BAMBOOZLING BLACK AMERICA

BAMBOOZLING BLACK AMERICA
Richard Bernstein

from the book "Duped America."

As a former Democrat, I found the information contained in this chapter to be some of the most surprising discoveries I made writing this book.

Like far too many of my fellow citizens, I grew up believing that Democrats had ALWAYS been the champions of black America – and that Republicans were either uncaring at best, or overt racists at worst.

History demonstrates such an assessment is a complete fraud.

It’s time to set the record straight. Black America deserves to know the truth – especially about their “friends” in the Democratic Party.

Most Americans would be shocked to discover Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. After all, the myth perpetuated by Democrats and the mainstream media is that it has always been Democrats, not Republicans, who have stood up for the blacks in America.

The reason Dr. King was a Republican was simple: Republicans, not Democrats, have consistently fought for freedom and civil rights for blacks since their founding in 1854 – as the anti-slavery party.

In fact, American history reveals how Democrats wanted to keep blacks in slavery. They passed Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and other discriminatory pieces of legislation denying blacks their rights as citizens. Democrats also founded the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 and opposed the passage of every civil rights law, beginning in the 1860s and continuing through the 1950s and 1960s.

Furthermore, it was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery by amending the Constitution to grant blacks their freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment), often against intense Democrat opposition. For example in 1865, Congressional Republicans unanimously backed the 13th Amendment, which made slavery unconstitutional. Among Democrats, 78 percent of House members and 63 percent of senators voted “no.” In 1866, 94 percent of Republican senators and 96 percent of GOP House members approved the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing all Americans equal protection of the law. Incredibly, every Congressional Democrat voted no.

Republicans were also champions of civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867. These bills provided protection from legislation initiated by Southern Democrats and established a new government system in the South that would be fair to blacks.

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education school desegregation ruling. Democrats’ reaction? Resistance by State Governor Orval Faubus and the signing of a “Southern Manifesto,” a document denouncing the Court’s ruling, by Congressional Democrats. Eisenhower also signed the GOP’s 1960 Civil Rights Act – after it survived a five day filibuster by 18 Senate Democrats.

Another myth which gained traction is that Democrat icon, President John F. Kennedy, was a staunch proponent of civil rights. Yet Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a Senator, along with Democratic Senator Al Gore Sr. President Kennedy also opposed the 1963 march on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, a black Republican. JFK, in collaboration with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, also had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI, This was a disgraceful attempt to prove that King was associated with the Communist Party.

Few Americans know that it was the Republicans who established the NAACP an that Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 “Philadelphia Plan” set up the nation’s first goals and timetables for affirmative action. Nixon did this to counter the harm caused to black Americans by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who kicked them out of federal government jobs in 1912.

Even fewer black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded and financed all the earliest black schools and colleges in the U.S., even as Democrats opposed their every effort with “brutal force.”

The 1964 Civil Rights Act has been heralded by the left as an example of how Democrats, not Republicans, have been the party which has championed civil right for blacks. However, the facts reveal a different story. Although Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed this bill into law on July 2, 1964, it was only after former Ku Klux Klansman Senator Robert Byrd’s 14 hour filibuster along with the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats failed to stop the measure. Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen finally rallied enough Senators to invoke cloture, stop the filibuster and allow the bill’s passage. More Republicans voted for this law than Democrats, as 82 percent of Republicans supported it, versus only 66 percent of Democrats.

Tellingly, there is rarely any mention anywhere in the media of the Republican role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Many historians cite the opposition to the bill by Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president that year, as a reason black Americans have migrated to the Democrat Party. It is true Goldwater opposed the bill. However his opposition had nothing to do with race. He had supported the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts and calling for integrating Arizona’s National Guard – two years before Democrat President Truman desegregated the military. And when Goldwater was a city councilman in Phoenix, he became a founding member of the Arizona NAACP, and he remained a proud member until his death.

So why did Goldwater oppose the bill? He was fearful that two of the sections contained in it, regarding housing and public accommodation, unlawfully expanded the role of the federal government. He was a true libertarian.

In 2008, Dr. King’s niece, Dr. Alveda C. King, wrote an article affirming that her grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., or “Daddy King,” and her uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were Republicans. But her explanation for the migration of black Americans to the Democrat Party is different from those of the historians:

“Moved by Mrs. King’s gratitude for Senator Kennedy’s intervention, Daddy King was very grateful to Senator (John) Kennedy for his assistance in rescuing Dr. King Jr. from a life threatening jail encounter. This experience led to a black exodus from the Republican Party. Thus, this one simple act of gratitude caused black America to quickly forget that the Republican Party was birthed in America as the antislavery party to end the scourge of slavery and combat the terror of racism and segregation. They quickly forgot that the Democratic Party was the party of the Ku Klux Klan.”

How ironic, since it was the Kennedy administration, as mentioned previously, who tried to undermine Dr. King by attempting to prove he was associated with the Communist Party.

The Republican Party is also the party of numerous “firsts” regarding black Americans. Some notable examples:

- Republican presidents Gerald Ford in 1975 and Ronald Reagan in 1982 promoted Daniel James and Roscoe Robinson, to become respectively, the Air Force’s and Army’s first black four star generals.

- On November 2, 1983, President Reagan designated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday as a national holiday, the first such honor for a black American.

- President Reagan named Colin Powell America’s first black National Security Adviser while Republican George W. Bush appointed him as our first black Secretary of State.

- President George W. Bush also named Condoleeza Rice America’s first black female National Security Council Chief, then our second (consecutive) black Secretary of State.

Another part of the continuing negative narrative regarding Republican’s relations with minorities is that they spend less on anti-poverty programs than Democrats. They don’t. Under George W. Bush, anti-poverty spending increased 39 percent, and reached a record 16.3 percent of all federal spending in 2004, up from 14.9 percent in 2000.

Not only have the actions of Democrats over the past 150 years overwhelmingly demonstrated a lack of support for the civil rights of black Americans, some of their words have been just as damning. Angry with Dr. King’s protests against the Vietnam War, Democrat President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 referred to Dr. King as “that Nigger preacher.” And in reference to Dr. King leaving Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out in March 1968 where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd referred to Dr. King as a “trouble-maker who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited.”

That was the same Robert Byrd (a former KKK member) whom Democrat Senator Chris Dodd praised as someone who would’ve been “a great Senator for any moment,” including the Civil War. Imagine the backlash if a Republican had said that.

Today a common misconception is that the Democrat Party is more interested than Republicans in helping black Americans. Democrats point to Lyndon Johnson’s establishment of the “Great Society” welfare program as a shining moment in race relations.

In reality, the “Great Society” wasn’t so great. It undermined the two-parent family with welfare incentives, and encouraged the societal acceptability of single-parent households along with their dependence on government handouts.

As part of those handouts, monthly welfare checks to single mothers were increased with each additional birth. Forty-six years later, the statistics are damning: in 1963, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the black community was 23.6%. By 2009 it had risen to 71.6%.

In the mid 1990s, realizing the welfare system was out of control, Republicans introduced welfare reform. The bill was designed to end dependence on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage.

What was Democrat President Bill Clinton’s response? He vetoed the bill twice before finally relenting under pressure from the Republican-controlled Congress, signing it into law in 1996. In 2004, The New York Times called welfare reform “one of the acclaimed successes of the past decade.” The number of Americans on welfare dropped from 12.2 million in 1996 to 4.5 million in 2006.

Leading Democrats were opposed to the bill, with Senator Kennedy (D-MA) calling it “legislative child abuse,” Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) denouncing it as “unconscionable,” and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) declaring welfare reform would force poor children to take up “begging for money, food and even…engaging in prostitution.”

Democrats not only opposed Clinton’s welfare reform, but also fought the passage of George W. Bush’s Marriage and Healthy Families Fatherhood Initiative in 2005, which sought to increase the number of healthy marriages to reduce dependence on social services.

Why do Republicans put such an emphasis on a stable two-parent household, aka the nuclear family? “According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, children from single-parent families account for 63 percent of all youth suicides, 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies, 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse, 80 percent of all prison inmates and 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children.” Also the connection between family breakdown and poverty has been well established.

Nevertheless, the “dependency model” of the Democratic Party continues to be promoted. The 2009 Stimulus Bill passed by the Democrats created financial incentives for states to increase the number of people on welfare, reversing the successful welfare reform of the 1990s.

Although Democrats would vehemently deny it, it seems they are determined to maintain the status quo of substandard education in black communities as well. For example, they have consistently opposed school choice opportunity scholarships (vouchers) that would help black children get out of failing schools.

Why? Because Democrats care more about the teachers unions than doing what’s best for our children.

That affection between the Democrat Party and the teachers union is reciprocal. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, between 1990 and 2008, the National Education Association – the largest teachers union in the country – contributed 93 percent of its massive campaign donations to the Democrat Party.

Today’s black Americans have been duped into believing the myth that the Democrat Party has been the one historically working in their best interests. In reality, Democrat policies from the Great Society onward have convinced black Americans they are victims. This Democratically-fostered mentality has contributed greatly to keeping much of black America mired in poverty, single parenthood and dependency on the government. Democrats define this government dependency as “compassion” and there lies the difference between that political party and Republicans: Democrats are more interested in keeping blacks on government programs – thereby securing their votes – while Republicans are more interested in getting people off government programs via job training and educational freedom.

Black Americans might want to learn who really looked out for their interests in the past – and who’s looking out for their interests in the present. The choice is stark: black Americans can stay with the Democrat Party, which has given them 40 years of dependency, or move toward the Republican Party, which promotes individual responsibility, freedom and prosperity.
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