Loyalty Needn't Trouble Black Republican

tampa tribune ^ | 1-5-03 | joe brown

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

Loyalty Needn't Trouble Black Republican

JOSEPH H. BROWN
Published: Jan 5, 2003

A couple of weeks ago in this section, Al McCray, a local black businessman, wrote a column asking, ``Should I Remain A Republican?'' McCray questioned his party affiliation after Sen. Trent Lott, R- Miss., waxed nostalgic at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party about how much better off the nation would be had the centenarian - then a segregationist Dixiecrat - won the presidency in 1948. Lott has since resigned as Republican Senate leader.

I would suggest McCray study the history of the two major parties. It would give him a better perspective on why he doesn't need to justify his party affiliation because, as someone once put it, too many blacks are convinced that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat and George Wallace a Republican.

`All Else Is The Sea'

While today's GOP is accused of being opposed to the advancement of black Americans, the Democratic Party of the late 19th and early 20th century made no secret of its antiblack agenda. It held ``white only'' primaries and supported Jim Crow legislation in the South, where 90 percent of blacks lived until the 1920s.

Which is why Frederick Douglass, the most prominent black spokesman following the Civil War, was a staunch Republican. ``The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea,'' Douglass told black Americans. Thus blacks remained loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln for decades.

That began to change with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, even though the Democratic Party remained the home of segregationists. As late as 1960, 35 percent of black voters supported the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. It wasn't until the 1964 election and Barry Goldwater's blatant appeal to racist voters that the divorce of the GOP and black America was finalized.

It's also important to remember that a higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans voted against the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the June 27, 1964, Congressional Quarterly, 61 percent of House Democrats voted for the bill, compared with 80 percent of Republicans. In the Senate, 69 percent of Democrats voted for the bill (46 for, 21 against) vs. 80 percent of Republicans (27 for, six against).

Which may help explain why Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican, received a special award for his remarkable civil rights leadership from Roy Wilkins, secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

It's also important to note that even though the Democratic Party was for decades the home of segregationists, the handful of blacks in Congress from the 1930s to the 1960s, including Adam Clayton Powell of New York and William Dawson of Illinois, were all Democrats. If they didn't have to rationalize their party affiliation, neither should Al McCray.

Lott Episode Shows Progress

Trent Lott has been catching a lot of flak for his remarks, but he sounded like a choirboy compared with a Mississippi senator from a few generations ago.

A virulent white supremacist who joined the Senate in 1935, Theodore Bilbo went so far as to introduce an amendment to a relief bill that would provide funds for the deportation of all blacks to Liberia. He once called Congresswoman Claire Booth Luce a ``nigger lover'' and in 1938 praised Adolf Hitler on the Senate floor.

(And, yes, he was a Democrat.)

Yet there was never the avalanche of criticism against Bilbo as there was against Trent Lott. Bilbo eventually lost his Senate seat because of corruption, not racism.

Which is why the denunciation of Lott by GOP officials and conservative commentators shows how much progress we've made. Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

good article

[Jhoffa_]

.. too many blacks are convinced that Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat and George Wallace a Republican.

My favorite part.

[adakotab]

I believe the blacks in Congress in the 20's and 30's were Republicans, not Democrats.

[facedown]

ping

[Jhoffa_]

Of interest to you perhaps?

[Jhoffa_]

Posting in stereo is now supported.

[VRWC For Truth]

Bump

[Fiddlstix]

Good Post!

[facedown]

Posting in stereo is now supported.

I'm holding out for surround sound.

[fieldmarshaldj]

There was only 1 Black in Congress after Jim Crow went into full effect from between 1901-1935, and that was Chicago's Oscar Stanton DePriest, a Conservative Republican from South Side. He was defeated after serving 3 terms in 1934 by the first Black Democrat ever elected to Congress, Arthur Wergs Mitchell. No Black Republican was ever elected again to the House until the Virgin Islands' US Delegate Melvin Evans was in 1978.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Bilbo never lost his seat, he died of (appropriately, as Charles Evers said) cancer of the mouth. He was under investigation the year of his death (1947) for fraud in relation to government contracts awarded during WW2 and was shortly about to be removed from office pending its outcome. Bilbo was a big-government liberal, too. Contrast that with the mentioned Clare Boothe Luce, an erudite and classy Conservative Republican who was the Ann Coulter of her day. She retired the same year Bilbo died.

[Sonny M]

It wasn't until the 1964 election and Barry Goldwater's blatant appeal to racist voters that the divorce of the GOP and black America was finalized.

This I disagree with, I don't see how supporting the constitution with the way it was written, can be construed as racism. This country would have been far better off today if Goldwater had won.

[Jhoffa_]

This I disagree with, I don't see how supporting the constitution with the way it was written, can be construed as racism.

What was the constitutional rub here exactly?

(The Goldwater years were long before me.. )

[Sonny M]

He preached states rights, smaller and more limited government, strong defense. He was very clear in that he supported every amendment of the constitution, and felt that what wasn't federal matters should be state matters. The closest thing you'd find to a Goldwater would be Ronald Reagan who was inspired by Goldwater. He also had a simple belief, taxes are supposed to be bills by the government for services they provide, not a means to redistribute wealth from one to another. He also wasn't a hypocrit. He meant states right regardless of what they did, like it or not. Our current president, Bush seems to believe in states rights only on issues where the states agree with him (see oregon).

[dubyajames]

This is very true. There was not another black Republican in a voting position in the House until Gary Franks won a seat from Connecticut in 1990. Although Edward Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate by Massachusetts as a Republican in 1966. He served two terms but was defeated by Paul Tsongas in 1978.

[dubyajames]

Goldwater said in his autobiography that he wanted to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he found two sections unconstitutional. I agree that he did not pander to racists, because he told an audience in South Carolina that he would enforce the the new civil rights law if elected president.

He had voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, and had supported the desegregation of Phoenix. He wasn't a segregationist, just a libertarian/constitutionalist.

[Claire Voyant]

This information needs to be put on the DEMOCRATS Internet Sites so that they can actually get the TRUTH!!! How can we get this posted on a Democrat site???

[gunnedah]

You all missed this dudes mark. He like a lot of others use their race,gender and sexuality for handouts and blackmail.That is until it comes time for the feet to hit the pavement and do a little something other than bellyache.What are you doing for me right now?