Free Republic

One current and one recent Florida county director for the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization have switched party designations from Democrat to Republican, showing some of the first signs that the Republican Party's efforts to reach out to blacks are working. Darryl E. Rouson, recent past president of St. Petersburg chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Derrick Wallace, Orange County chapter president, both have registered Republican in the past two months. The announcements were seen as a boon for state and national Republicans eagerly seeking allies in efforts to reach out to...

He's been courted by the likes of Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist and legions of Tampa Bay Republican activists. Last week, Darryl Rouson, the never dull former president of the St. Petersburg NAACP, took the plunge and became a Republican. "It's our heritage, and it can be our legacy," said Rouson, invoking past Republicans including Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and Frederick Douglass. "I know it's not a very popular thing among a lot of African-Americans, but I just believe we should be at every table and speak the truth." The St. Petersburg lawyer and vocal antidrug crusader had already...