Republicans Enacted Civil Rights, not Democrats

1854 The New Republican Party is formed from former Democrats and Whig Party members in opposition to the extension of slavery into the US Territories. James Fremont becomes the Party's first Presidential candidate in 1856.

1860 Abraham Lincoln becomes the first Republican elected as President of the United States.

1862 A presidential order abolishes slavery in the District of Columbia as a prelude to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

1864 The Republican National Convention makes the abolition of slavery a plank in its platform.

1865 Lincoln's assassination leaves Vice President Andrew Johnson, a moderate Democrat from Tennessee, to oversee the beginning of Southern Reconstruction.

1865-1870 Republicans pass first Civil Rights Act of 1866 to have it weakened by Southern Democrats. Republican controlled Congress passes the 13th through 15th Constitutional amendments ending slavery, securing equal legal protection and voting rights for former slaves. African Americans align themselves with the Republican Party as a result for several generations.

1866 Formation of the original Ku Klux Klan, the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party, to intimidate Radical Republican legislators and African-American voters during Reconstruction.

1870 Hiram R Revels, a Republican African-American, is elected to fill US Senate seat formerly held by Jefferson Davis and Joseph H Rainey is elected as the first African American Congressman - also Republican. (By my research of putting just their name into Google, I had to check at least 10 different sites before I could find a mention of their political affiliation.)

1871 Republican President Grant signed into law a bill making the intimidation tactics of the Ku Klux Klan tantamount to rebellion. Enforcement of this Act helped bring about the decline of the Klan in the 19th Century.

1875 Republican Blanche K Bruce of Mississippi becomes the first African-American elected to a full term in the US Senate.

1878 Republican Senator A A Sargent from California, introduced the 19th Amendment. Sargent’s amendment (also known as the Susan B Anthony Amendment) was defeated four times in the ensuing years by the Democrat-controlled Senate. (yes, Repubilcans pioneered Woman's Suffrage too)

1920 The Republican National Convention declares that African-Americans must be admitted to all state and district conventions.

1932 Franklin Roosevelt is elected president over his opponent, incumbent Herbert Hoover as a result of Republicans being blamed in part for the economic Depression. Hoover receives more than 75% of the African-American vote.

1936 The Democratic Party wins support of African-Americans on economic grounds despite their stiff opposition to civil rights for blacks.

1952 Dwight D Eisenhower elected President in landslide victory. He continues a strong national defense foreign policy and halts all segregationist practices under his control in the Federal Government including the military.

1957 and 1960 - Eisenhower introduces a Civil Rights Bill to have it blocked by the Democratic majority in Congress. Democrats reject the bill despite Eisenhower's introduction of compromise language

1963 Kennedy reintroduces and pushes for a civil rights bill to congress after violent racial discord in Birmingham, AL. He is assassinated before its passage. President Johnson works with Senate Republicans and resurrects Eisenhower's compromise language in the bill in order to break the Democratic filibuster and allow its passage in 1964 and passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

MUST READ links regarding the true voting history of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. REPUBLICANS SUPPORTED IT FAR MORE THAN DEMOCRATS:

1966 Edward W Brooke (R-MA) is the first African-American elected to the US Senate by popular vote.

1989 President Bush appoints General Colin L Powell as Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Condoleezza Rice as director of National Security Council and Louis Sullivan as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

1998 US House of Representatives elects JC Watts (R-OK) to be Chairman of the House Republican Conference.

2001 President George W Bush appoints General Colin L Powell as Secretary of State, Roderick R Paige as Secretary of Education and Condoleezza Rice as Advisor of the National Security Council.

Now - how many prominent blacks in government have come out of the Democratic party? The record clearly shows that almost all of the groundbreaking elections and appointments of blacks into high office were by Republican voters and Republican Presidents.

The Democrat Party has agitated against Civil Rights throughout it's existence. It won black loyalty through propaganda and economic initiatives - basically, they lied for and bought the vote. Meanwhile, segregationist Robert Byrd (D-WV) still holds his office, and Trent Lott, a Republican, suffers more political fallout over Strom Thurmond's past than Strom Thurmond did. Incidentally, during all the history of Civil Rights activity, Strom Thurmond was a Democrat.

And yet, at every turn in the media and academia, it is the group-think-obsessed liberals and Democrats who are hailed as champions of Civil Rights. It is the most outrageous Pravda-like manipulation of history I have ever witnessed, even surpassing any rewriting of history I heard come out of the Soviet Union.

It is outrageous that Democrats are perceived as the party of civil rights, when they did everything they could to prevent it throughout history. It is a complete distortion of history. Pravda would be proud. Republicans ought to do a massive outreach to black Americans and make them understand the true history of the two parties.

Tell all your black friends who really fought for their freedom and rights. Print this out (including the links about the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act) and show it to them! Don't let them keep being used and bribed by racist Democrats!

Qwinn

Key text from the first link noted above:

"The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 (p. 1323) recorded that, in the Senate, only 69% of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82% of Republicans (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democratic senators voted against the Act. This includes the current senator from West Virginia and former KKK member Robert C. Bryd and former Tennessee senator Al Gore, Sr. (the father of Bradley's Democratic opponent). Surely young Bradley must have flunked his internship because ostensibly he did not learn that the Act's primary opposition came from the southern Democrats' 74-day filibuster. In addition, he did not know that 21 is over three times as much as six, otherwise he would have become - according to the logic of his statement - a Republican."

"In the House of Representatives, 61% of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act; 92 of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it. Among Republicans, 80% (138 for, 34 against) voted for it."

Qwinn

I know a lot of Republicans are aware that Affirmative Action is racist, etc. The problem is that the propaganda is so extreme that there are Republicans who are actually ashamed of their party's "racist" past! While I suspect there are many Repubs aware of this history, I bet there are ones new to this forum who have never seen it.

However, you're right, this -is- mostly preaching to the choir. That's why I posted it on the Charlie Rose message board, the most far-left group of posters you ever met outside of democraticunderground. It should be amusing how they react.

I think I may be the only avowed Conservative that's posted on that board in the last 9 months.

http://boards.charlierose.com/board/topic.asp?ti=4484

Qwinn

That's because if you look it up on the web, it's mysteriously absent on most websites that talk about him. Try looking up the political affiliation of the various Republican groundbreaking blacks -without- putting the word "Republican" in the search engine. I had to go through like 10 for each. It's really amazing. The party affiliation of successful black republicans is almost completely expunged, even on the Internet!

Qwinn

"It is a complete distortion of history."

To credit the Republicans is an equal distortion. The movement toward civil rights began long before the Republican Party was created. It began with the extension of voting rights to citizens that were not property owners.

Make note too that Lincoln's proclamation "freeing" the slaves only affected slaves in the Confederate States, while keeping slaves of the border states bound to slavery.

"To credit the Republicans is an equal distortion."

Please. For fifty years the media drumbeat has been "Conservatives are racist, Democrats are the only hope for civil rights, if you elect a Conservative pretty soon they'll be burning down the churches again.". What I have posted completely debunks this.

At the very least, the following can be said (and was):

"I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse. The elements of which the Republican party was composed gave better ground for the ultimate hope of the success of the colored man's cause than those of the Democratic party."

- FREDERICK DOUGLASS, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, chapter 47, p 579 (1941). [Quotation 1600, p 300]

So, no, it's not an "equal" distortion. However you slice it, the Republican Party deserves far more credit for civil rights than the Democrat Party does. It -definetly- deserves less blame for civil rights abuses and segregationist policies.

"The movement toward civil rights began long before the Republican Party was created. It began with the extension of voting rights to citizens that were not property owners."

No one said the Republican Party gave birth to civil rights. What was said was that civil rights gave birth to the Republican Party.

Qwinn

Self-correction:

"No one said the Republican Party gave birth to civil rights. What was said was that civil rights gave birth to the Republican Party."

In many ways, the Republican Party -advanced- and -enacted- civil rights. That's not the same as giving birth to the 19th century civil rights movement. Just wanted to clarify that because I can see how the first sentence might seem false.

But the main driving force for the formation of the Republican Party was to oppose the extension of slavery into the Territories.

Qwinn

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