Another great email from Fred:
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April 22, 2008
WHY DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING WAS A REPUBLICAN
By Fred Schnaubelt
Barack Obama has asked for a dialogue on race. Before beginning at the beginning of institutional racism in the U.S. do you remember Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama? He was the sheriff who unleashed police attack dogs and high pressure fire hoses on African-American children peacefully demonstrating in the 1960s. Those compelling TV pictures spread like a Rodney King beating across the country burning indelible impressions on me and all who watched. Bull Connor changed Civil Rights forever.
Sheriff Bull Connor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a racist and a Democrat, even though many people today mistakenly believe he was a Republican.
Condoleezza Rice speaking at Vanderbilt University said that when she was growing up it was the Democrats who refused to register her father to vote but Republicans did.
Reverend Wayne Perryman, a Seattle minister and the author of Unfounded Loyalty, takes us back to the beginning of institutionalized racism in the U.S. He filed in December 2004 a class action suit against the Democratic Party for reparations for its 200 years of oppression. The Democrat Party, since inception until 1964 was the party of slavery, secession and segregation. wayneperryman.com
“Most people are either a Democrat by design, or a Democrat by deception,” writes Perryman. “They either know the racist history of the Democrat Party and still chose to be a Democrat, or they were deceived into believing it a party that sincerely cared about Black people.” Although he is quick to concede the Democratic Party of today is not the same as the party of the past.
1. Perryman, articulates the following chronology: “History reveals that every piece of racist legislation that was ever passed and every racist terrorist attack that was ever inflicted on African-Americans was initiated by the members of the Democratic Party. From the formation of the Democratic Party in 1792 to the Civil Rights movement of 1960's, Congressional records show the Democrat Party passed no specific laws to help Blacks and every law that they introduced into Congress was designed to hurt Blacks.”
2. History reveals that the Republican Party was formed in 1854 to abolish slavery and challenge other racist legislative acts initiated by the Democratic Party. Some called it the Civil War, others called it the War Between the States, but to the African-Americans at that time, it was the War Between the Democrats and the Republicans over slavery. The Democrats gave their lives to expand it; Republicans gave their lives to ban it.”
3. During the Senate debates on the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, it was revealed that members of the Democratic Party formed many terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to murder and intimidate African-Americans voters. The Ku Klux Klan Act was a bill introduced by a Republican Congress to stop Klan Activities. Senate debates revealed that the Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.”
Perryman’s indictment continues: From 1792 until 2004, the Democratic Party (the oldest political party in America) never elected a Black man to the United States Senate, while the Republicans elected three.
During the first civil rights era it was Abolitionists and Radical Republicans such as Henry L. Morehouse (Morehouse University) and General Oliver Howard (Howard University) who founded many traditional Black colleges. Republicans fought to open them while Democrats fought to close them which is why many traditional Black colleges are named after white Republicans.
In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision Court records shows that it was the Democrats, with Chief Justice Roger Taney writing the majority opinion who classified Blacks as property rather than people. It was the racist laws of the Democrats that were responsible for two subsequent landmark cases: Plessy v Ferguson (separate but equal) and Brown v. The Board of Education. (“Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”)
Congressional records show that Democrats vigorously opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (introduced by Republicans) to abolish slavery, give citizenship to all African Americans born in the United States and, give Blacks the right to vote. Democrats voted unanimously against the 15th Amendment.
Congressional records prove that Democrats worked hard and long to prevent passage of the following laws that were passed by Republicans to achieve civil rights for African-Americans:
Civil Rights Act 1866
Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1957 (Pres. Eisenhower signed, Sen. John F. Kennedy voted against)
During the 1960's many Democrats, including Senators Al Gore Sr., Robert Byrd and Sam Erwin fought indefatigably to filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which passed only because more Republicans voted for it than Democrats). Democrat Senator Richard Russell addressed the Senate stating, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races…” With 18 Democrat Senators he organized the longest filibuster (56 days) in Senate history.
After signing the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act and issuing Executive Order 11478, Richard Nixon, a Republican, started what we know as Affirmative Action.
Not widely known, it was three white persons in opposition to the Democrats’ racist practices who started the NAACP.
While Democrats would prefer it suppressed, it was Democratic Attorney General, Robert Kennedy working for his brother the President, who approved secret wire taps and hidden microphones under Dr. Martin Luther King’s bed. The tapes were sent to his wife. Given the historical record of Republicans and Democrats then is it any wonder that Dr. King, like his life-long- Republican father, would be a Republican.
Republican President Ronald Reagan, over the objections of racist Republican Senator Jessie Helms, signed the law making Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday.
Today, after exclusively giving the Democrats their votes for the past 25 years, Perryman says the average African-American cannot point to one piece of civil rights legislation sponsored solely by the Democratic Party that was specifically designed to eradicate the unique problems that African-Americans face today. The Congressional record shows that all legislation (since 1964) has had strong bi-partisan support.
So how did the Democratic Party turn things around and get the support of Black Americans? President Lyndon Johnson took a hint from Otto Von Bismarck, father of the modern welfare state who wooed voters by inducing them to become dependents of the government. With the right to vote “uppity” African-Americans were fast becoming the dominant force in Southern politics and to insure the very survival of the Democratic Party it was imperative they be co-opted. Johnson was able to contrive the most brilliant public relations turnaround in the history of the United Sates. This was done through redistributive economics, by in effect, paying African-Americans to vote for Democrats in spite of the racist history of the Democratic Party. It was accomplished primarily through promises and concessions and the redistribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in “entitlement” programs commencing with the “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” programs. Barack Obama is right about one thing when he speaks of “promises not kept.” That has been the hallmark of the Democratic Party.
Rev. Perryman admonishes both parties to remember their past. “The Democrats must remember the terrible things they did to Blacks and apologize and the Republicans must remember the terrific things they did for Blacks and re-commit to complete the work that their predecessors started and died for.”
Schnaubelt, a San Diego City Councilman from 1977 – 1981 was San Diego’s first elected official to hire an African-American Chief of Staff, brought Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams to address the City Council, and was credited by Clarence Pendleton for his conversion from Democrat to Republican when appointed Chairman of the Civil Rights Commission.
Fred Schnaubelt
