Tag Archive for: lynching

Slavery, lynchings, segregation – thank the Dems

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February is Black History Month and today I am attending the Republican National Committee “Black Republican Trailblazers” luncheon at The Howard Theater in Washington DC.

I am proud not just this month, but every month of the accomplishments and achievements black Americans have contributed to these United States.

My own story is one connected to the legacy of the first black men to don the uniform of America, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, whose valor shined brilliantly at Fort Wagner during the Civil War. As well, prior to myself, the last black Republican Member of Congress from Florida was Rep. Josiah T. Walls. These are the stories we must continue to tell this month, and every day to our next generation of children and grandchildren so they may never forget the service and sacrifices that enable them to have the blessings of liberty and freedom.

At the same time, it is imperative for the Republican Party to tell its story, not just during this month alone, but to engage continuously with the black community.

The “Grand Ole Party” was established in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin for one single purpose: the abolition of slavery, a dark and heinous part of America’s history. The GOP was focused on the issue of individual freedom and ensuring the words of Thomas Jefferson came to fruition for America.

Sure, the start of the Civil War was not about the issue of slavery, but it was the first GOP president Abraham Lincoln, who realized after the stalemate victory at Antietam, that it had to be. The film “Lincoln” beautifully portrayed the dedication — and a little nefarious actions –of one man, of one party of men, to rectify a great wrong. They set in motion the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments that would begin to make our America a better country. The first black Members of Congress were Republicans. The first attempts to institute civil rights legislation came from Republicans.

The black community must never forget trailblazing men like Hiram Revels, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington. And today’s GOP needs to remember their history and connection to the black community as well.

Unfortunately, it was one person and one poor decision that altered the relationship between the black community and the GOP. That person was Richard Nixon. If Nixon had listened to prominent black Republicans such as Jackie Robinson rather than his coterie of white advisors, and supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he had been jailed — history may have been a bit different.

Instead, for fear of upsetting white Southerners — mostly Democrats – Nixon did not reach out to King, while John Kennedy did. From then on, during that generation in the South, there were three pictures in black homes (including my own): Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., and President Kennedy. In that one moment, the bond, the connection of the GOP to the black community, was severed.

From then on, the black community has put all its political eggs in one basket. But let me ask, how many of you invest your hard-earned capital in only one account? I believe most people diversify their capital in several investment accounts.

So, why is it that the black community invested all its political capital in one party? Liberal progressive detractors will vehemently throw themselves into a tizzy about this, but clearly in America, the black community has become almost politically irrelevant to one party and taken for granted by the other, to whom they have given blind allegiance.

The history of the black community at the hands of the Democrat party has been one of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, poll taxes and literacy tests. America’s first “progressive” President Woodrow Wilson even praised the racist film “Birth of a Nation.” Another American progressive president, Lyndon Johnson, put the black community on the road to decimation with the welfare nanny-state, and just look at the destruction of the black family.

The current progressive president, Barack Obama, cancelled the DC school voucher program in 2009 for deserving young black children, caving to pressure from the National Education Association, a Democrat teacher’s union. My liberal colleague at Fox News Channel, Juan Williams, called the decision to end the program, “Obama’s outrageous sin against our kids.”

So today we shall remember and honor the Black Republican Trailblazers of the past as we develop the Black Republican Pathfinders of the future. Those who will clear a new path for the black community to restore our inner cities, our families, our faith in God, and ring in the harmony of liberty. I am proud to be a black conservative Republican. Hate on me all you want, but my community has survived much worse from Democrats and progressives. And we shall persevere.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com under the title “Black History Month and the Republican legacy.” Featured image courtesy of Marie-Nacc Bez, Val de Marne, Ile de France, France.

FL Rep. Grayson: Did you know that Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, spoke at Ku Klux Klan rallies?

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For a larger view click on the image. Image courtesy of Dave Leventhal.

Florida Representative Alan Grayson (D – FL District 6) invoked the image of a burning cross in a fundraising email. The intent of his email was to discredit the TEA Party of Florida and its affiliates. In using this image of a burning cross perhaps Rep. Grayson does not know nor understand the history of the Ku Klux Klan?

Here are some facts about who really created and supported the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1926, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a guest speaker at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Silverlake, New Jersey. Sanger wrote in her biography, “Eventually the lights were switched on, the audience seated itself, and I was escorted to the platform, was introduced, and began to speak. Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York.”

Sanger was a proponent of Eugenics, the racial cleansing of American society. In Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12, Sanger wrote, “We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities.  The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

According to Wikipedia:

From the mid-1870s on in the Deep South, violence rose. In Mississippi, Louisiana, the Carolinas and Florida especially, the Democratic Party relied on paramilitary “White Line” groups such as the White Camelia to terrorize, intimidate and assassinate African American and white Republicans in an organized drive to regain power. In Mississippi, it was the Red Shirts; in Louisiana, the White League that were paramilitary groups carrying out goals of the Democratic Party to suppress black voting. Insurgents targeted politically active African Americans and unleashed violence in general community intimidation. Grant’s desire to keep Ohio in the Republican aisle and his attorney general’s maneuvering led to a failure to support the Mississippi governor with Federal troops. The campaign of terror worked. In Yazoo County, for instance, with a Negro population of 12,000, only seven votes were cast for Republicans. In 1875, Democrats swept into power in the state legislature.

Once Democrats regained power in Mississippi, Democrats in other states adopted the Mississippi Plan to control the election of 1876, using informal armed militias to assassinate political leaders, hunt down community members, intimidate and turn away voters, effectively suppressing African American suffrage and civil rights. In state after state, Democrats swept back to power.From 1868 to 1876, most years had 50–100 lynchings.

White Democrats passed laws and constitutional amendments making voter registration more complicated, to further exclude black voters from the polls.

Bob Unruh of World Net Daily, in his column “KKK’s 1st targets were Republicans” reports, “The original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white, according to a new television program and book, which describe how the Democrats started the KKK and for decades harassed the GOP with lynchings and threats. An estimated 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites died at the end of KKK ropes from 1882 to 1964.”

“The documentation has been assembled by David Barton of Wallbuilders and published in his book “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White,” which reveals that not only did the Democrats work hand-in-glove with the Ku Klux Klan for generations, they started the KKK and endorsed its mayhem,” writes Barton.

It appears Rep. Grayson and Democrats with the help of the IRS are again targeting those who oppose them and big government. Invoking the burning cross is in character especially for those who believe in supremacism.

The below video is the full text of Margaret Sanger’s autobiographical recollections on addressing the Ku Klux Klan: