You might be scratching your head
and asking: “When did the GOP ever have the African American vote to begin
with?”
The Republican Party has been joined
at the hip of African American freedom since before the Civil War. The same
strands of philosophical belief that underpinned Republican belief then — freedom,
equality, individual responsibility and opportunity for everyone in a vibrant
free-market economy — underpin the Republican Party today in clear contradistinction
to the freedom-crushing socialist policies of the modern Democrat Party.
Young African Americans are unaware
of the close historical tie between the Republican Party and the first civil
rights movement in America for many of their ancestors. They have been taught
and told that Republicans support only old rich white men and big business and
could care less about justice and equal rights under the law.
A young African American student said
I was the first white Republican she had ever met and talked to in-depth. She
was 21 years old at the time. “I grew up in a little rural town in eastern
North Carolina. I went to an almost all-black high school in Wilmington, and I
am about to graduate from North Carolina A&T University. Where would I have
met a white Republican to talk to about political philosophy anywhere along the
way, Mr. Hill?”
Had there been no Republican Party
running the country after the Civil War, Southern Democrats never would have
allowed even the brief decade or so of freedom and enfranchisement for former
slaves during the 19th century.
Republicans in Congress passed the
13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865; the 14th Amendment, which granted
full citizenship rights and protections to 4 million former slaves; and the
15th Amendment, which prevented states from denying voting rights for black
citizens.
A Republican Congress overrode
President Andrew Johnson’s veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which eradicated
laws in the South that prevented blacks from owning property, making contracts
and filing lawsuits.
Former Union general and two-term
Republican President Ulysses S. Grant was so committed to protecting the
freedom of the former slaves he sent federal troops into states such as
Louisiana and Mississippi to annihilate white supremacy groups like the KKK, White
Line and White League that were not only suppressing the black vote but killing
thousands of innocent citizens in the process.
Once black voters were protected at
the voting booth, more than 2,000 black men were elected to serve in public elective
office across the South during Reconstruction, every one of them Republican. More
than 600 were elected to state legislatures. Two black U.S. senators were sent
from Mississippi; 16 black congressmen were elected from other states.
Back then, Republicans could count
on nearly every Southern black vote in every election and received most of the
black vote until 1936. Republicans running for president today are lucky to get
5% of the black vote.
If a Republican presidential
candidate could ever garner the support of 18-20% of African American voters
nationwide — 6% more than Bob Dole received in 1996 — it would be impossible
for a Democrat candidate to win the White House in 2020 or any year thereafter.
Younger African Americans are not as
monolithically Democrat as their parents and grandparents; 15% of black voters
are registered unaffiliated, most of whom are under the age of 40. They can see
the failure of massive government programs, albeit well-intentioned, to help
many in the African American community as well as anyone.
As a senior black Republican adviser
has said, “African American voters have to like Republicans first before they
will listen to any of their policies or targeted political messages. Who will
be those Republicans?”
Perhaps a look back into the
intertwined history of the Republican Party and African Americans will give
common ground to begin those friendships and discussions. Times change and so
do political preferences; nothing stays the same forever when it comes to
politics in America.
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