Open Letter from African Americans to the Democratic Party

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.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Article published June 7, 2004
Woman tries to persuade fellow blacks to switch, vote Republican

Don Quixote tilting at windmills is one thing. But trying to convince Americans that the Republican Party is the historic and present day party for blacks and that the Democratic Party is full of racists who opposed civil rights legislation, well that is Frances Rice territory.

The difference is that Rice, one of the co-founders of the SaraMana Black Republican Club, is far from alone, has a few facts in her armory and, in her analysis, there already is a shift in attitudes.

We certainly have seen an increase in conservative, Republican blacks in prominent positions, particularly in the Bush administration, where the secretary of state and the national security adviser are both black.

There are conservative black writers and radio show hosts, such as Armstrong Williams, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and many others, along with a conservative black U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Locally, Sarasota had its first black female mayor who was a Republican, although she lost re-election. The black-owned Tempo News in Sarasota and several other black-owned newspapers endorsed Republican Jeb Bush for governor. And Jim Smith, former chairman of the Sarasota County Republican Party, is black.

SaraMana Black Republican Club was formed in April 2003 with 16 charter members. Seven months later it held its first dinner meeting with 200 people.

That's a lot burbling under the surface. But has the shift among high-profile, successful blacks translated to the broader black community? Not yet. Polls still show overwhelming black support for the Democratic Party, although one poll showed 37 percent of blacks now have a favorable view of the Republican Party. "Favorable" has thus far not translated into votes.

Rice is aiming to change that. She is a lifelong Republican, as were her parents before her. She grew up in Atlanta under Jim Crowe laws and racism that, she is quick to point out, were instituted by Democratic politicians.

"My family was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan, and they were all Democrats," she said. "Only with the Republican Party was I able to register to vote."

She joined the Army as a private and retired in 1994 as a lieutenant colonel and military lawyer, earning her degrees through the military and remaining a dedicated Republican.

But most of the rest of black America shifted in the 1960s toward the Democratic Party -- for reasons that included being taken for granted by Republicans -- and by the 1990s they were the most loyal voting block for Democrats.

Rice became motivated to get active in politics when she watched the debate over welfare reform in the 1990s and the Democrats attempts to block it at each turn. She believes that the welfare state that was meant to help poor blacks had so obviously failed by that point that defending it amounted to keeping blacks poor, ignorant and dependent.

And to her, that meant the Democratic Party was the same as it had always been.

Rice has now begun distributing information on the history of the Democratic Party and an open letter to the party that lays out three pages of pull-no-punches history of racism in the Democratic Party and ends with a demand for a written apology.

The letter includes well-known historical facts, such as the Republican Party being the party that freed the slaves and fought the Jim Crow laws in the South, and lesser known factoids about Democratic presidents Roosevelt and Truman rejecting anti-lynching laws.

She also includes little publicized numbers showing that 80 percent of House Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but only 61 percent of Democrats.

Rice has researched her topic and lived it. But only time will tell if she and others can persuade a substantial number of blacks to embrace Republicans.

Rod Thomson can be reached by e-mail at rod@plow.org, or by writing to the Herald-Tribune.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20040607&Category=COLUMNIST55&ArtNo=406070506&SectionCat=COLUMNIST99&Template=printart

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