Pop Quiz
What author said: “The truth is no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.”?
What President said: “The first order of business” would be to “eliminate discrimination against Black citizens in every area under Federal jurisdiction.”?
What President said: “As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.”?
Martin Luther King said the following about what Republican: “Let me say before closing how deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality.”
Answers at the end of this post.
We live in an irrationally divided country. The divisions are exacerbated by failing public schools, an epidemic of ignorance and censorious media that are manure spreaders of disinformation. An example of the conscious perpetuation of ignorance is the treatment of issues involving the topic of race. In the last two weeks I have encountered two educated and allegedly informed professionals who made the same argument…yes the Democrats were bad but the two parties changed places in the 1960’s. Sadly a presentation of facts proving the position wrong were met with arms folded denial. Asked to name a single Republican governor who stood in a schoolhouse door to block entry by a person of color they turned into astronomers.
The issue is that there is no appreciation of the progress we have made in America over the past 150 years to heal our racial wounds. So here is a historical perspective that hopefully will provide some level of clarity.
We have, on several occasions illustrated the 200 year legacy of Black repression by the Democrat Party…slavery, the Confederate government, Jim Crow, segregation, the KKK, voter suppression and a continuing failure to provide a robust system of education. The Democrats continue to support policies that ensure Black Americans remain ignorant and dependent.
In contrast here is the legacy of the Republican Party…
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was the first Republican President. His pre-election speech at Cooper Union made clear his desire to stop the spread of slavery beyond the southern states in which the “peculiar institution” was practiced in 1860. So threatened were the slave states that seven seceded before Lincoln took office: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. On January 1, 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation stating “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. Lincoln expended his entire reserve of political capital to induce Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States.” His Second Inaugural Address should be required reading in every school across the country. Yet in San Francisco they are removing Lincoln’s name from public schools.
Ulysses S. Grant
Grant was unalterably opposed to slavery. When Grant got married his in-laws gave him a slave named William Jones. Grant manumitted Mr. Jones because he believed that slavery was abhorrent. In 1865 the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Grant was elected President and took office in March 1869. In response to the depredations of the Klan Grant sent the U.S. army to the South to dismantle the KKK. The Klan went into hibernation for a number of years. Grant also took strong measures to protect the right of Blacks to vote across the South.
Warren Harding
On October 26, 1921 President Harding spoke at the 50th anniversary celebration in Birmingham, Alabama. He reminded his audience that Black Americans had served with honor during World War I. He went on to forcefully condemn the practice of “lynching Black men and women.” It will come as no surprise to anyone not under a hypnotic trance induced by MSNBC that the Birmingham Post opined that Harding’s comments were an “untimely and ill-considered intrusion into a question of which he evidently knows very little.”
It should be noted that FDR actively refused to support Congressional efforts to pass a law criminalizing lynching. He was afraid that it would jeopardize his electoral support from the “solid South”. The First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of anti-lynching legislation. J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, apparently auditioning to be a host on MSNBC, spread rumors that she was “mixed race” and the KKK put a $25,000 bounty on her head.
Dwight Eisenhower
Eisenhower served admirably as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II. At one point he made an effort to integrate military units fighting to liberate the continent but Harry Stimson, FDR’s Secretary of War, vetoed the effort. His failed attempt was a sign of things to come.
After he was elected President he made a number of politically risky decisions on racial issues. During World War II the Federal government established a Fair Employment Practices Commission to ensure that industries involved in military production did not discriminate based on race. FDR refused to enforce the work of the Commission in the South and it was disbanded in 1945. On October 17, 1952 Eisenhower gave a speech on civil rights in which he said he felt ”very strongly the full power of the federal government ought to be used, as contrasted with laws.” Eisenhower openly criticized segregation in the District of Columbia. Nonetheless he carried four former Confederate states: Tennessee, Virginia, Florida and Texas.
In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision which caused a tectonic disruption of education policy and race relations. Earl Warren, appointed to be the Chief Justice of the Court by Eisenhower, made sure the decision was unanimous. Ironically the case involved the school system in Topeka Kansas, the home state of Eisenhower.
Needless to say the decision was not embraced by the state and local governments of the Confederacy. James Eastland, a Senator from Mississippi, declared that “the South will not abide by nor obey this legislative decision by a political body”. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia described the opinion as “the most serious blow that has yet been struck against the rights of the states in a matter vitally affecting their authority and welfare.” By 1956, Senator Byrd had created a coalition of nearly 100 Southern politicians to sign on to his “Southern Manifesto” an agreement to resist the implementation of Brown. You will search in vain for a Republican politician who opposed the decision then or since the so-called party switch in the 1960s.
In response to Southern resistance Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10730 in October 1957 and he sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to assist with the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.
In 1964 the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which was intended to address the issue of racial discrimination. A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted Aye than did Democrats.
So where is the evidence that the Republican Party became the stunt double for racist, segregationist Southern Democrats? It does not exist but this will not stop our corrupt media and Democrat politicians from accusing any person they disagree with of being a racist. Ask them to define that term.
Answers to the pop quiz:
What author said: “The truth is no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.”? The inestimable Samuel Clemens, nom de plume Mark Twain
What President said: “The first order of business” would be to “eliminate discrimination against Black citizens in every area under Federal jurisdiction.”? Dwight Eisenhower
What President said: “As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.”? The underappreciated U.S. Grant
Martin Luther King said the following about what Republican: “Let me say before closing how deeply grateful all people of goodwill are to you for your assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality.” Richard Nixon
Ron
Really nicely assembled summary of the political parties” perspective on race over time. I’m prining it out to have these facts handy for my next debate with someone whose mind is controlled by the Ministry of Truth.
If you can do an addendum to the opening section of this post, an appropriate addition just prior to getting into the Republican Legacy, would be a brief discussion of Sleepy Joe’s racist legacy. and friendships (i.e. Robert KKK Byrd.) Because I’m very old and with my ties to Boston, I remember vividly Joe’s battles with Senator Ed Brooke over school busing. I recall some of his racist comments, of which there are many, many, like not wanting his kids going to school in a racial jungle, or that Barack Hussein is the first African American who is articulate and clean!
As you said, the dems could not get away with any of this without the “manure spreaders of disinformation.” Love that one!
Steph
It’s the proverbial “give a man a fish or teach a man to fish”. That’s what differentiates how the Republicans and Democrats handle racial issues. Trump’s policies to expand business ownership in minority communities was an attempt to teach to fish. Harris’ proposal to give money away, well, you get the point. If you constantly give rather than teach, you create dependency. That’s what has created intergenerational poverty that affects all races.
Linda Strawbridge
Abraham Lincoln, may have set the slaves free in 1863 but the Democrats still hold them back and down by never building them up. Promises, most never fulfilled. It’s nearly unbelievable that California is removing Abraham Lincoln’s name from public schools , hide, destroy any knowledge that those who need to know and learn will never see or learn. Just another way Democrats want to starve America. Any passing history that makes a Democrat look bad will be destroyed. The only agenda they have or want is taking their plans rapidly a Socialist America!