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Posted on 02/08/2006 8:01:27 PM PST by JulieRNR21
ARLINGTON, Va. --
When the 33rd Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gets underway in Washington, D.C., this week, the new National Black Republicans Association (NBRA) will be there in force, marking the first time a black Republican group co-sponsored what is perennially billed as America's premier conservative event.
NewsMax caught up with the energetic chairperson of NBRA, Frances Rice, on the evening of Feb. 6 as she was gearing up for two days of special "grass-roots" training events for her group that precede the formal CPAC kickoff.
Rice, who retired from the Army in 1984 after 20 years of active service as a judge advocate and who served as a member of President Ronald Reagan's Private Sector Initiatives Task Force, is proud of the rapid progress of her organization – noting that President Bush was publishing a special greeting to the group that was to be read Wednesday evening in conjunction with the group's Pioneer Dinner at this year's CPAC venue at the Omni-Shoreham Hotel in Washington. D.C.
Congresswoman Katherine Harris, R-Fla., will read the presidential greeting honoring the NBRA, which was formed just this past August. The NBRA has endorsed Harris in her run for the U.S. Senate, emphasizing, as Rice tells NewsMax, "her consistent support of black Republicans in Florida and black communities in her district."
Rice, who describes her organization as "committed to returning African-Americans to their Republican Party roots," tells NewsMax that the NBRA hopes, among other things, to move Republican political activism away from the use of traditional "paid political operatives" and into the hands of rank-and-file Republicans who are networked and who beat the Republican drum in America's neighborhoods – particularly black neighborhoods:
"There's nothing like having your neighbors come to talk with you," she says.
The message: "To return black Americans to their Republican Party roots by enlightening them about how Republicans fought for their freedom and civil rights, and are now fighting for their educational and economic advancement."
To this end, Rice was instrumental in getting CPAC linked up with Arlington-based The Leadership Institute (TLI), which, since 1979, has been a training ground for tomorrow's conservative leaders.
Participants at CPAC 2006 will have the opportunity to participate in five of their most popular seminars, including a Grass Roots Communications Workshop, an Effective Television Techniques Workshop, a Blogging workshop, a Public Speaking Workshop, and a Campus Action Workshop.
Some 100 NBRA volunteers from around the country will not only be attending the workshops during the formal CPAC sessions, but will be on hand for a special "Grass Roots Activist Campaign School" at TLI's Arlington campus.
"We want blacks to be effective in the political process," Rice says.
There is absolutely no upward mobility in the Dem party for blacks. They are led by dinosaurs, and they are going nowhere. (Obama the exception, but he's a flash in the pan, IMO).
It is in the Republican party that blacks can advance without hindrance.
Here in Ohio, Blackwell is a shining example. He is unabashedly conservative, a strong leader, and bucking the RINO Republican establishment, and is way ahead in the polls.
Hopefully Blackwell, Steele, and Swann can start to change hearts and minds because they are such visible examples of what we ALL know. Conservative ideals are what will bring blacks to success and equality. Liberal 'ideals' beat them down.
About six or seven years ago, Martin Luther King III was interviewed on C-SPAN and a caller assumed that his father was a Democrat. King then pointed out that his father was an independent thinker who supported both Democrats and Republicans and his grandfather was an historical Republican.
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Here in Ohio, Blackwell is a shining example. He is unabashedly conservative, a strong leader, and bucking the RINO Republican establishment, and is way ahead in the polls.
Hopefully Blackwell, Steele, and Swann can start to change hearts and minds because they are such visible examples of what we ALL know. Conservative ideals are what will bring blacks to success and equality. Liberal 'ideals' beat them down.
I think this puts the Republican Party ahead of the Democratic Party because it shows that if you have big ideas and are a person of character, we will support you regardless of your skin color.
This is the party of OPPORTUNITY!!! What you do with it is up to you.
Fix up Ohio a bit, and then run for President.
Works for me!
Many Americans know very little about the proud civil rights heritage & history of the GOP!
Y'know what? You, and people like you, need to learn to take your victories where you find them. The Black vote in Ohio in 2004 was 16%, a major increase from 2000, and represented the margin of victory in the state of Ohio for the President. Without the Black Republican vote in one state, you'd be pi$$ing yourself over President Kerry's latest blunder. Wise up.
Many are 'wising up' to the Democrats' own history with Race........
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond probably spoke for most blacks and liberals last week when he said the Republican Party is equivalent to the Nazi Party...
For decades, it has been a template of the major media that Republicans are the party of racism. It repeats uncritically any charges of Republican racism, no matter how unfounded. Democrats, on the other hand, are always given a pass whenever they commit racist offenses...
Slavery is the greatest evil ever to beset black people in this country. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was intense political debate on what to do about it. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 for the express purpose of ending slavery. The Democratic Party, by contrast, defended it to the bitter end.
Just to show how far Democrats would go to defend slavery, it's worth remembering what happened to Sen. Charles Sumner, Republican of Massachusetts. After giving a speech denouncing slavery in 1856, he was viciously beaten by Rep. Preston Brooks, Democrat of South Carolina, for daring to question the right to own slaves. Being a coward, Brooks waited until the elderly Sumner was seated alone at his desk in the Senate and, without warning, struck him repeatedly with a cane. It took months for Sumner to recover.
In 1858, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, Democrat of Illinois, debated Republican Abraham Lincoln on the question of slavery. Said Douglas during one of those debates: "For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form...
So prevalent were these views in the Democratic Party that Douglas was named its presidential candidate in 1860...
The Ku Klux Klan was virtually an auxiliary arm of the Democratic Party, and any black (or white) who threatened the party's domination was liable to be beaten or lynched...
President Woodrow Wilson, the second Democrat to serve since the Civil War, reintroduced segregation throughout the federal government immediately upon taking office in 1913. Avowed racists such as Josephus Daniels and Albert Burleson were named Cabinet secretaries. Black leaders like W.E.B. DuBois, who had strongly supported Wilson, were bitterly disappointed...
When Franklin D. Roosevelt had his first opportunity to name a member of the Supreme Court, he appointed a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama. In 1944, FDR chose as his vice president Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922. Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt resisted Republican efforts to pass a federal law against lynching, and he opposed integration of the armed forces.
Another Ku Klux Klan member, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage. He is still a member of the U.S. Senate today...
In short, the historical record clearly shows that Democrats, not Republicans, have been the party of racism in this country.
---Bruce Bartlett, TownHall.com
February 7, 2006
White House in 2012. It will take 6 years to fix Ohio right and J. Kenneth is the right guy to do it!!!
You're most welcome Julie. We have to get the word out and keep it going.
I never realized it until you posted those pics...they are all such attractive people (in addition to their many talents, of course). Ever notice how the leaders in the Republican party are so much more attractive than their counterparts? I don't know why that is...perhaps because the democrats are always such nasty, vindictive people. Go figure.
But how about this as a thought? Dick Cheney runs in 2008 with Blackwell as VP (he'll have to work fast in Ohio!), and then Cheney drops out of the next election, and Blackwell runs and wins in 2012.
Whaddya think?? Would it work?
Could work, but I really don't think Cheney's gonna run.
I don't think so either.............just dreaming. ;)
I like THAT dream too, Julie. :)
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