of the 14th Amendment, the Republican Congress passed the 15th Amendment to give explicit voting rights to African-Americans.
Significantly, not one of the 56 Democrats serving in Congress at that time voted for the 15th Amendment.
During Reconstruction (1865-1877), Republicans passed four federal civil rights bills to protect the rights of African-Americans, the fourth being passed in 1875. It was nearly a century before the next civil rights bill was passed, because in 1876 Democrats regained partial control of Congress and successfully blocked further progress. As Democrats regained control of the legislatures in southern States, they began to repeal State civil rights protections and to abrogate existing federal civil rights laws. As African-American US Rep. John Roy Lynch (MS) noted, "The opposition to civil rights in the South is confined almost exclusively to States under Devious and cunning methods which were required to circumvent the explicit voting protections of the 14th and 15th Amendments, and southern Democrats implemented nearly a dozen separate devices to prevent blacks from voting, including:
1. The poll tax
The poll tax was a fee paid by a voter before he could vote. The fee was high enough that most poor were unable to pay the tax and therefore unable to vote. Although the poll tax affected both whites and blacks, it was disproportionately hard on blacks who were just emerging from slavery, many of whom had not yet established an independent means of living. A poll tax was first proposed in Texas in 1874, right after Democrats reclaimed power from the Republicans, but
it was North Carolina in 1876 that became the first State to enact a poll tax, and other southern States quickly followed.
2. Literacy tests
Literacy tests required a voter to demonstrate a certain level of learning proficiency before he could vote. In some cases, the test was 20 pages long for blacks, and those administering the tests were white Democrats who nearly always ruled that blacks were illiterate. In Alabama, the test included questions such as, "Where do presidential electors cast ballots for president?" "Name the rights a person has after he has been indicted by a grand jury." Democrats required blacks to have an above average education before they could vote yet they simultaneously opposed black education also working with the Ku Klux Klan to burn down schools attended by blacks. Clearly, they did not intend for blacks to vote.
3. "Grandfather" clauses
"Grandfather" clauses were laws passed by Democratic legislatures allowing an individual to vote if his father or grandfather had been registered to vote prior to the passage of the 15th Amendment. Since voting in the South prior to the 15th Amendment was almost completely white, this law ensured that poor and illiterate whites, but not blacks, could vote.
4. Suppressive election Procedures
Some election procedures (such as "multiple ballots") were intentionally made complex and misleading. For example, a Republican voter might be required to cast a ballot in up to eight separate locations -- or sometimes to cast a vote for each Republican on the ballot at a separate location -- before the ballot would be counted. Democratic officials, however, often failed to inform black voters of this complicated procedure and their ballots were therefore disqualified.
5. Black codes and enforced Segregation
Black Codes (later called Jim Crow laws) restricted the freedoms and economic opportunities of blacks. For example, in the four years from 1865-1869, southern Democrats passed "Black Codes" to prohibit blacks from voting, holding office, owning property, entering towns without permission, serving on juries, or racially intermarrying. National observers at that time concluded that the South was simply trying to institute a new form of slavery through these Black Codes. This tactic was obvious to African-Americans, thus causing black US Rep. Joseph H.Rainey (Republican from SC) to quip: "I can only say that we love freedom more - vastly more - than slavery; consequently we hope to keep clear of the Democrats!" Southern Democrats went well beyond Black Codes, however, and also imposed forced racial segregation. In 1875, Tennessee became the first State to do so, and by 1890 several other southern States had followed. As a
result, schools, hospitals, public transportation, restaurants, etc., became segregated. (Even though the Republican Congress had already passed laws banning segregation, the US Supreme Court struck down those anti-segregation laws in a series of decisions in the 1870s and 1880s.)
6. Bizarre gerrymandering
Once the Democrats regained State legislatures at the end of Reconstruction, it became too impossible for Republicans to be elected, thereby preventing blacks from being elected. For example, although many blacks were elected as Republicans in Texas during Reconstruction, when the last African-American left the State House in 1897, none was elected (either as a Republican or a Democrat) for the next 70 years until federal courts ordered a change in the way Texas Democrats drew voting lines. Furthermore, although Republicans had been an overwhelming majority in the State legislature during Reconstruction, after Democrats redrew election lines, for several decades there were never more than two Republicans serving in the House nor one in the Senate. This pattern was typical in other southern States as well.
7. White-only primaries
Another way Democrats could keep blacks from being elected was by enacting Democratic Party policies prohibiting blacks from voting in their primaries. When Texas later codified this policy into State law, the US Supreme Court struck down that Texas law in 1927, but not the party policies. The Democratic Parties in Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, etc., therefore continued their reliance on white-democratic control . . . only primaries. Because Democrats solidly controlled every level of government in the South (often called the "solid Democratic south"), this policy had the same effect as a State law and again ensured that no blacks would be elected. In 1935, the Supreme Court upheld this Democratic policy but then reversed it and finally struck it down in 1944.
8. Physical intimidation and Violence
In 1871, black US Rep. Robert Brown Elliott (Republican from SC) observed that: "the declared purpose [of the Democratic party is] to defeat the ballot with the bullet and other coercive means. . . . The white Republican of the South is also hunted down and murdered or scourged for his opinion's sake, and during the past two years more than six hundred loyal [Republican] men of both races have perished in my State alone." Elliott's term "coercive means" accurately described the lynching as well as the cross burning, church burning, incarceration on trumped-up charges, beatings, rape, murder, etc. The Ku Klux Klan was a leader in this form of violent intimidation by Democrats. As African-American US Rep. James T. Rapier (Republican from AL) explained in 1874, Democrats "were hunting me down as the partridge on the mount, night and day, with their Ku Klux Klan, simply because I was a Republican and refused to bow at the foot of their Baal." Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynching were by far the most effective. Between 1882 and 1964, 4,743 persons were lynched - 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites. Why were so many more blacks lynched than whites? According to African-American Rep. John R. Lynch (Republican from SC), "More colored than white men are thus persecuted simply because they constitute in larger numbers the opposition to the Democratic Party." Republicans often led the effort to pass federal anti-lynching laws, but Democrats successfully blocked every anti-lynching bill. For example, in 1921, Republican Rep. Leonidas Dyer (MO) introduced a federal anti-lynching bill in Congress, but Democrats in the Senate killed it. The NAACP reported on December 17, 1921, that: "since the introduction of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in Congress on April 11, 1921, there have been 28 persons murdered by lynching in the United States." Although some Democrats introduced anti-lynching bills across the decades, their Democratic leaders killed every effort and Congress never did pass an anti-lynching bill.
9. Restrictive eligibility Requirements
Election policies designed to limit black voting included requirements that a voter must reside in a state for two years, his county for one year, and his ward or precinct for six months before he could vote. This requirement especially limited the effect of workers seeking employment -- often blacks. After the poll tax was abolished, some States, still trying to achieve the same effect, enacted annual registration fees for voters. The lower courts struck down such fees in 1971; and in 1972 the US Supreme Court struck down the excessive filing fees established by Democratic legislatures; these fees were designed to prevent what the Supreme Court had termed the "less affluent segment of the community" from participating as candidates.
10. Rewriting of State Constitutions
As a part of Reconstruction, most southern States had been required to rewrite their State constitutions to add full civil rights protections. However, less than two decades later, many States revised their constitutions to remove those clauses. For example, in 1868 North Carolina had rewritten its constitution to include civil rights, but in 1876 it amended its constitution to exclude most blacks from voting. Over the next two decades, Democrats in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia also altered their constitutions or passed laws to negate many of the rights given to blacks during
Reconstruction.
11. Other requirements
Other restrictions used by Democrats to keep blacks from voting included property ownership requirements. For example, in Alabama in 1901, a voter was required to own land or property worth at least $300 before he could vote (today that would equate to more than $6,500). Some States would withhold voting rights for the "commission" of a crime -- not for a serious
crime or a felony but rather for violating any of a long list of petty offenses (unemployed blacks or those looking for work were often charged with vagrancy, resulting in a loss of their voting rights).
It is clear that many southern Democrats despised blacks and Republicans and used every possible means to keep them from power. This hostility was evident in the numerous devices they used -- including violence. In fact, after examining the abundant evidence, Republican US Sen. Roscoe Conkling (nominated as a US Supreme Court Justice in 1882) concluded that the Democratic Party was determined to exterminate blacks in those States, concluding that the Democratic Party was determined to exterminate blacks in those States where Democratic
supremacy was threatened. The Democrats' hostility was evident not only in their actions but also in the words they used to describe blacks and Republicans.
Democrats applied epithets that were at that time considered base, vulgar, and derogatory-terms such as "scalawags" (those in the South who had opposed succession) or "radicals" (early Republicans were considered radical because their party was biracial and because they allowed blacks to vote and participate in the political process). Clearly, because Republicans embraced and welcomed blacks as equals, Democrats abhorred and bitterly opposed them. As black US Rep. Richard H. Cain (Republican from SC) explained in 1875: "The bad blood of the South comes because the Negroes are Republicans. If they would only cease to be Republicans and vote the straight-out Democratic ticket there would be no trouble. Then the bad blood would sink entirely out of sight." Many Democrats today -- including many black Democrats-have picked up the Democrats' long-standing hatred for Republicans without understanding its origins. They were null and void; that oaths required by such laws were null and void." Democrats such as Rep. W. Bourke Cockran (NY), Sen. John Tyler Morgan (AL), Sen. Samuel McEnery (LA), and others agreed with this position and were among the Democrats seeking a repeal of the 15th Amendment (voting rights for African-Americans). In fact, Sen. McEnery even declared: "I believe . . . that not a single southern Senator would object to such a move" (of the 22 southern Senators, 20 were Democratic).
Decades after the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, many Democrats still steadfastly opposed those protections. In 1900, Democrat US Sen. BenTillman (SC) declared: "We made up our minds that the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were themselves null and void; that the [civil rights] acts of Congress . . . were null and void; that oaths required by such laws were null and void." Democrats such as Rep. W. Bourke Cockran (NY), Sen. John Tyler Morgan (AL), Sen. Samuel McEnery (LA), and others agreed with this position and were among the Democrats seeking a repeal of the 15th Amendment (voting rights for African-Americans). In fact, Sen. McEnery even declared: "I believe . . . that not a single southern Senator would object to such a move" (of the 22 southern Senators, 20 were Democrats).
Unrelenting efforts by Democrats to suppress black voting was successful. Eventually, in Selma, Alabama, the voting rolls were 99 percent white and 1 percent black even though there were more black residents than whites in that city; and in Birmingham - a city with 18,000 blacks -- only 30 of them were eligible to vote. Black voters in Alabama and Florida were reduced by nearly 90 percent and in Texas fell from 100,000 to only 5,000. By the 1940s, only 5 percent of blacks in the South were registered to vote.
In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, a few Democratic leaders began to oppose their own party's policies against blacks. Democratic President Harry S. Truman from Missouri was perhaps the first and most vocal national Democratic leader to advocate strong civil rights protections, yet his party rejected his efforts. Reformers such as Truman learned that it was a difficult task for rank-and file Democrats to reshape their long-held views on race.
In fact, in 1924 when Texas Democratic candidate for Governor, Ma Ferguson, ran against the Democratic Ku Klux Klan candidate in the primary, it cost her the widespread support of the Texas Democratic Party. Democrat Franklin Roosevelt understood his Party, however, and in his 1932 race he made subtle overtures to blacks but avoided making any overt civil rights promises. FDR was so unsuccessful in this approach that his Republican opponent, Herbert
Hoover, received over 75 percent of the black vote in that election.
Unlike FDR, Harry Truman worked boldly and openly to change his party. In 1946, he became the first modern President to institute a comprehensive review of race relations and, not surprisingly, faced strenuous opposition from within his own party. In fact, Democratic Sen. Theodore Bilbo (MS) admonished every "red blooded Anglo Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means" to keep blacks from voting. Nonetheless, Truman pushed forward and introduced an aggressive civil rights legislative package that included an anti-lynching law, an anti-poll tax law, desegregation of the military, etc., but his own party killed all of his proposals.
Southern Democratic Governors, denouncing Truman's proposals, met in Florida and proposed what they called a "southern conference of true Democrats" to plan their strategy. That summer at the Democratic National Convention when Truman placed strong civil rights language in the national Democratic platform, a walkout of southern delegates resulted. Southern Democrats then formed the Dixiecrat Party and ran South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond as their candidate
for President. (It was concerning this 1948 Presidential bid by Thurmond that Republican Sen. Trent Lott [MS) uttered his disgraceful comments that made national news.) Thurmond's bid was unsuccessful; he later had a change of heart on civil rights and in 1964 left the Democratic Party. In 1971, as a Republican US Senator, Thurmond became the first southern Senator to hire a black man in his senatorial office.
In 1954, additional civil rights progress was made when the US Supreme Court rendered its Brown v. Board of Education decision, integrating public schools and ending segregation. (Significantly, the Court was only reversing its own position taken nearly sixty years earlier in the Plessy v.Ferguson decision that upheld segregation laws enacted by Democratic State legislatures.)
In 1957, and then again in 1960, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower made bold civil rights proposals to _ increase black voting rights and protections. Since Congress was solidly in the hands of the Democrats, they cut the heart out of his bills before passing weak, watered-down versions of his proposals. Nevertheless, to focus national attention upon the plight of blacks, Eisenhower started a civil rights commission and was the first President to appoint a black to an executive position in the White House.
In 1963, following the Birmingham riots, Democratic President John F. Kennedy proposed a strong civil rights bill. Its language was taken from the wording of Eisenhower's original civil rights bill (before it was gutted by Democrats) and from proposals made by Eisenhower's civil rights commission. Kennedy's tragic assassination halted his bill.
In 1964, the 24th Amendment was added to the Constitution, abolishing the poll tax. Significantly, on five previous occasions the House passed a ban on the poll tax but Senate Democrats had killed the bill each time. As early as 1949 (as part of Truman's proposed civil rights package), Democratic Sen. Spessard Holland (FL) introduced a constitutional amendment to end poll taxes, but it was 1962 before it was approved by the Senate.
Significantly, 91 percent of the Republicans in Congress voted to end the poll tax but only 71 percent of the Democrats did so; and in the Senate, of the 16 Senators who opposed the 24th Amendment, 15 were Democrats. (The 24th Amendment banned poll taxes only for federal elections; in 1966, the US Supreme Court struck down poll taxes for all elections, including
local and State.)
In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson picked up the civil rights bill introduced by President Kennedy. However, even though Democrats held almost two-thirds of the seats in Congress at that time, Johnson could not garner sufficient votes from within his own party to pass the bill. (Johnson needed 269 votes from his Party to achieve passage but could garner the support of only 198 of the 315 Democrats in Congress.) Johnson therefore worked with Republicans to achieve the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, followed by the 1965 Voting Supreme Court struck down poll taxes for all elections, including local and State.)
Much national media coverage has focused on allegations of election fraud in Dade County and West Palm Beach, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; Michigan (the buying of votes); New Mexico (the destruction of thousands of uncounted ballots); etc. Significantly, each one of these incidents occurred in areas that were overwhelmingly Democratic and where the elections had been administered by Democratic election officials.
The fact that such problems occur in areas under Democratic rather than Republican control might surprise many today, but it would not have surprised African-Americans a century ago.
In 1875, African-American US Rep. Joseph H. Rainey (Republican from SC) declared: "We intend to continue to vote so long as the government gives us the right and necessary protection; and I know that right accorded to us now will never be withheld in the future if left to the Republican Party." In fact, on the floor of Congress, Rainey told Democrats: "Your votes, your actions, and the constant cultivation of your cherished prejudices prove to the Negroes of the entire country that the Democrats are in opposition to them, and if they [the Democrats) could have [their way], our race would have no foothold here. . . .
The Democratic Party may woo us, they may court us and try to get us to worship at their shrine, but I will tell the gentleman that we are Republicans by instinct, and we will be Republicans so long as God will allow our proper senses to hold sway over us."
The original philosophies and actions of both major parties are vividly documented in history but are largely unreported today. And while there has been good and bad on both sides, a general pattern is clearly established: African-Americans made their most significant gains as Republicans. Even today many of those patterns still remain. It is significant that black Republican US Rep. JC Watts (OK) chaired the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. Watts was the third African-American to chair a National Republican Convention (the first was US Rep. John Roy Lynch [MS) in 1884 and then US Sen. Edward Brooke (MA) in 1968); however, no African-American has ever chaired, or even CO-chaired, a Democratic National Convention. Similarly, in the 130 years that Democrats controlled Texas, only 4 minority individuals served Statewide; in the 8 years that Republicans have controlled the State, 6 minority individuals already have served Statewide. In fact, Texas just elected three African-Americans to statewide office -- all as Republicans, apparently becoming the first State in America's history to achieve this distinction. Furthermore, Maryland and Ohio each just elected black Lt. Governors - both as Republicans.
An important point is illustrated by these recent elections (and by scores before them): in Democratic-controlled States, rarely are African-Americans elected statewide (with the exception of US Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun [ILL, 1992-1998)); and African-American Democratic Representatives to Congress usually are elected only from minority districts (districts with a majority of minority voters).
Minority Republicans, on the other hand, are elected statewide in Republican States or in Congressional districts with large white majorities. Perhaps this explains why African-American Abolitionist Frederick Douglass a century ago reminded blacks: "The Republican Party is the ship, all else is the sea." The history of African-American voting rights in America proves Douglass was right.
In the 1965 Voting Rights Act. (The 1965 Voting Rights Act by Johnson was a resurrection of Eisenhower's original language before it had been killed by Democrats. When it was finally approved under Johnson, of the 18 Senators who opposed the Voting Rights Act, 17 were Democrats. In fact, 97% of Republican Senators voted for the Act.)
The 1965 Voting Rights Act banned literacy tests and authorized the federal government to oversee voter registration and elections in counties that had used voter eligibility tests. Within a year, 450,000 new southern blacks successfully registered to vote; and voter registration of African-Americans in Mississippi rose from only 5 percent in 1960 to 60 percent by 1968.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act opened opportunities for African-Americans that they had not enjoyed since Republicans had been in power a century before; the laws and policies long enforced by southern Democratic legislatures had finally come to an end. As a result, the number of blacks serving in federal and State legislatures rose from 2 in 1965 to 160 in 1990.
Abolishing slavery. Free speech. Women's suffrage. In today's stereotypes, none of these sound like a typical Republican issue, yet they are stances the Republican Party, in opposition to the Democratic Party, adopted early on.
The Republican Party has always thrived on challenges and difficult positions. Its present role as leader of the revolution in which the principles of government are being reevaluated is a role it has traditionally embraced.
Today most Black Americans would tell you that the Republican Party has abolished them, not talking about their issues and concerns and that the Democratic Party has been in their corner with support.
I am a member of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and I took a bold stand at one of their meetings. I said in order to advance Black Americans need to be equal members in both Democratic and Republican Party, that the scale is not balanced. Well, most of them did not see it my way and the minority that did in my opinion may be intimidated by the majority so they kept their mouths shut. In private there was some Republican Black Americans whom stated I was correct in my statement.
Hardly any Black Americans I talk to know the history of the Democratic Party. They do not know that it took a Republican President to end slavery, in the 1800s and early 1900s most Black Americans were Republican and were elected officials, that the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was formed by the Democratic Party, that The NAACP was formed in response to the 1908 race riot in Springfield, capital of Illinois and birthplace of Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Republican Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, only 7 of whom were African American and that Martin Luther King, Sr. were Republican.
Now, I am not saying the Democratic Party today is racist against Black Americans, yet history shows that this is how the Democratic Party started. (Facts on Black Voting Rights taken from The Wall Builder Report)
E-mail: SteveWSanson@cs.com phone 702 283 8088
Website: www.VeteransInPolitics.com
Listen to Steve Sanson weekly every Saturday 10AM Pacific time on "Face the Tribune" at www.AllTalkRadio.net
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 14 February 2007 )
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