President Trump has been roundly criticized for his initial comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia because he decried the hatred on “many sides” and did not specifically call out the White Supremacist by name. Many liberals charge that his response reflects his own racism and by extension, that of the entire Republican party. But that could not be farther from the truth. How can any sane individual believe that a father could be anti-Semitic when his own beloved daughter and trusted son-in-law are Jewish? And everyone who really knows President Trump, black and white alike, maintain that he is far from a racist.
Yet, as black columnist for Townhall, Larry Elder, writes:
“Two related “race” themes, fervently believed by the left, drive this hatred for Trump. First, the left believes, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that whites’ anti-black racism remains a major problem — even after America became the only predominantly white country in the world to elect a black person to lead it. Second, they believe that Trump won by catering to white racists. Neither is true. But the left’s desire to embrace these two narratives is, to them, much like climate change. It’s settled science”.
It behooves us to take a close look at history, specifically, the history of the Ku Klux Klan, which has been the most violent and hate-driven group in the history of this nation. Ironically, the KKK was commonly regarded as the military wing of the Democratic party. According to Wikipedia:
“During the Senate debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it was revealed that members of the Democratic Party formed many terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and intimidate African-Americans voters. History reveals that Democrats lynched, burned, mutilated and murdered thousands of blacks and completely destroyed entire towns and communities occupied by middle class Blacks, including Rosewood, Florida, the Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma, and Wilmington, North Carolina to name a few. The Ku Klux Klan Act was a bill introduced by a Republican Congress to stop Klan Activities.”
Because it was the Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who had signed the Emancipation Proclamation which freed American slaves and Republicans who supervised the Reconstruction period, most southern whites gravitated to the Democratic party and thus most southern KKK members were Democrats. At its height of its power, KKK spread to other parts of the country and gathered members from all political parties. Many of these individuals joined in order to protect their jobs from immigrant workers, but as they learned what the Klan was really about, they left the organization just as quickly.
Abolitionists and Republicans like Henry L. Morehouse and General Oliver Howard started many of the traditional Black colleges, and some of those same college are named after Republicans. Before and during the Civil War, it was largely Republicans who fought and died to free African-Americans from slavery, not the Democrats. Throughout the civil rights movement of the 1960s, it was largely Republicans who worked for the rights of African-Americans. When Democratic Congressman John Lewis and others marched across the Emund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in March of 1965, the police who beat them mercilessly were largely Democrats, a fact that Congressman Lewis has obligingly forgotten. Here is a summary of Democratic reaction to African-American rights in this country over the years as provided by “The Real Democratic Party” May of 2008:
- Democrats passed those discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
- Democrats supported and passed the Missouri Compromise to protect slavery.
- Democrats supported and passed the Kansas Nebraska Act to expand slavery.
- Democrats supported and backed the Dred Scott Decision.
- Democrats opposed educating blacks and murdered their teachers.
- Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws.
- Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is well known for having been a “Kleagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.
- Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage.
- Democrats passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil right laws enacted by Republicans.
- Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican, because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks.
- Democrat President, Woodrow Wilson reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first appointment to the Supreme Court was a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama.
- DemocratPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt’s choice for vice president in 1944 was Harry Truman who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching.
- Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed integration of the armed forces.
- Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd were the chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
- Democrats supported and backed Judge John Ferguson in the case of Plessy v Ferguson.
- Democrats supported the School Board of Topeka Kansas in the case of Brown v The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.
- Democrat public safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, in Birmingham, Ala., unleashed vicious dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators.
- Democrats were who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other protesters were fighting.
- Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox “brandished an ax hammer to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant.”
- Democrat Governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963, declaring there would be segregation forever.
- Democrat Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus tried to prevent desegregation of Little Rock public schools.
- Democrat Senator John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act.
- Democrat President John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.
- Democrat President John F. Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI.
- Democrat President Bill Clinton’s mentor was S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.
- Democrat President Bill Clinton interned for J. William Fulbright in 1966-67.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.
- Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- Southern Democrats opposed desegregation and integration.
Republicans, on the other hand:
Republicans enacted civil rights laws in the 1950’s and 1960’s, over the objection of Democrats.
- Republicans founded the HBCU’s (Historical Black College’s and Universities) and started the NAACP to counter the racist practices of the Democrats.
- Republicans pushed through much of the ground-breaking civil rights legislation in Congress.
- Republicans fought slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship and the right to vote.
- Republicans pushed through much of the groundbreaking civil rights legislation from the 1860s through the 1960s.
- Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops into the South to desegregate the schools.
- Republican President Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, was the one who pushed through the civil rights laws of the 1960’s.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing.
- Republicans and black American, Phillip Randolph, organized the 1963 March by Dr. King on Washington.
Carol Swain, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, wrote an article exposing the truth of the Democratic Party and Civil Rights. In the article, she repeats a comment attributed to then Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. Talking about the Civil Rights Act, pushed by Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, not the Democratic president, President Johnson said “I’ll have them n*****s voting Democrat for two hundred years” (“The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party”). And for the last few years it seems he has been correct.
There is no question that the Democratic Party has successfully and against all odds recreated itself as the party of African-Americans. The question is how they were able to do it. In large cities where Democrats control the government, black Americans seem to fare poorly and crime is rampant. Chicago is an inescapable example. The Chicago mayor’s office, the City Council, Cook County and major “independent” agencies such as the CTA and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation Districts all are run by Democrats. In 2016, there were more than 700 murders in Chicago, mostly in the black southside. By July of 2017, the number had already reached 400 for the year. Other cities with soaring gun crimes include Baltimore, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and New Orleans, all cities with decades of Democratic mayoral leadership. And the crime continues to be in the predominantly black and Latin American communities that the Democrats claim to be so concerned about.
Democrats have become equally talented at painting Republicans as racists and bigots, as if the Democrats have been the good guys and the Republicans the ones who were suppressing black rights for all these years. For example, when President Trump nominated Betsy deVos as Secretary of Education, the Democrats, spurred on by the Democratic leaning teachers’ unions, the NEA and AFT, immediately vilified her. They decried her idea of allowing parents to move their children from failing schools, perhaps in predominantly black or Hispanic areas, into better schools in the suburbs. Why? Because it would harm black or Hispanic students? No, because it might cost jobs for members of the teachers’ unions who were not doing an adequate job at those failing schools. Jacqueline Cooper, the president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, released the following statement upon deVos’ nomination: “Betsy is a very gifted and well-respected education leader with a proven track record of advancing excellence and equity for students. She has been a strong champion for parental choice, ensuring that all children, regardless of race or economic status, have access to excellent schools. We have no doubt she will make a great education secretary. BAEO congratulates Betsy on her nomination.”
Fortunately for the black children of this country, Ms. deVos was confirmed. But once again, the Democratic party tried to prevent the betterment of those very people whose votes they have so assiduously sought.
Actually, despite the fact that African-Americans have been largely voting for Democrats for the past several decades, the average African-American can not point to one piece of civil rights legislation sponsored solely by the Democratic Party that has worked to eradicate the unique problems that black Americans face, nor any other move that Democrats have made that has actually improved the lives of most African-Americans. In her article, Professor Swain goes on to say:
“Democrats falsely claim that the Republican Party is the villain, when in reality it’s the failed policies of the Democratic Party that have kept blacks down. Massive government welfare has decimated the black family. Opposition to school choice has kept them trapped in failing schools. Politically correct policing has left black neighborhoods defenseless against violent crime” (“The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party”).
Perhaps those reasons are why more and more blacks like Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Stacey Dash, Alveda King, Allen West and others have joined forces with the Republican party. Despite the propaganda of the Democrats, the Republican party is and has always been the party that believes in the equality of all Americans, and continues to work towards that aim.