REPUBLICANS AND RACE

Jack Nicholson grew up thinking his mother was his sister and his grandparents were his parents.  When Jack was 37, he heard the truth from an investigative reporter and it shook his foundations.  What disorienting news!

Here's something else that would be disorienting.

What if you went into the voting booth and set race above all other issues...voting en masse ( 95%)...for one party.  Then one day you found the party you supported had worked AGAINST your defining issue.  Wouldn't that rattle your timbers as well?

There is a lot of hot air these days about racist Republicans.  Here's a little history that would explain why Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a lifelong Republican.

1854

To stop the spread of slavery, the Republican Party is formed.  The other party is pro-slavery.

1854

The Kansas-Nebraska Act (authored by a Democrat, Stephen Douglas) is written to spread slavery; the Republican Party opposes the act.

1861

President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was elected and most states controlled by Democrats seceded from the Union in protest.

1863

Republican President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves; the Democrats continue to support slavery.

1864

The Republican Party platform calls for complete abolition of slavery.  

1865

The 13th Amendment passes and abolishes slavery forever.  Republican support is 100% and Democratic support is 23%.

1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 passed to protect the rights of newly-freed slaves.  The act had passed the prior year, but Democratic President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill.  Republicans vigorously presented it again and got it through Congress.  President Johnson vetoes it again and was later impeached by the House, but acquitted in the Senate.

1868

The 14th Amendment passes and recognizes newly freed slaves as U.S. citizens.  Republicans support it 94%, Democratic support is 0%.

1870

The 15th Amendment passes and makes secure the right to vote to newly-freed slaves.  Republicans support the amendment 100%, and Democratic support is 0%.

1871

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 (the anti-KKK Act) is passed by Republicans.  The KKK was begun two years earlier as the "terrorist arm" of the Democratic Party.

1875

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 passed and is the first anti-discrimination law in America.  Republicans supported it 99% and Democratic support was 0%.

1884

A Republican former slave and African-American Congressman, John Lynch, chaired the 1884 Republican National Convention.  Teddy Roosevelt seconded his nomination.

1914

President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, segregates the Federal government and U.S. military, reversing 50 years of previous integration.

1915

The first movie was shown in the White House.  Democratic President Woodrow Wilson shows "Birth of a Nation", which portrays the KKK heroically.

1922

Republican Leonidas Dyer passes the first "anti-lynching" law through the House of Representatives.  Of the 119 members who voted AGAINST the bill, 103 were Democrats.

1957

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower passes the first Civil Rights law in 82 years and the Democratic Party filibusters the bill. Republican support is 92% and Democratic support is 54%.

1960

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower passes the Civil Rights Act of 1960.  The Democratic party filibusters the bill.  Republicans support it 93% and Democrats support is 68%.

1964 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, due largely to Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (who helped write/push the bill through a Democratic filibuster).  Republicans support the bill 80% and Democratic support was 63%.  




Please tell me...how in the WORLD have we come from such emperical evidence...to today?  Facts cannot massage the truth.  Surely irony is pushed over the edge to see Democrats use race against Republicans.


It's true that in 1964, it was Democrats JFK and LBJ who called for civil rights and were the faces that rightly received credit (while Arkansas' Democratic Senator Fulbright teamed up with other Democratic Southern Senators like Al Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd to personally filibuster AGAINST the bill for 14 hours straight and a total 83 days).  So we give credit where credit is due.  


But if it seems courageous to call for civil rights in the 1960's, can we just imagine what it was like to make the call in the 1860's?   Republicans know what that was like.


Our President campaigned behind a podium with letters that said TURNING THE PAGE ON RACE.  Everyone wanted that!  He promised to unite us and bring people together, but today all we hear is division and rancor; race is a LOT more polarizing than it was four years ago.  And somewhere along the way, the tags were switched on which party supports which issue.  

Can we even imagine this racist poster from the 1800's that was designed to help Democrats?  Not so pretty, is it?  But it made the clear distinction between party platforms.


History stands. Republicans have consistently been an advocate for civil rights from the very beginning.  They stood for right when it was hard to stand.  All the reparations in the world do not change that fact. 

So as we move through these next 115 days before the election, be prepared for charges of racism to fly. 


But please call truth to mind.