Open Letter from African Americans to the Democratic Party

Strange Cosmos.com ^ | 06/11/04 | Frances Rice

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We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:

Whereas in the early 1600’s 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development,

Whereas reconciliation and healing always begin with an apology and an effort to repay those who have been wronged,

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,

Whereas, according to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Ku Klux Klan supporters,

Whereas from 1870 to 1930, in an effort to deny African Americans their civil rights and to keep African Americans from voting Republican, thousands of African Americans were shot, beaten, lynched, mutilated, and burned to death by Ku Klux Klan terrorists from the Democratic Party,

Whereas Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman rejected anti-lynching laws and efforts to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission,

Whereas the Democratic party has used racist demagoguery to deceive African Americans about the history of the Republican Party that: (a) started as the anti-slavery party in 1854, (b) fought to free African Americans from slavery, (c) designed Reconstruction, a ten-year period of unprecedented political power for African Americans, (d) passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution granting African Americans freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote, (e) passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 granting African Americans protection from the Black Codes and prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, (f) passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 granting African Americans protection from the Jim Crow laws, (g) established Affirmative Action programs to help African Americans proper with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan that set the first goals and timetables and his 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act that made Affirmative Action Programs the law of our nation, and (h) never sponsored or launched a program, passed laws, or engaged in practices that resulted in the death of millions of African Americans,

Whereas Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (a 1954 decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) was a landmark civil rights case that was designed to overturn the racist practices that were established by the Democratic Party,

Whereas after Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of African Americans, he banned African American newspapers from the military shortly after taking office because he was convinced the newspapers were communists,

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law, opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues.

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist,

Whereas Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, made a 14-hour filibuster speech in the Senate in June 1964 in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was heralded in April 2004 by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd as a senator who would have been a great leader during the Civil War,

Whereas when the 1964 Civil Rights Act came up for vote, Senator Al Gore, Sr. and the rest of the Southern Democrats voted against the bill,

Whereas in the House of Representatives only 61 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act as compared to 80 percent of Republicans, and in the Senate only 69 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, compared to 82 percent of the Republicans,

Whereas Democratic President Bill Clinton sent troops to Europe to protect the citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo while allowing an estimated 800,000 black Rwandans to be massacred in Africa, vetoed the welfare reform law twice before signing it, and refused to comply with a court order to have shipping companies develop an Affirmative Action Plan,

Whereas Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore created harmful racial division when he falsely claimed that the 2000 presidential election was “stolen” from him and that African Americans in Florida were disenfranchised, even though a second recount of Florida votes by the “Miami Herald” and a consortium of major news organizations confirmed that he lost the election, and a ruling by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission declared that African Americans were not denied the right to vote,

Whereas the Democratic Party's soft bigotry of low expectations and social promotions have consigned African Americans to economic bondage and created a culture of dependency on government social programs,

Whereas the Democratic Party's use of deception and fear to block welfare reform, the faith-based initiative and school choice that would help African Americans prosper is consistent with the Democratic Party's heritage of racism that included sanctioning of slavery and kukluxery, a perversion of moral sentiment among leaders of the Democratic Party whose racist legacy bode ill until this generation of African Americans,

Now, therefore, for the above and other documented atrocities and accumulated wrongs inflicted upon African Americans, we demand a formal written apology and other appropriate remuneration from the leadership of the Democratic party. ##### Frances Rice is an attorney and an African-American woman who served in the Army for 20 years before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. While in the Army she served as a company commander, an adjutant in a basic combat training brigade and a prosecutor in courts-marital. Upon retiring, she was awarded the Legion of Merit. She is currently serving on the Board of the Military Officers Association of Sarasota, the SaraMana Black Republican Club and the SaraMana Community Development Corporation, a non-profit organization that helps low-income residents become homeowners and small business owners. In these positions, she puts both her Juris Doctorate and MBA degrees to good use. She was recently appointed by Governor Jeb Bush to serve on the Medal of Merit Board for the state of Florida. Frances is married to Peter Rice, a retired diplomat from the U.S. Department of State.

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I'm not sure why we automatically exerpt Strange Cosmos. This is a great read except for the reparations part. At least she's asking the Democratic party for the reparations rather than the taxpayer.

[Boxsford]

thanks for posting this/ it is a great read

[Izzy Dunne]

Read it fast - I'm sure that this will never see the light of day (ABCNNBCBS / NYT / LAT, etc.)

[shortstop]

I'm glad the system printed the entire article. When I posted it, it indicated it would be exerpted.

[Calpernia]

Why is this on Strange Cosmo? It won't be taken seriously there.

[Think free or die]

Good find.

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**Why is this on Strange Cosmos? It won't be taken seriously there.** I think the New York Times and the Washington Post sent her a rejection letter.

[DustyMoment]

Too funny!! This twit recognizes how the Dem Party has mistreated blacks for centuries and worked against them all the while taking them for granted and what does she do?

Rather than take he knowledge, her degrees, education and experience to the Republican Party where she would be welcomed, she writes this tripe demanding an apology from the Dems and reparations. Which means that she is a Dem through and through and has no intention of swapping parties, she wants the Dems to slap their foreheads and say "Wow! She's right!"

Hate to tell her - she's in for a very long wait.

[Calpernia]

How about lending your ping lists for this retired Lieutenant Colonel's open letter?

[Calpernia]

Did I misunderstand the last paragraph? I read it as the Lieutenant Colonel asking the Democratic Party to take responsibility for historic events. That was the group that has tried to rewrite history and blame others.

[expatpat]

That's a good idea -- make only registered Democrats pay the reparations since Democrats were the ones who supported slavery.

[Independentamerican]

Well I'll be. I did not learn any of those things in the American History book I just read last semester. I think I am going to have to do some digging. And if this is true why the heck was none of this information in my book. Thank god I only earned a B in that class because it looks like to struggle for the A would have been a waste of time.

[Jaxter]

Read it again. She IS a Republican. This is an answer to all those liberal blacks that say the US needs to pay them reparations. She's simply saying that if any institution around today has a history of being anti-black it's the democrats. I doubt this lady would accept reparations from any source.

[FrankR]

"she writes this tripe demanding an apology from the Dems and reparations."

Those dems are big on apologies, aren't they? If they think they've been wronged, they demand apologies [and a few bucks too, usually].

But if the DO something wrong, they think an "apology" should fix it all, and they should be forgiven as long as they hang a sad face.

I watch trials on TV, they rail about the "suspect showing no remorse" and getting a stiffer sentence for it. So, I guess if they stand there, apologize, cry, and look pitiful, we reduce the charge of murder to "time served"?

They're children, I tell you...CHILDREN. They don't seem to have any understanding as to what the world is about.

Sure the dims have mistreated blacks...they USE blacks everyday for their own, selfish, political ends. But this "open letter from blacks" doesn't represent ALL blacks (that would be stereotyping and profiling).

Liberals didn't abolish slavery, they only took them from small farms, and put them into one, large group...called DemocRATS. But if they are nothing less, they're "loyal" to the "party".

[MeekOneGOP]

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[onyx]

She's right on.
Thanks for the ping, Meek.

[onyx]

This is a good one.

[cake_crumb]

LOL! Thanks for the ping. This open letter is the most damning indictment against "Duh Party of Duh Peeple" I have ever seen!

[JulieRNR21]

Already posted here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1147682/posts