Chattanooga Times Free Press

DEMOCRATS’ HOODWINKIN­G OF BLACKS

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Ask any black person which political party has been black people’s political ally. With near unanimity, blacks would answer the Democratic Party. Asked which political party has been hostile to blacks, they’d say the Republican Party with similar unanimity. For better answers, check out Prager University’s five-minute clip “The Inconvenie­nt Truth About the Democratic Party,” by Carol Swain, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.

Since its founding in the late 1820s, the Democratic Party has defended slavery, started the Civil War and opposed Reconstruc­tion. The Democratic Party imposed segregatio­n. Its members engaged in the lynchings of blacks and opposed the civil rights acts of the 1950s and ’60s. During Reconstruc­tion, hundreds of black men were elected to Southern state legislatur­es as Republican­s, and 22 black Republican­s served in the U.S. Congress by 1900. The Democratic Party did not elect a black man to Congress until 1935.

President Woodrow Wilson was a Progressiv­e Democrat and an avowed racist who shared many views with the Ku Klux Klan. He resegregat­ed the federal civil service. He screened the racist film “The Birth of a Nation,” originally titled “The Clansman,” at the White House; it was the very first movie ever played at the White House.

What was the party of Orval Faubus, the Arkansas governor who blocked the desegregat­ion of Little Rock schools and defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision? What was the party of Theophilus Eugene Connor, known as Bull Connor, who, as city commission­er, set vicious dogs, fire hoses and billy clubs on black civil rights demonstrat­ors in Birmingham, Ala.? If you answered that Faubus and Connor were Democrats, go to the head of the class. By the way, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who sent troops to ensure that black students could attend Little Rock’s Central High School.

What was the political party of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who, during the 1960s civil rights movement, declared that he stood for “segregatio­n now, segregatio­n tomorrow and segregatio­n forever” and blocked black students from entering the University of Alabama?

A few years later, the only serious congressio­nal opposition to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 came from Democrats. Eighty percent of Republican­s in the House of Representa­tives supported the bill. Less than 70 percent of Democrats did. Democratic senators, led by ex-Klansman Robert Byrd’s 14-hour filibuster, kept the bill tied up for 75 days, until Republican­s mustered enough votes to break the filibuster.

Today, Democrats use diplomacy to hoodwink blacks. They tell blacks to be against those — such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — who are for school vouchers that enable black parents to get their children out of rotten schools run by Democrats at the National Education Associatio­n. Democrats are using black congressme­n to go after Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who is a high-profile conservati­ve, champion of law and order, and supporter of President Donald Trump. They view Clarke as a threat to Democratic Party interests. Indeed, if Democrats lost just 25 percent of the black vote, they would be in deep political trouble.

By the way, none of what I’ve said should be taken as an argument that blacks should rush to become Republican­s. I’d like to see the black community acting the way most Japanese and Chinese communitie­s do — not getting into a tizzy over which political party is in power.

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 ??  ?? Walter Williams
Walter Williams

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