Hidden Facts of Black History in America
Hidden Facts About The History of Black America
by M.D. Currington (http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc)
Slavery was a Protected Institution of the Democratic PartyThomas Jefferson (a Slave Owner) founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the Federalist Party. By 1840 the Democratic Party became the Party who protected the right of White Men to own Black Slaves. Every single Democratic Party platform from 1840 - 1865 declared that Slavery was an institution that they would be willing to die for, in order to keep.
The Republican Party was organized to eliminate and outlaw Slavery in the U.S. On February 28, 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, all of the anti-Slavery advocates convened together and formed a political Party called the Republican Party. The Republican Party held its first Convention on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. The Michigan Convention formalized the Party and began selecting candidates for various offices. The Party's primary effort was to use any means necessary to outlaw Slavery (that peculiar institution of the South) in the United States. The Republican Party was so aggressive that their first President, Abraham Lincoln, declared war in order to rid the young nation of this horrible barbarism.
Democrats Repossessed reparations of 40 acres and a mule from freed SlavesPresident Andrew Johnson (a Democrat) repealed the Order that gave Blacks Reparations of 40 acres of tillable land and a mule. President Johnson also ordered the repossession of all of the land that had already been given former Slaves by the Republican Administration. Republicans began discussions of Reparations to Blacks immediately after they [the Republicans] defeated the Democrats in the Civil War. On January 12, 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman and the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, met with twenty Black community leaders in Savannah, Georgia, to get their input as to how Blacks would define "freedom."
Republican leaders expressed a need for land and a separate Black "state." As a result of this meeting, on January 16, 1865, General Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which set aside 7,600 square miles in a 30-mile wide tract of land (inland from the sea) along the Atlantic coast stretching from Charleston, South Carolina South to St. John's River near Jacksonville, Florida, for the exclusive settlement by Blacks. This area of land included all of the islands along the coastline between Charleston and St. John's River. The Field Order also guaranteed Blacks U.S. military protection, as well as 40 acres of tillable land per Black family, plus other provisions such as a mule or horse and any other animal that was no longer useful to the military.
General Rufus Saxton, director of the South Carolina Freedmen's Bureau was assigned by General Sherman to implement the Order. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1965, causing concern for the Field Order Settlement of Blacks. However by June 1865, Saxton settled over 40,000 Black people on 40-acre tracts of land - a total land allocation of over 400,000 acres. By the way, some of this land was confiscated from Democrat Confederates and other land was abandoned as a result of the Civil War. Jurisdiction of that land was transferred to the Freedman's Bureau, which was headed by General Oliver Otis Howard (who also helped establish Howard University).
In September of 1865, the new President Andrew Johnson (a Democrat) reversed the Field Order, issued special pardons and returned that land to the Democrat Confederates. This was very ironic because during the Secession crisis, Johnson remained in the U. S. Senate even when Tennessee seceded from the Union, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of Southerner Democrats. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for Reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that the Republican Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated and Vice President Andrew Johnson became President Andrew Johnson.
Subsequent to President Johnson's reneging on the Reparations of 40 acres and a mule to Blacks, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania Republican, proposed the 40 acres plus $100 to build a house. The military would loan a mule to work the land. The legislation was defeated in Congress on February 5, 1866 by a vote of 126 to 36.
The Ku Klux Klan began as a fraternity organized by Democrats to terrorize Blacks and RepublicansThe Ku Klux Klan was organized June 1866 organization in Pulaski, Tennessee by a small group of Democrats who were Confederate army officers. They gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word Kuklos (meaning the "circle"). Soon the Ku Klux Klan emerged as the principal organization for underground resistance to Radical Reconstruction and to perpetuate the culture of white supremacy in the South. In 1867, a convention of delegates from the former Confederate states (all Democrats) met and re-organized the Klan into the "Invisible Empire of the South" with former Confederate (Democrat) Gen. Nathan B. Forrest as the group's leader, called a Grand Wizard. Its activities were directed against the Reconstruction governments and their leaders, both black and white, who came into power in the southern states after the Civil War. The Klansmen regarded the Reconstruction governments as hostile and oppressive and resented the rise of former slaves to a status of civil equality with whites and often to positions of political power. Waging a battle against Reconstruction governments, the Klan quickly spread throughout the former states of the Confederacy. Attired in robes or sheets and wearing masks topped with pointed hoods, the Klansmen terrorized public officials in efforts to drive them from office and Blacks in general to prevent them from voting, holding office, and otherwise exercising their newly acquired political rights. It was customary for Klansmen to burn crosses on hillsides and near the homes of those whom they wished to frighten. When such tactics failed to produce the desired effect, their victims might be flogged, mutilated, or murdered. Their reign of terror eventually subsided because Democrats regained political control in the South and instead used other means to exclude Blacks from voting or running for office.
Jim Crow Laws, Poll Taxes, Black Codes are all political policies of the Democratic Party. The KKK was certainly not the only problem for Blacks and Republicans, Democrats generally were just very evil: "Every Democrat must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one Negro, by intimidation, purchase, keeping him away, or as each individual may determine, how he may best accomplish it. Never threaten a man individually. If he deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die. A dead Radical is very harmless- a threatened Radical or one driven off by threats from the scene of his operations is often very troublesome, sometime dangerous, always vindictive." (Original Draft of Democratic Party Campaign, by ex-Confederate Martin W. Gray.)
Black America was once faithful and very supportive as members of the Republican Party. Blacks began serving in the United States Congress in 1869. Besides them were the thousands of Blacks who were elected to state and local offices. Blacks were more numerous than whites in many state legislatures. For example, in the early 1870's there were 87 Blacks in the South Carolina legislature as opposed to 40 Whites. Blacks had almost as much representation in some other states. Here are a few firsts in Black History:
1. Pinckney Benton Stewart (P.B.S.) Pinchback (who was Lieutenant Governor) served as the 1st Black to serve as Governor of any state. He was governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873.
2. Hiram Rhoades Revels - The 1st Black to serve in the United States Senate (1870 - 1871). He was a Republican from North Carolina
3. Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett - In 1969 appointed US Minister to Haiti, becomes the first African-American to receive a diplomatic appointment.
4. Jonathan Jasper Wright - The 1st Black State Supreme Court Justice in the Nation's history. Justice Wright was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court on February 1, 1870 and served until his resignation December 1, 1877.
5. Oscar J. Dunn - Became the first Black Lt. Governor in of any state in the United States. Dunn was elected June 13, 1868. Served until his death November 22, 1871. P.B.S. Pinchback finished Dunn's term.
6. John Willis Menard of Louisiana becomes the first African-American elected to Congress, but is denied a seat.
7. Joseph H. Rainey - The 1st Black sworn in as member of U. S. House of Representatives. December 12, 1870.
Blacks support dwindles in the Republican Party. Blacks began leaving the Republican Party in large numbers (never to return) in the 1960's. However Blacks began supporting the Democratic Party in the 1920's. The Republican Party disgusted Blacks with what they interpreted as neglect by the Party. During Reconstruction (the years immediately following the civil war), the momentum of Black political power was growing tremendously. This power diminished dramatically soon after a deadlocked presidential election in 1876.
Dubbed the "Compromise of 1877", this agreement settled that political juggernaut between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, but Republicans had control of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, thus giving them control of the Electoral College. Each Party in those three states had competing electors, forcing Congress to decide the election. Hayes, the incumbent, appointed an electoral commission, which, with one more Republican than Democrat, declared him the winner. Hayes had 185 electoral votes and Tilden had 184 electoral votes. Democrats in the Senate threatened to prevent the commission from reporting with a filibuster. Some Democrat and the Republican Congressional leaders, however, met in a secret at a Black-Owned Hotel called the Wormley House Hotel. Republicans proposed that if the Democrats conceded defeat for the White House, the Republicans would agree to pull U.S. troops out of the South.
This forced Blacks to act more autonomously for their safety, governance, and their new way of life. This has and always been one of the principles of the Republican Party. Unfortunately Blacks became comfortable with federal military presence in the South and never planned for an eventual withdrawal of federal troops. When Blacks heard the compromise, they were horrified. But why? Blacks virtually controlled states - including the law enforcement. Strategic planning by state leaders to replace federal troop protection with adequate state law enforcement would have maintained Black political power, law & order, and controlled the treachery by Democrats and their KKK. Black officials simply became as afraid of Democrats as if they were still Slaves and allowed Democrats to successfully strong-arm the South from Black Republicans back into Democrat hands.
Black appeals to the Republican Party went largely unanswered - to the dismay of Blacks. Again, Blacks held positions that controlled law enforcement in their states. Republicans didn't want to re-commit federal troops to the South possibly causing another Civil War. Republicans were actually angered that their blood that was already shed in order for Blacks to achieve so much, it seemed to be in vain in light of the apparent fear and weakness among the Black power base. Rather than for Blacks to blame themselves for their weakness and fears, they charged the Republican Party with dirty politics. Sound Familiar? Black support in the Republican Party slid down with few interruptions - permanently! Blacks remained in political limbo until Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered welfare programs to Blacks in the 1930's in order to gain their support in the Democratic Party. Sadly, Blacks never gave Republicans any appreciation for their constant proposals of federal anti-lynching legislation from the 1890's thru the 1940’s that were routinely defeated by Democrats who were supported by those lynchers. Black support for the Republican Party permanently shifted to the Democratic Party in 1960 when the Democratic Party responded to a request from Martin Luther King, Sr.
In 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. refrained from endorsing anyone for President. In the fall of that year, King, Jr. was arrested at a lunch counter sit-in in Georgia. He was jailed in the Reidsville Prison in Alabama. This occurred during the 1960 presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Both Robert Kennedy and his brother, the Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, used their influence to get the judge to allow King, Jr. to post a bond and be released on bail. The Kennedy’s even called Coretta King to console her. King, Jr. still felt it better for the cause to stay neutral. His father, Martin Luther King, Sr., originally endorsed Nixon, but switched to endorse Kennedy after his son was released from jail - just two weeks before the election. It is believed that the efforts of the Kennedy brothers to help King and his family helped Kennedy win the presidency by swinging Black votes towards the Democratic candidate. The Black vote has never looked back since then.
Democrats tried to defeat Civil Rights efforts in America. When Asked, most Blacks will say that the Civil Rights Movement began with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent protests and Democratic President Lyndon Banes Johnson's signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law. The reality is that Civil Rights began long before any of them were even born. Furthermore No Civil Rights legislation would pass either without significant Republican support or with significant Democratic support. Here is a Civil Rights Timeline:
1. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
2. The Civil Rights Act of 1866
3. The Civil Rights Act of 1871
4. The Civil Rights Act of 1875
5. The Civil Rights Act of 1957
6. The Civil Rights Act of 1960
7. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
8. The Voting Rights Act of 1965
All civil rights acts since then are merely updates and aesthetic changes. The Acts listed above comprise the foundation and substance of all civil rights in the United States. The Democratic Party, despite having significant support of Blacks since the 1930's, has never supported any foundational Civil Rights legislation!!
The Democrats have never apologized enslaving Black Americans. Many Blacks and Democrats in this country are calling for a formal apology and Reparations for Black Slavery in the United States. However, not one of the Democratic Party's convention Platforms has ever called for an end to Slavery, an apology for Slavery, or Reparations for Slavery. The Democratic Party's official Websites, never discuss their historic position on Slavery. Their website, http://www.dems2000.com/, states, "...the Democratic Southern base was disenfranchised by the Civil War and Reconstruction". The statement seems to imply that Democrats in the South were innocent victims of Republican wrath rather than for their barbaric institution of enslaving Blacks and willing to secede for the Union, fight and die in order to protect the institution of Slavery. The site Democratic Nation Committee (website, http://www.dnc.org/) website also calls the Pro-Slavery presidential candidate, Samuel Tilden (who ran unsuccessfully for President), a predecessor of the Progressive reformers of the 1900's. Is it true that those who call themselves Progressive are pro-Slavery white supremacists in the tradition of Samuel Tilden?
Amazingly most Blacks are very critical of the abolitionist Republican Party while remaining very loyal to the Pro-slavery Democratic Party. Some Blacks are aware of this apparent hypocrisy of the Democratic Party's history regarding Slavery, but have somehow chosen to "protect" this primary institution of Slavemasters. They should be ashamed of themselves. All of those who learn these facts should re-examine who is labeled an Uncle Tom.
Black Americans have a legacy buried in the history of a Party they were later taught to call "right winged" and evil. Before any Black American parrots that pejorative again, that person must remember that one of the best ways Slavemasters controlled Black Slaves is by perversely limiting the Slaves' education. Furthermore the Slavemaster always taught that the Slavemasters enemies were also the Slaves' enemies (such as teaching that abolitionists were evil). Slaves were also taught that if a fellow Slave sympathized with the "Slavemaster-identified" enemies (such as those who hated Slavery or taught reading and writing), the other Slaves were to no longer associate with that Slave, severely criticize that Slave, and very quickly tell the Slavemaster of that fellow slaves transgressions. Soon afterward he would be whipped into submission and/or death. Notice any parallels?
M.D. Currington is a political commentator and former lifelong Democratic activist in California. You can contact Mr. Currington at mdcurrington@yahoo.com.
by M.D. Currington (http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc)
Slavery was a Protected Institution of the Democratic PartyThomas Jefferson (a Slave Owner) founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the Federalist Party. By 1840 the Democratic Party became the Party who protected the right of White Men to own Black Slaves. Every single Democratic Party platform from 1840 - 1865 declared that Slavery was an institution that they would be willing to die for, in order to keep.
The Republican Party was organized to eliminate and outlaw Slavery in the U.S. On February 28, 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, all of the anti-Slavery advocates convened together and formed a political Party called the Republican Party. The Republican Party held its first Convention on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. The Michigan Convention formalized the Party and began selecting candidates for various offices. The Party's primary effort was to use any means necessary to outlaw Slavery (that peculiar institution of the South) in the United States. The Republican Party was so aggressive that their first President, Abraham Lincoln, declared war in order to rid the young nation of this horrible barbarism.
Democrats Repossessed reparations of 40 acres and a mule from freed SlavesPresident Andrew Johnson (a Democrat) repealed the Order that gave Blacks Reparations of 40 acres of tillable land and a mule. President Johnson also ordered the repossession of all of the land that had already been given former Slaves by the Republican Administration. Republicans began discussions of Reparations to Blacks immediately after they [the Republicans] defeated the Democrats in the Civil War. On January 12, 1865, shortly before the end of the Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman and the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, met with twenty Black community leaders in Savannah, Georgia, to get their input as to how Blacks would define "freedom."
Republican leaders expressed a need for land and a separate Black "state." As a result of this meeting, on January 16, 1865, General Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which set aside 7,600 square miles in a 30-mile wide tract of land (inland from the sea) along the Atlantic coast stretching from Charleston, South Carolina South to St. John's River near Jacksonville, Florida, for the exclusive settlement by Blacks. This area of land included all of the islands along the coastline between Charleston and St. John's River. The Field Order also guaranteed Blacks U.S. military protection, as well as 40 acres of tillable land per Black family, plus other provisions such as a mule or horse and any other animal that was no longer useful to the military.
General Rufus Saxton, director of the South Carolina Freedmen's Bureau was assigned by General Sherman to implement the Order. President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1965, causing concern for the Field Order Settlement of Blacks. However by June 1865, Saxton settled over 40,000 Black people on 40-acre tracts of land - a total land allocation of over 400,000 acres. By the way, some of this land was confiscated from Democrat Confederates and other land was abandoned as a result of the Civil War. Jurisdiction of that land was transferred to the Freedman's Bureau, which was headed by General Oliver Otis Howard (who also helped establish Howard University).
In September of 1865, the new President Andrew Johnson (a Democrat) reversed the Field Order, issued special pardons and returned that land to the Democrat Confederates. This was very ironic because during the Secession crisis, Johnson remained in the U. S. Senate even when Tennessee seceded from the Union, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of Southerner Democrats. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for Reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that the Republican Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President. On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated and Vice President Andrew Johnson became President Andrew Johnson.
Subsequent to President Johnson's reneging on the Reparations of 40 acres and a mule to Blacks, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, a Pennsylvania Republican, proposed the 40 acres plus $100 to build a house. The military would loan a mule to work the land. The legislation was defeated in Congress on February 5, 1866 by a vote of 126 to 36.
The Ku Klux Klan began as a fraternity organized by Democrats to terrorize Blacks and RepublicansThe Ku Klux Klan was organized June 1866 organization in Pulaski, Tennessee by a small group of Democrats who were Confederate army officers. They gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word Kuklos (meaning the "circle"). Soon the Ku Klux Klan emerged as the principal organization for underground resistance to Radical Reconstruction and to perpetuate the culture of white supremacy in the South. In 1867, a convention of delegates from the former Confederate states (all Democrats) met and re-organized the Klan into the "Invisible Empire of the South" with former Confederate (Democrat) Gen. Nathan B. Forrest as the group's leader, called a Grand Wizard. Its activities were directed against the Reconstruction governments and their leaders, both black and white, who came into power in the southern states after the Civil War. The Klansmen regarded the Reconstruction governments as hostile and oppressive and resented the rise of former slaves to a status of civil equality with whites and often to positions of political power. Waging a battle against Reconstruction governments, the Klan quickly spread throughout the former states of the Confederacy. Attired in robes or sheets and wearing masks topped with pointed hoods, the Klansmen terrorized public officials in efforts to drive them from office and Blacks in general to prevent them from voting, holding office, and otherwise exercising their newly acquired political rights. It was customary for Klansmen to burn crosses on hillsides and near the homes of those whom they wished to frighten. When such tactics failed to produce the desired effect, their victims might be flogged, mutilated, or murdered. Their reign of terror eventually subsided because Democrats regained political control in the South and instead used other means to exclude Blacks from voting or running for office.
Jim Crow Laws, Poll Taxes, Black Codes are all political policies of the Democratic Party. The KKK was certainly not the only problem for Blacks and Republicans, Democrats generally were just very evil: "Every Democrat must feel honor bound to control the vote of at least one Negro, by intimidation, purchase, keeping him away, or as each individual may determine, how he may best accomplish it. Never threaten a man individually. If he deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die. A dead Radical is very harmless- a threatened Radical or one driven off by threats from the scene of his operations is often very troublesome, sometime dangerous, always vindictive." (Original Draft of Democratic Party Campaign, by ex-Confederate Martin W. Gray.)
Black America was once faithful and very supportive as members of the Republican Party. Blacks began serving in the United States Congress in 1869. Besides them were the thousands of Blacks who were elected to state and local offices. Blacks were more numerous than whites in many state legislatures. For example, in the early 1870's there were 87 Blacks in the South Carolina legislature as opposed to 40 Whites. Blacks had almost as much representation in some other states. Here are a few firsts in Black History:
1. Pinckney Benton Stewart (P.B.S.) Pinchback (who was Lieutenant Governor) served as the 1st Black to serve as Governor of any state. He was governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873.
2. Hiram Rhoades Revels - The 1st Black to serve in the United States Senate (1870 - 1871). He was a Republican from North Carolina
3. Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett - In 1969 appointed US Minister to Haiti, becomes the first African-American to receive a diplomatic appointment.
4. Jonathan Jasper Wright - The 1st Black State Supreme Court Justice in the Nation's history. Justice Wright was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court on February 1, 1870 and served until his resignation December 1, 1877.
5. Oscar J. Dunn - Became the first Black Lt. Governor in of any state in the United States. Dunn was elected June 13, 1868. Served until his death November 22, 1871. P.B.S. Pinchback finished Dunn's term.
6. John Willis Menard of Louisiana becomes the first African-American elected to Congress, but is denied a seat.
7. Joseph H. Rainey - The 1st Black sworn in as member of U. S. House of Representatives. December 12, 1870.
Blacks support dwindles in the Republican Party. Blacks began leaving the Republican Party in large numbers (never to return) in the 1960's. However Blacks began supporting the Democratic Party in the 1920's. The Republican Party disgusted Blacks with what they interpreted as neglect by the Party. During Reconstruction (the years immediately following the civil war), the momentum of Black political power was growing tremendously. This power diminished dramatically soon after a deadlocked presidential election in 1876.
Dubbed the "Compromise of 1877", this agreement settled that political juggernaut between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote, but Republicans had control of South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, thus giving them control of the Electoral College. Each Party in those three states had competing electors, forcing Congress to decide the election. Hayes, the incumbent, appointed an electoral commission, which, with one more Republican than Democrat, declared him the winner. Hayes had 185 electoral votes and Tilden had 184 electoral votes. Democrats in the Senate threatened to prevent the commission from reporting with a filibuster. Some Democrat and the Republican Congressional leaders, however, met in a secret at a Black-Owned Hotel called the Wormley House Hotel. Republicans proposed that if the Democrats conceded defeat for the White House, the Republicans would agree to pull U.S. troops out of the South.
This forced Blacks to act more autonomously for their safety, governance, and their new way of life. This has and always been one of the principles of the Republican Party. Unfortunately Blacks became comfortable with federal military presence in the South and never planned for an eventual withdrawal of federal troops. When Blacks heard the compromise, they were horrified. But why? Blacks virtually controlled states - including the law enforcement. Strategic planning by state leaders to replace federal troop protection with adequate state law enforcement would have maintained Black political power, law & order, and controlled the treachery by Democrats and their KKK. Black officials simply became as afraid of Democrats as if they were still Slaves and allowed Democrats to successfully strong-arm the South from Black Republicans back into Democrat hands.
Black appeals to the Republican Party went largely unanswered - to the dismay of Blacks. Again, Blacks held positions that controlled law enforcement in their states. Republicans didn't want to re-commit federal troops to the South possibly causing another Civil War. Republicans were actually angered that their blood that was already shed in order for Blacks to achieve so much, it seemed to be in vain in light of the apparent fear and weakness among the Black power base. Rather than for Blacks to blame themselves for their weakness and fears, they charged the Republican Party with dirty politics. Sound Familiar? Black support in the Republican Party slid down with few interruptions - permanently! Blacks remained in political limbo until Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered welfare programs to Blacks in the 1930's in order to gain their support in the Democratic Party. Sadly, Blacks never gave Republicans any appreciation for their constant proposals of federal anti-lynching legislation from the 1890's thru the 1940’s that were routinely defeated by Democrats who were supported by those lynchers. Black support for the Republican Party permanently shifted to the Democratic Party in 1960 when the Democratic Party responded to a request from Martin Luther King, Sr.
In 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. refrained from endorsing anyone for President. In the fall of that year, King, Jr. was arrested at a lunch counter sit-in in Georgia. He was jailed in the Reidsville Prison in Alabama. This occurred during the 1960 presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Both Robert Kennedy and his brother, the Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, used their influence to get the judge to allow King, Jr. to post a bond and be released on bail. The Kennedy’s even called Coretta King to console her. King, Jr. still felt it better for the cause to stay neutral. His father, Martin Luther King, Sr., originally endorsed Nixon, but switched to endorse Kennedy after his son was released from jail - just two weeks before the election. It is believed that the efforts of the Kennedy brothers to help King and his family helped Kennedy win the presidency by swinging Black votes towards the Democratic candidate. The Black vote has never looked back since then.
Democrats tried to defeat Civil Rights efforts in America. When Asked, most Blacks will say that the Civil Rights Movement began with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent protests and Democratic President Lyndon Banes Johnson's signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law. The reality is that Civil Rights began long before any of them were even born. Furthermore No Civil Rights legislation would pass either without significant Republican support or with significant Democratic support. Here is a Civil Rights Timeline:
1. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
2. The Civil Rights Act of 1866
3. The Civil Rights Act of 1871
4. The Civil Rights Act of 1875
5. The Civil Rights Act of 1957
6. The Civil Rights Act of 1960
7. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
8. The Voting Rights Act of 1965
All civil rights acts since then are merely updates and aesthetic changes. The Acts listed above comprise the foundation and substance of all civil rights in the United States. The Democratic Party, despite having significant support of Blacks since the 1930's, has never supported any foundational Civil Rights legislation!!
The Democrats have never apologized enslaving Black Americans. Many Blacks and Democrats in this country are calling for a formal apology and Reparations for Black Slavery in the United States. However, not one of the Democratic Party's convention Platforms has ever called for an end to Slavery, an apology for Slavery, or Reparations for Slavery. The Democratic Party's official Websites, never discuss their historic position on Slavery. Their website, http://www.dems2000.com/, states, "...the Democratic Southern base was disenfranchised by the Civil War and Reconstruction". The statement seems to imply that Democrats in the South were innocent victims of Republican wrath rather than for their barbaric institution of enslaving Blacks and willing to secede for the Union, fight and die in order to protect the institution of Slavery. The site Democratic Nation Committee (website, http://www.dnc.org/) website also calls the Pro-Slavery presidential candidate, Samuel Tilden (who ran unsuccessfully for President), a predecessor of the Progressive reformers of the 1900's. Is it true that those who call themselves Progressive are pro-Slavery white supremacists in the tradition of Samuel Tilden?
Amazingly most Blacks are very critical of the abolitionist Republican Party while remaining very loyal to the Pro-slavery Democratic Party. Some Blacks are aware of this apparent hypocrisy of the Democratic Party's history regarding Slavery, but have somehow chosen to "protect" this primary institution of Slavemasters. They should be ashamed of themselves. All of those who learn these facts should re-examine who is labeled an Uncle Tom.
Black Americans have a legacy buried in the history of a Party they were later taught to call "right winged" and evil. Before any Black American parrots that pejorative again, that person must remember that one of the best ways Slavemasters controlled Black Slaves is by perversely limiting the Slaves' education. Furthermore the Slavemaster always taught that the Slavemasters enemies were also the Slaves' enemies (such as teaching that abolitionists were evil). Slaves were also taught that if a fellow Slave sympathized with the "Slavemaster-identified" enemies (such as those who hated Slavery or taught reading and writing), the other Slaves were to no longer associate with that Slave, severely criticize that Slave, and very quickly tell the Slavemaster of that fellow slaves transgressions. Soon afterward he would be whipped into submission and/or death. Notice any parallels?
M.D. Currington is a political commentator and former lifelong Democratic activist in California. You can contact Mr. Currington at mdcurrington@yahoo.com.
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