Don’t Believe The Drama: True Facts of African American Political History
by Robert Oliver
Radio and television talk show host Larry Elder wrote, “as someone once put it, the Democratic Party has convinced Blacks that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat and George Wallace a Republican.” That someone was Bob Parks, an African American who ran for Congress in the 27th District in Los Angeles, California. Parks went on to say, “For close to four decades, the Democrats have been going around saying they are responsible for the Civil Rights Act. It is a lie that’s gone unchallenged by the mainstream media. Are we surprised?”
A friend told me an African American woman in his office thought that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Another friend told me he talked to an African American who thought the same of Lincoln. Another friend told me she thought that the slave masters in the South were Republican. Another friend told me she thought the same thing.
This article will incorporate the text from “The Hidden Facts About the History of Black America” by M.D. Currington (mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc and moteandbeam.tripod.com). Mr. Currington is a former Assistant Executive Director of the California Democratic Party. He was a lifelong Democratic activist, including the liaison between the Clinton White House and the Democratic Caucus of the California Democratic Assembly. He was also active in Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Currington thought that the Republican Party was the party of slavery. To him, there was no worse crime than to vote Republican. However, in 2000 he was challenged by a Republican to take a look at the history of the Democratic Party. He was surprised and stunned at what he discovered. His text will be italicized.
Currington:
“The overwhelming majority of Black America is registered Democrat. This of course includes Black politicians, Black business people, and Black educators. Furthermore, the Democratic Party's major supporters include the public school teachers' associations and leaders of the various liberal education movements. Consequently, most Blacks may not have ever heard some of the facts about the history of Blacks in the American political process. Tactics and strategies by Democrats have actually convinced Blacks that Republicans hate Blacks and have always wanted to destroy Black America. The truth seems to be very different. Here are some facts that Democratic Party doesn't want Black America to believe.
“Slavery was a Protected Institution of the Democratic Party
Thomas 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 1856 national Democratic platform said: “7. Resolved, That congress has no power, under the constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the constitution: that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.”
The actual fact of history is that slave masters were 100% Democrat. They hated Republicans with a passion. It was impossible for a Republican to own slaves because owning slaves went against his principles. Go to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) website (http://www.democrats.org/about/history.html). Look at these paragraphs concerning their history: “In 1848, the National Convention established the Democratic National Committee, now the longest running political organization in the world. The Convention charged the DNC with the responsibility of promoting "the Democratic cause" between the conventions and preparing for the next convention. (Part of “the Democratic cause” was protecting the institution of slavery in 1848.) Then the next paragraph immediately says: “As the 19th Century came to a close, the American electorate changed more and more rapidly. The Democratic Party embraced the immigrants who flooded into cities and industrial centers, built a political base by bringing them into the American mainstream, and helped create the most powerful economic engine in history.” We leave 1848 and timewarp to the late 19th Century? Why the 50-year gap in the DNC history? Why not talk about the Civil War and Reconstruction? Why not talk about the first Black government officials on state and federal levels? Are they afraid to reveal that they were 100% Republican Black elected officials? A Black elected official I know personally admitted he did not know until recently that there were Blacks in Congress in the 19th Century. Why not talk about the constitutional amendments that formally abolished slavery and declared that the former slaves are citizens of the United States? Why do they leave them out? What do they have to hide?
The late Ron Brown, former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said: “The common thread of Democratic history, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton, has been an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream. We remember that this great land was sculpted by immigrants and slaves, their children and grandchildren…." STOP! Wait a minute! From Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor? I hate to bring this up, but Jefferson owned those slaves Ron Brown refered to. All other slave holders were all Democrats to a man, and other Democratic Presidents before the Civil War did not oppose slavery. The Democrats kept in bondage the excluded, the disenfranched and the poor. Rest in peace Ron Brown, but were you ignorant of your own party’s history or did you lie through your teeth?
Currington:
“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.”
Look at a portion of the 1860 Republican platform: “That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; That as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that ‘no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States….That we brand the recent re-opening of the African slave- trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a shame to (a) crime against humanity and a burning (for) our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.”
Currington:
“Democrats Repossessed reparations of 40 acres and a mule from freed Slaves
President 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 1865, 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.”
Rev. Sharpton said we never got our 40 acres and a mule. The Republicans gaveth, yet a Democrat took it away.
Currington:
“The Ku Klux Klan began as a fraternity organized by Democrats to terrorize Blacks and Republicans.
The 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.)”
And was not Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, a former Democratic Senator chosen for the court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democratic segregationist and a former member of the KKK? By the way, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a member of the Ku Klux Klan years ago. He even recruited for the Klan as a “kleagle.” Has Senator Byrd been on record for officially renouncing and denouncing the KKK's terrorist history? Has the Klan ever called him a “traitor” for denouncing them? What if Senator Trent Lott was an ex-Klan member and said “white niggers” on national television? We would have shouted “Crucify! Crucify!” right? We would have ran him out of town. Was it because Byrd is a Democrat that we make excuses for him making racial slurs and being a ex- KKK member, but we never ever make excuses for Republicans, the bad guys? I recall somewhere reading about a Black Democrat who actually said when he called in on a talk show he gave a White Democrat a pass, but he would not give a White Republican a pass. Is that not dysfunctional if not hypocritical?
Republican Senator Trent Lott was nothing to shout about. (Same for the late Democrat Dixiecrat record-breaking-filibustering, Republican-switching Senator Strom Thurmond). Whatever is in the heart, the mouth speaketh. After he spoketh, all hell broketh loose. However, Senator Robert Byrd recently said on national television, “There are white niggers.” You would have thought he was a fan of a Spike Lee joint (“Niggers is a beautiful thing” – from Bamboozled). But with Byrd, former U.S. Senator and former Ambassador to New Zealand Carol Mosely Braun defended him. An older Black man I knew who hated with venom White and Black Republicans defended Byrd too.
(Hey Senator Byrd, also please explain why you led the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Goldwater's flawed reasons were libertarian in nature. What were your reasons?)
Currington:
“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 Mississippi 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 1869 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 Nations 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.”
Think about what you were taught in school. During Black History Month every February, do you remember being taught who was the first Black congressman or who was the first Black U.S. senator? I was not, and others have told me the same. Why is it that these first Black elected officials are not mentioned. Is it because they were Republicans? Just as in the old Soviet Union, is history being rewritten? Are the first Black politicians being written out?
Currington:
“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, 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 which was 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 Kennedys 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:
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1871
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1960
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Voting Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1968
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!”
Rev. Al Sharpton (who I respect for traveling to Sudan and exposing chattel slavery there) said at the recent Democratic Convention in Boston: “Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.” Rev. Sharpton, I really wish you would have mentioned too that it was because of Democrats, not because of Republicans, that we needed the protection of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act Someone posted on http://www.movie-fan-forum.com: “republicans opposed civil rights act in the 60s saying it was a case of government intruding in the lives of individuals.” That is an error. I have asked several people if a majority of Democrats or Republicans in Congress supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act. All but one said it was the Democratic majority. Therefore they believed it was a Democratic victory for civil rights. Have the Democrats claimed a victory they never earned? Here is the historical record that you can look up today on the Internet: In 1964, in the Senate, 82% of the Republicans voted for the Act while only 69% of the Democrats voted for it. Every Southern Democratic Senator voted against it. In the House of Representatives, 80% of the Republicans voted for the Act, while only 61% of the Democrats voted for it. Ninety-two of the 103 Southern Democrats in the House voted against it (www.frankenlies.com/civilrights.htm). Also the ignored or forgotten 1957 Civil Rights Act (which Strom Thurmond tried to torpedo) and the 1960 Civil Rights Act, designed to protect us from the Southern Democrats, were passed by the majority of Republicans in Congress and signed into law by a Republican President. Republicans, not Democrats, historically have been in the majority in support of civil rights legislation from the beginning of their history.
Currington:
“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 have ever called for an end to Slavery, an apology for Slavery, or Reparations for Slavery (as of 2001). 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 National 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 instution of Slavemasters. They should be ashamed of themselves. All of those who learn these facts should re-examine who is labeled an Uncle Tom.”
Let’s talk about Uncle Tom’s, the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel. Don’t we call Black people who seem to bow to the White folks and sellout to them “slap-happy, amos-'n- andyin', Black-stooge, bootlickin', handkerchief-head Negro, pleaser-and-appeaser, chicken-eatin', knee-shakin', prefabricated, jiv'n, jivin', jiving, snow-Black, butt-kissing, co-caucasian, howdy-doody, shoeshine-boy, tree-top, White-bread, crumb-snatchin', backstabbin', behind-scratchin', zip-coon, foot-shuffln', hafrican, aunt-jemima, thomasina, window-dressin', homey-kinda, cotton-pickin', Rev.-Pork-Chop, buckdancin', Judas, lawn-jockey, big-shot-coon, Kingfisher, homo-Tomus-americanus, wooly-head, Black-anglo-saxon, Black-skunk, bought-and-sold, opporTOMist, thank-ya-boss, stooge, integratin', inauthentic, un-cola, uppity, tomfool, turn-the-other-cheek, shifty-eyed, bug-eyed, waterboy, Whitewardly-mobile, zebra, Stepin-Fetchit, low-belly-creepin', rent-a-Tom, self-hatin', sell-out, speak-when-spoken-to, house-boy, high-yaller, turncoat, Uncle Remus, Sambo, jigaboo, feet-shufflin’, de-Blacked, bourgie, caste-flunky, cocktail-sippin', yassah-yassah-yassah, me-too-boss, darky Uncle Tom’s”? And we call them even worse things than that too. Unfortunately, there are many who really do fit this job description. However, many other African Americans all across the United States who refuse to bow to the "Party Line" and refuse to bow to the self-appointed "Keepers of the Blackness" and who dare to think independently are also pinned with that moniker. Because of fear of the "Thought Police S.W.A.T. Teams," many Black independent thinkers and those who start to think independently are forced to stay in the closet and keep their thoughts to themselves. Some of them even publicly feign digust of "Uncle Tom's" just to keep the heat off themselves. It is time for all of these Black independent thinkers to courageously come out of the closet and say "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" just like in the motion picture Network. Currington writes in another essay: “Black women were the first to use the term to describe Black men who left the Republican Party to join the Democratic Party. Marcus Garvey (was) the first public figure to call Black Democrats Uncle Tom’s. As a matter of fact, one of the best known figures that Garvey called an Uncle Tom was W.E.B. Dubois. Dubois was very critical of the ‘Back to Africa’ (movement) led by Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey called Dubois an ‘Uncle Tom.’ Dubois responded by calling Garvey ‘the most dangerous Black man in America.’ Garvey followed with calling Dubois ‘purely and simply a White man’s nigger…’ (Ed.- Presumably Garvey slammed Dubois in that fashion because Dubois was the only Black officer of the NAACP at the time.) The most unusual phenomenon about the term ‘Uncle Tom’ is that it is currently directed to Black Republicans and not to Black Democrats, even though the ideas of these Black Republicans have not changed since the abolition of slavery.”
I discovered some other facts that are documentated and that you can research. Did you know the “racist” Barry Goldwater was a founding member of the Arizona NAACP? Yes, and he was a member until his death in 1998! Do you actually think a person you would think may be a KKK member would be a founding member of a Black organization until his death? As an Air National Guard Colonel in the 1940’s, he desegregated the Arizona Air National Guard, 2 years BEFORE President Truman desegregated the entire Armed Forces. Go to http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc/barry_goldwater.html on the Internet and read the details. My mother, who is 83 years old, believed for the last 40 years that Barry
Goldwater was a White supremacist. (I grew up believing he was a racist.) Now my mother’s 40-year bitterness toward Goldwater evaporated. She loves Goldwater now. She understands he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act based on his libertarian philosophy as far as the federal government intruding into private affairs and not because of “racism.” Also Goldwater voted for two Civil Rights bills during the Eisenhower administration while the majority of his Southern Democratic colleagues voted against them. How can a White supremacist give years of financial support to the NAACP until his death?
There are those who would tell me that that Republican party of today is the Democratic party of yesterday. The roles have historically reversed so that the Republicans of yesterday are actually the Democrats of today. However, Congressman Earl Hilliard, a Black Democrat from Alabama, said, “"We need to take the gloves off and tell it straight. The Democratic Party has discriminatory practices. Not only in their hiring practices but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is structured to discriminate. Were tired of being discriminated against and being taken for granted." (Go to “Lawmakers Rip Democrats for Plantation Politics” at www.finalcall.com/national/democrats05-22-2001.htm.) This is today and not yesterday. Larry Elder wrote in a WorldNetDaily.com article (www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29741), “In analyzing the recent Democratic bath in the off-year election, Black Representative Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., defeated in her own primary, accused the Democratic Party of "taking Black voters for granted." Tavis Smiley, Black NPR commentator, made the same assertion while chastising his guest, former Vice President Al Gore, for allegedly committing the same crime.” This is today and not yesterday. The Democratic Party gets their lion’s share of African American votes – 90%. What is wrong with this picture? Have you noticed that John Kerry chose rather quickly a rich White Southern male to be his running mate? Why could he not choose any of the qualified Black members of Congress, such as Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois, Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey, or Representative Harold Ford of Tennessee? What happened to “inclusion”? Why are not we as good? The Democratic National Committee (DNC) election a few years ago for Chairman chose White Terry McAuliffe, a Party fundraiser, over Black Maynard Jackson, a former mayor of Atlanta. I wonder why Congresswoman Maxine Waters was highly upset that McAuliffe was elected over Jackson. They claim they are inclusive, right? Is you is or is you ain’t my baby? (Tom the Cat of "Tom and Jerry" sang that song.) No offense. I'm just trying to make a point.
Currington:
“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 abolitionsts 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?”
I want to say that the Republican Party has made numerous faux pas’s and sponsored many comedies of errors, such as the "Southern Strategy," in the last 40 years. That is one reason why many African Americans are disconnected with the Republican Party. One of the biggest faux pas’s is allowing the Party to be “colored” with some Dixiecrat Democrats who invaded the Party in the 60’s and 70’s, but still cling to their White supremacist views. The Party is suffering to this day for that disaster. However, some of the Dixiecrats, like William Fulbright, still whistled Dixie in the Democratic Party.
I’m independent politically. I stand with the man of integrity or the woman of integrity, not a political party. However, history is set in stone and cannot be ignored. Why have many African Americans have been hoodwinked and bamboozled for decades? Why is it that many African Americans believe political urban legends?
Pretend that you are a powerful member of the Democratic Party and you know that 90% of African Americans vote Democrat. Therefore your job, your position with the party depends on the African American vote. Would you want African Americans to learn the true histories of the Democratic and Republican Parties? As I said, on the DNC website, they skip 50 years of history. That history was steeped in slavery, KKK, and Jim Crow. And they have never apologized for that history.
Have you seen the motion picture Bulworth with Warren Beatty and Halle Berry? Beatty played a fictional Democratic Senator named Jay Bulworth. There was a scene in a Black church that goes like this … LADY: “Are you saying the Democratic Party don’t care about the African American community?” BULWORTH: “Isn’t that obvious?… What are you going to do? Vote Republican??? C'mon C'mon.You’re not going to vote Republican! Let’s call a spade a spade….” Rent or buy Bulworth.
Considering the real truths you have just learned, isn’t fact stranger than fiction? Have we all been bamboozed, hoodwinked, and maybe even misled all these years? Think for yourself. The Honorable Marcus Garvey said: “Nobody frees a slave. A slave must free himself.” If you are on a political plantation, you should be like the skeleton who said to the other skeleton in the museum: “If we had any guts, we’d get out of here.”
Tell your Daddy, tell your Mama, don’t believe the DNC drama.
Robert Oliver is a writer and a commentator in Chicago You can reach him at stormwatch1989@aol.com. You can reach M.D. Currington at mdcurrington@yahoo.com, websites http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc and http://moteandbeam.tripod.com.
Radio and television talk show host Larry Elder wrote, “as someone once put it, the Democratic Party has convinced Blacks that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat and George Wallace a Republican.” That someone was Bob Parks, an African American who ran for Congress in the 27th District in Los Angeles, California. Parks went on to say, “For close to four decades, the Democrats have been going around saying they are responsible for the Civil Rights Act. It is a lie that’s gone unchallenged by the mainstream media. Are we surprised?”
A friend told me an African American woman in his office thought that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Another friend told me he talked to an African American who thought the same of Lincoln. Another friend told me she thought that the slave masters in the South were Republican. Another friend told me she thought the same thing.
This article will incorporate the text from “The Hidden Facts About the History of Black America” by M.D. Currington (mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc and moteandbeam.tripod.com). Mr. Currington is a former Assistant Executive Director of the California Democratic Party. He was a lifelong Democratic activist, including the liaison between the Clinton White House and the Democratic Caucus of the California Democratic Assembly. He was also active in Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Currington thought that the Republican Party was the party of slavery. To him, there was no worse crime than to vote Republican. However, in 2000 he was challenged by a Republican to take a look at the history of the Democratic Party. He was surprised and stunned at what he discovered. His text will be italicized.
Currington:
“The overwhelming majority of Black America is registered Democrat. This of course includes Black politicians, Black business people, and Black educators. Furthermore, the Democratic Party's major supporters include the public school teachers' associations and leaders of the various liberal education movements. Consequently, most Blacks may not have ever heard some of the facts about the history of Blacks in the American political process. Tactics and strategies by Democrats have actually convinced Blacks that Republicans hate Blacks and have always wanted to destroy Black America. The truth seems to be very different. Here are some facts that Democratic Party doesn't want Black America to believe.
“Slavery was a Protected Institution of the Democratic Party
Thomas 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 1856 national Democratic platform said: “7. Resolved, That congress has no power, under the constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the constitution: that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.”
The actual fact of history is that slave masters were 100% Democrat. They hated Republicans with a passion. It was impossible for a Republican to own slaves because owning slaves went against his principles. Go to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) website (http://www.democrats.org/about/history.html). Look at these paragraphs concerning their history: “In 1848, the National Convention established the Democratic National Committee, now the longest running political organization in the world. The Convention charged the DNC with the responsibility of promoting "the Democratic cause" between the conventions and preparing for the next convention. (Part of “the Democratic cause” was protecting the institution of slavery in 1848.) Then the next paragraph immediately says: “As the 19th Century came to a close, the American electorate changed more and more rapidly. The Democratic Party embraced the immigrants who flooded into cities and industrial centers, built a political base by bringing them into the American mainstream, and helped create the most powerful economic engine in history.” We leave 1848 and timewarp to the late 19th Century? Why the 50-year gap in the DNC history? Why not talk about the Civil War and Reconstruction? Why not talk about the first Black government officials on state and federal levels? Are they afraid to reveal that they were 100% Republican Black elected officials? A Black elected official I know personally admitted he did not know until recently that there were Blacks in Congress in the 19th Century. Why not talk about the constitutional amendments that formally abolished slavery and declared that the former slaves are citizens of the United States? Why do they leave them out? What do they have to hide?
The late Ron Brown, former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said: “The common thread of Democratic history, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton, has been an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream. We remember that this great land was sculpted by immigrants and slaves, their children and grandchildren…." STOP! Wait a minute! From Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor? I hate to bring this up, but Jefferson owned those slaves Ron Brown refered to. All other slave holders were all Democrats to a man, and other Democratic Presidents before the Civil War did not oppose slavery. The Democrats kept in bondage the excluded, the disenfranched and the poor. Rest in peace Ron Brown, but were you ignorant of your own party’s history or did you lie through your teeth?
Currington:
“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.”
Look at a portion of the 1860 Republican platform: “That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; That as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that ‘no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States….That we brand the recent re-opening of the African slave- trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a shame to (a) crime against humanity and a burning (for) our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.”
Currington:
“Democrats Repossessed reparations of 40 acres and a mule from freed Slaves
President 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 1865, 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.”
Rev. Sharpton said we never got our 40 acres and a mule. The Republicans gaveth, yet a Democrat took it away.
Currington:
“The Ku Klux Klan began as a fraternity organized by Democrats to terrorize Blacks and Republicans.
The 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.)”
And was not Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, a former Democratic Senator chosen for the court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democratic segregationist and a former member of the KKK? By the way, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a member of the Ku Klux Klan years ago. He even recruited for the Klan as a “kleagle.” Has Senator Byrd been on record for officially renouncing and denouncing the KKK's terrorist history? Has the Klan ever called him a “traitor” for denouncing them? What if Senator Trent Lott was an ex-Klan member and said “white niggers” on national television? We would have shouted “Crucify! Crucify!” right? We would have ran him out of town. Was it because Byrd is a Democrat that we make excuses for him making racial slurs and being a ex- KKK member, but we never ever make excuses for Republicans, the bad guys? I recall somewhere reading about a Black Democrat who actually said when he called in on a talk show he gave a White Democrat a pass, but he would not give a White Republican a pass. Is that not dysfunctional if not hypocritical?
Republican Senator Trent Lott was nothing to shout about. (Same for the late Democrat Dixiecrat record-breaking-filibustering, Republican-switching Senator Strom Thurmond). Whatever is in the heart, the mouth speaketh. After he spoketh, all hell broketh loose. However, Senator Robert Byrd recently said on national television, “There are white niggers.” You would have thought he was a fan of a Spike Lee joint (“Niggers is a beautiful thing” – from Bamboozled). But with Byrd, former U.S. Senator and former Ambassador to New Zealand Carol Mosely Braun defended him. An older Black man I knew who hated with venom White and Black Republicans defended Byrd too.
(Hey Senator Byrd, also please explain why you led the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Goldwater's flawed reasons were libertarian in nature. What were your reasons?)
Currington:
“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 Mississippi 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 1869 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 Nations 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.”
Think about what you were taught in school. During Black History Month every February, do you remember being taught who was the first Black congressman or who was the first Black U.S. senator? I was not, and others have told me the same. Why is it that these first Black elected officials are not mentioned. Is it because they were Republicans? Just as in the old Soviet Union, is history being rewritten? Are the first Black politicians being written out?
Currington:
“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, 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 which was 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 Kennedys 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:
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1871
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1960
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Voting Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1968
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!”
Rev. Al Sharpton (who I respect for traveling to Sudan and exposing chattel slavery there) said at the recent Democratic Convention in Boston: “Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.” Rev. Sharpton, I really wish you would have mentioned too that it was because of Democrats, not because of Republicans, that we needed the protection of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act Someone posted on http://www.movie-fan-forum.com: “republicans opposed civil rights act in the 60s saying it was a case of government intruding in the lives of individuals.” That is an error. I have asked several people if a majority of Democrats or Republicans in Congress supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act. All but one said it was the Democratic majority. Therefore they believed it was a Democratic victory for civil rights. Have the Democrats claimed a victory they never earned? Here is the historical record that you can look up today on the Internet: In 1964, in the Senate, 82% of the Republicans voted for the Act while only 69% of the Democrats voted for it. Every Southern Democratic Senator voted against it. In the House of Representatives, 80% of the Republicans voted for the Act, while only 61% of the Democrats voted for it. Ninety-two of the 103 Southern Democrats in the House voted against it (www.frankenlies.com/civilrights.htm). Also the ignored or forgotten 1957 Civil Rights Act (which Strom Thurmond tried to torpedo) and the 1960 Civil Rights Act, designed to protect us from the Southern Democrats, were passed by the majority of Republicans in Congress and signed into law by a Republican President. Republicans, not Democrats, historically have been in the majority in support of civil rights legislation from the beginning of their history.
Currington:
“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 have ever called for an end to Slavery, an apology for Slavery, or Reparations for Slavery (as of 2001). 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 National 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 instution of Slavemasters. They should be ashamed of themselves. All of those who learn these facts should re-examine who is labeled an Uncle Tom.”
Let’s talk about Uncle Tom’s, the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel. Don’t we call Black people who seem to bow to the White folks and sellout to them “slap-happy, amos-'n- andyin', Black-stooge, bootlickin', handkerchief-head Negro, pleaser-and-appeaser, chicken-eatin', knee-shakin', prefabricated, jiv'n, jivin', jiving, snow-Black, butt-kissing, co-caucasian, howdy-doody, shoeshine-boy, tree-top, White-bread, crumb-snatchin', backstabbin', behind-scratchin', zip-coon, foot-shuffln', hafrican, aunt-jemima, thomasina, window-dressin', homey-kinda, cotton-pickin', Rev.-Pork-Chop, buckdancin', Judas, lawn-jockey, big-shot-coon, Kingfisher, homo-Tomus-americanus, wooly-head, Black-anglo-saxon, Black-skunk, bought-and-sold, opporTOMist, thank-ya-boss, stooge, integratin', inauthentic, un-cola, uppity, tomfool, turn-the-other-cheek, shifty-eyed, bug-eyed, waterboy, Whitewardly-mobile, zebra, Stepin-Fetchit, low-belly-creepin', rent-a-Tom, self-hatin', sell-out, speak-when-spoken-to, house-boy, high-yaller, turncoat, Uncle Remus, Sambo, jigaboo, feet-shufflin’, de-Blacked, bourgie, caste-flunky, cocktail-sippin', yassah-yassah-yassah, me-too-boss, darky Uncle Tom’s”? And we call them even worse things than that too. Unfortunately, there are many who really do fit this job description. However, many other African Americans all across the United States who refuse to bow to the "Party Line" and refuse to bow to the self-appointed "Keepers of the Blackness" and who dare to think independently are also pinned with that moniker. Because of fear of the "Thought Police S.W.A.T. Teams," many Black independent thinkers and those who start to think independently are forced to stay in the closet and keep their thoughts to themselves. Some of them even publicly feign digust of "Uncle Tom's" just to keep the heat off themselves. It is time for all of these Black independent thinkers to courageously come out of the closet and say "we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" just like in the motion picture Network. Currington writes in another essay: “Black women were the first to use the term to describe Black men who left the Republican Party to join the Democratic Party. Marcus Garvey (was) the first public figure to call Black Democrats Uncle Tom’s. As a matter of fact, one of the best known figures that Garvey called an Uncle Tom was W.E.B. Dubois. Dubois was very critical of the ‘Back to Africa’ (movement) led by Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Garvey called Dubois an ‘Uncle Tom.’ Dubois responded by calling Garvey ‘the most dangerous Black man in America.’ Garvey followed with calling Dubois ‘purely and simply a White man’s nigger…’ (Ed.- Presumably Garvey slammed Dubois in that fashion because Dubois was the only Black officer of the NAACP at the time.) The most unusual phenomenon about the term ‘Uncle Tom’ is that it is currently directed to Black Republicans and not to Black Democrats, even though the ideas of these Black Republicans have not changed since the abolition of slavery.”
I discovered some other facts that are documentated and that you can research. Did you know the “racist” Barry Goldwater was a founding member of the Arizona NAACP? Yes, and he was a member until his death in 1998! Do you actually think a person you would think may be a KKK member would be a founding member of a Black organization until his death? As an Air National Guard Colonel in the 1940’s, he desegregated the Arizona Air National Guard, 2 years BEFORE President Truman desegregated the entire Armed Forces. Go to http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc/barry_goldwater.html on the Internet and read the details. My mother, who is 83 years old, believed for the last 40 years that Barry
Goldwater was a White supremacist. (I grew up believing he was a racist.) Now my mother’s 40-year bitterness toward Goldwater evaporated. She loves Goldwater now. She understands he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act based on his libertarian philosophy as far as the federal government intruding into private affairs and not because of “racism.” Also Goldwater voted for two Civil Rights bills during the Eisenhower administration while the majority of his Southern Democratic colleagues voted against them. How can a White supremacist give years of financial support to the NAACP until his death?
There are those who would tell me that that Republican party of today is the Democratic party of yesterday. The roles have historically reversed so that the Republicans of yesterday are actually the Democrats of today. However, Congressman Earl Hilliard, a Black Democrat from Alabama, said, “"We need to take the gloves off and tell it straight. The Democratic Party has discriminatory practices. Not only in their hiring practices but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is structured to discriminate. Were tired of being discriminated against and being taken for granted." (Go to “Lawmakers Rip Democrats for Plantation Politics” at www.finalcall.com/national/democrats05-22-2001.htm.) This is today and not yesterday. Larry Elder wrote in a WorldNetDaily.com article (www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29741), “In analyzing the recent Democratic bath in the off-year election, Black Representative Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., defeated in her own primary, accused the Democratic Party of "taking Black voters for granted." Tavis Smiley, Black NPR commentator, made the same assertion while chastising his guest, former Vice President Al Gore, for allegedly committing the same crime.” This is today and not yesterday. The Democratic Party gets their lion’s share of African American votes – 90%. What is wrong with this picture? Have you noticed that John Kerry chose rather quickly a rich White Southern male to be his running mate? Why could he not choose any of the qualified Black members of Congress, such as Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois, Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey, or Representative Harold Ford of Tennessee? What happened to “inclusion”? Why are not we as good? The Democratic National Committee (DNC) election a few years ago for Chairman chose White Terry McAuliffe, a Party fundraiser, over Black Maynard Jackson, a former mayor of Atlanta. I wonder why Congresswoman Maxine Waters was highly upset that McAuliffe was elected over Jackson. They claim they are inclusive, right? Is you is or is you ain’t my baby? (Tom the Cat of "Tom and Jerry" sang that song.) No offense. I'm just trying to make a point.
Currington:
“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 abolitionsts 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?”
I want to say that the Republican Party has made numerous faux pas’s and sponsored many comedies of errors, such as the "Southern Strategy," in the last 40 years. That is one reason why many African Americans are disconnected with the Republican Party. One of the biggest faux pas’s is allowing the Party to be “colored” with some Dixiecrat Democrats who invaded the Party in the 60’s and 70’s, but still cling to their White supremacist views. The Party is suffering to this day for that disaster. However, some of the Dixiecrats, like William Fulbright, still whistled Dixie in the Democratic Party.
I’m independent politically. I stand with the man of integrity or the woman of integrity, not a political party. However, history is set in stone and cannot be ignored. Why have many African Americans have been hoodwinked and bamboozled for decades? Why is it that many African Americans believe political urban legends?
Pretend that you are a powerful member of the Democratic Party and you know that 90% of African Americans vote Democrat. Therefore your job, your position with the party depends on the African American vote. Would you want African Americans to learn the true histories of the Democratic and Republican Parties? As I said, on the DNC website, they skip 50 years of history. That history was steeped in slavery, KKK, and Jim Crow. And they have never apologized for that history.
Have you seen the motion picture Bulworth with Warren Beatty and Halle Berry? Beatty played a fictional Democratic Senator named Jay Bulworth. There was a scene in a Black church that goes like this … LADY: “Are you saying the Democratic Party don’t care about the African American community?” BULWORTH: “Isn’t that obvious?… What are you going to do? Vote Republican??? C'mon C'mon.You’re not going to vote Republican! Let’s call a spade a spade….” Rent or buy Bulworth.
Considering the real truths you have just learned, isn’t fact stranger than fiction? Have we all been bamboozed, hoodwinked, and maybe even misled all these years? Think for yourself. The Honorable Marcus Garvey said: “Nobody frees a slave. A slave must free himself.” If you are on a political plantation, you should be like the skeleton who said to the other skeleton in the museum: “If we had any guts, we’d get out of here.”
Tell your Daddy, tell your Mama, don’t believe the DNC drama.
Robert Oliver is a writer and a commentator in Chicago You can reach him at stormwatch1989@aol.com. You can reach M.D. Currington at mdcurrington@yahoo.com, websites http://mdcurrington.tripod.com/mdc and http://moteandbeam.tripod.com.
posted by Robert at 4:10 PM
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