Republicans' record on blacks beats the Democrats hands down

President Bush's address to the 2004 National Urban League Conference in Detroit should be used to highlight the fact that the Republicans' record on civil rights for blacks is far superior to the Democrats' record. Only in our Orwellian world could the Republicans be successfully painted by the Party of Jefferson Davis as the party of Jim Crow.

For nearly 100 years American blacks looked to be freed from their chains. When that day finally arrived, thanks to a bloody civil war, there was jubilation. But what did the vast majority of their descendents eventually do? They returned to thee Democratic plantation. And the likes of Julian Bond, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson intend to keep them there. After all, what good is a race hustler if he cannot keep that race-pot on the boil?

It is one of life's wicked ironies that the Party of Lincoln, the Party founded on an anti-slavery plank, the Party that abolished slavery and gave the country the fourteenth amendment in an effort to protect black rights; the Party which tried to put an end to lynching, in the face of fierce opposition by Democrats, has now been successfully demonized by the Democrats as racist.

What is to be done? Well, the Republicans could start by telling the truth and there is no better place to start than the Party's voting record on civil rights. The Dems' black overseers spread the lie that the Republicans opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. Even a loose reading of history shows that while 69 percent of Democratic Senators voted for the Act, 82 percent of Republican Senators did so.

The contrast in the House of Representatives was even more marked, with 61 percent of Dems voting for the Act as against 80 percent of the Republicans. Al Gore's father was one of those who refused to support the Act that enforced the constitutional rights of blacks. Unlike that well-known Democrat Bull Connor who used dogs, clubs and hoses to violate black rights, the genteel Gore merely voted against them.

The overseers tell their black brothers and sisters that Republicans were responsible for the outcome of the Dred Scott case, an infamous Supreme Court ruling that said no black, whether free or slave could be a US citizen. This decision seemed designed to invalidate the Missouri Compromise and legalize the introduction of slavery into the territories. But despite what the overseers assert it was the Democrats who were responsible for this decision. And who damned it and those judges who supported it? The Republicans.

It was the Democrats' appalling behavior on slavery that drove Lincoln to say on the eve of the Civil War:

"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever ability they can, that the Negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite spreading of his bondage a sacred right of self-government."

When the war was over the Republicans introduced the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments in an effort to protect black rights, all in the teeth of ferocious opposition from Democrats. That these amendments fell into dormancy after the withdrawal of Northern troops from the South says more about the spirit of the South than is does about Republicans.

Republicans should openly brag that it they were the anti-slavery party and the one that introduced civil rights amendments to the Constitution in a genuine effort to help former slaves establish themselves as self-governing individuals with the same inalienable rights as every other American citizen.

It was because of the Republicans record on slavery and black rights Democrats sneeringly calling them the "colored people's Party". That is something Republicans have every right to be proud of.

And Republicans should not hesitate to shame Democrats into admitting that theirs was the slavery party, the party of the Ku Klux Klan, of Jim Crow, lynchings, burnings and Senator Robert Byrd. It was Democratic judges in the South who only forty years ago strove to keep blacks in their place and out of the polling booth — not Republicans.

It was Republican Justice Warren, an Eisenhower appointee, who stood up to the South's segregationist politicians, not a Democratic appointed judge. It was Warren's actions that finally brought about the full emancipation of all of America's blacks. And it was a Republican president who backed him.

Republicans have a sterling civil rights record of which they have every reason to be proud. But through the Orwellian twisting of history the Republicans have been successfully labelled as the 'Jim Crow' party. Nevertheless, history is on the Republicans side in the only sense that matters — the truth. All that Republicans have to do is gird their loins and start preaching the gospel as it was originally written.

Gracey and I attended the 1999 Urban League convention in Houston when Bush was running for this presidency. It was an interesting spot to observe the reactions to GW....

During the warm-up, the Urban League song was sung by all attendees and Bush seemed tense as he tried to crib off his printed program.

When the song was over and we started to take our seats, we could hear several people around us murmuring, "Bill Clinton knew all the words by heart!"

Overall, the reception was polite - not like the cheering standing ovations Algore got two days later - speaking to the same group. Go figure....

I'm working on an article concerning Blacks in politics and showing the vast difference between democrats and Republicans who truly support the black people.

We can't leave out this liberal democrat and how the Republicans aided her political career until she self-destructed.

Carol Moseley-Braun
1992 election also brought to the Senate its first African-American woman, Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois. Following her single Senate term in 1999, the Republican led Senate confirmed Moseley-Braun as the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand.

Following her single Senate term in 1999, the Republican led Senate confirmed Moseley-Braun as the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand.

Hardly an act of courage. More an act of charity...

Humidson,

Bush looked a little "tight" during his speach to the Urban League, but over all he did okay. I hate Jessey Jackson for what he has done and is doing to the blacks.

Al Gore's father was one of those who refused to support the Act that enforced the constitutional rights of blacks. Unlike that well-known Democrat Bull Connor who used dogs, clubs and hoses to violate black rights, the genteel Gore merely voted against them.

I could be mistaken, but I believe Gore Sr. didn't just vote against civil rights legislation; he actually filibustered it. It took the Republicans to break the Southern Dems' filibusters.

Thanks Viet-- copied it for my 15 year-old so he can actually learn real American history 'cause he sure won't get this in history textbooks.

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