Over and against the screams and cries of the Democrat party, they passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution — which respectively abolished slavery; gave "equal protection" of the laws to Black Americans; and guaranteed their full right to vote as "100% persons."
Thank you, dearest sister in Christ, for your wonderfully informative essay-post!
I've always wondered how a vast majority of Black Americans seem to think Republicans don't care about them, such that they could give 97% of their vote to reelect the single most corrupt administration in the history of our country, which happens to be at least nominally Democrat, and "half-Black."
A Republican president once cared so much for them that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves and led to the total abolition of human chattel slavery in the United States. He was willing to go to war to secure that result — a war which proved to be the bloodiest in the history of our nation. His name, of course, was Abraham Lincoln. In the end, he gave his life for this cause.
There was, however, a downside to this emancipation: Many, perhaps the majority, of the folks being emancipated had no education or job skills. Back in the day, it was virtually a crime to educate Black people. Though some ex-slaves were highly-skilled craftsmen, those who worked closest to the soil were not.
What education slaves received was basically the Good Book, via Black churches. Pretty good for a start, if you ask me; but not enough to compete with better educated people in the society.
To this day, arguably, Black Americans are still not being well educated. Inner city schools are a scandal. Black parents have shown — e.g., in the Washington, D.C. voucher program — that they are desperate to get their kids out of failing schools, into good schools with a record of achievement.
But I understand that program has been abolished, by an unholy alliance of the Teachers' unions and the Democrat party. 0bama's federal Core Curriculum initiative now being implemented by the several states looks like a guarantee that no student, Black or other, will ever receive a quality education ever again: a quality education being defined as exposure to classical literature, real rather than "fuzzy" math and science, history (especially American history) unfiltered through political correctness, and the inculcation of rational analytical thinking skills.
All things considered, I do not understand how a rational person (of whatever skin color, but especially American Blacks) could believe that the Democrat party is their "friend."
Looks to me like the Dems would just as soon keep 'em all "down on the plantation," while falsely promising to give them "forty acres and a mule." It seems the race hustlers — like the Revs. Jackson, Sharpton, Wright, et al. —seem hell-bent on keeping them on the Dem's "plantation."
Classic bait-and-switch operation here. Why do folks keep falling for it?
All I can say is: What a tragic waste of human capital, of human possibilities....
JMHO FWIW.
Thank you ever so much for writing, dearest Alamo-Girl!