Since Democrats routinely accuse America’s Founders and present-day Republicans of racism, we do well to examine the Democrat Party’s track record on the issue of race. We’re not trying to be pro-Republican or even anti-Democrat but simply wish to learn what happened. Our operative question is, “What events have occurred with regard to Democrats and black Americans that, by and large, the public doesn’t know—but needs to”? With just one exception (the second item), items on this list appear in Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 of a series of articles titled “The Importance of Getting History Right.”
Our operative question is, “What events have occurred with regard to Democrats and black Americans that, by and large, the public doesn’t know—but needs to”?
First, many black soldiers fought alongside whites in the Revolutionary War. Their contributions to the cause of liberty and American independence truly were incalculable. In an article titled “Black Revolutionary War Heroes” writer and speaker Amy Reid cites some tremendous examples of African American contributions to American Independence and freedom. Specifically, she mentions Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, Wentworth Cheswell, James Armistead, Prince Eastabrook, Prince Whipple, and Oliver Cromwell. To this list we can add the name of Salem Poor. He was honored on a postage stamp in 1975.
Understandably, because most were enslaved, they wanted to lend aid to whichever side would offer them the greater opportunity for freedom. Historian Edward Ayres writes, “Enslaved blacks made their own assessment of the conflict and supported the side that offered the best opportunity to escape bondage.” Yet there were some who saw potential and benefit in helping give birth to a new nation not beholden to England. A good number of
free and enslaved African Americans in New England were willing to take up arms against the British. As soon states found it increasingly difficult to fill their enlistment quotas, they began to turn to this untapped pool of manpower. Eventually every state above the Potomac River recruited slaves for military service, usually in exchange for their freedom. By the end of the war from 5,000 to 8,000 blacks had served the American cause in some capacity, either on the battlefield, behind the lines in noncombatant roles, or on the seas.
Blacks “fought, drilled, marched, ate and slept alongside their white counterparts. There was never enough food or clothes or even pay for anyone, but they shared their hardships equally.” Military historian Major Glenn Williams has said, “I’ve heard one analysis say that the Army during the Revolutionary War was the most integrated that the Army would be until the Korean War. World War I and World War II both, and of course the Civil War, there were lots of blacks in uniform, but the men were segregated into separate units.”
Second, on March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dred Scott case. By a 7 to 2 margin, the court ruled that blacks never could become United States citizens. According to the US Constitution, the majority declared, Mr. Scott, the black slave who had sued for his freedom before the court, was property and not a person. The doctor who owned Scott had moved to areas where slavery was prohibited, but he had taken Scott with him and treated him as his slave anyway. The ruling struck down the Missouri Compromise, thereby establishing slavery in every US territory.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the majority opinion for the court. Justices John Archibald Campbell, John Catron, Peter Vivian Daniel, Robert Cooper Grier, Samuel Nelson, and James Moore Wayne concurred. All were Democrats. Both of the justices who dissented, Benjamin R. Curtis and John McLean, were Republicans. Benjamin Curtis actually was so distraught by the majority opinion that he resigned from his position on the court. For more information about Dred Scott, go here.
Third, numerous blacks were elected to Congress during Reconstruction after the Civil War. All of the first black Members of Congress were Republicans.
The first seven were
- Senator Hiram Revels from Mississippi,
- Representative Benjamin Sterling Turner from Alabama,
- Representative Robert C. De Large from South Carolina,
- Representative Josiah Thomas Walls from Florida,
- Representative Jefferson Franklin Long from Georgia,
- Representative Joseph Hayne Rainey from South Carolina, and
- Robert Brown Elliott, also from South Carolina.
These men courageously faced threats and fierce opposition from those who never wanted to free the slaves in the first place, many of whom were Democrats.
Fourth, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially ended slavery in the United States. The US Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, and the US House of Representatives passed it on January 31, 1865. One hundred eighteen out of 118 Republicans—100 percent—voted for the amendment, but a mere 19 of 82 Democrats—23 percent—voted for it (see here and here). “Among Democrats, 63 percent of senators and 78 percent of House members voted: ‘No.’”
The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the US House of Representatives is celebrated on January 31, 1865.
Fifth, the 14th Amendment specifies that all Americans will have equal protection under the law. “In 1866 94 percent of GOP senators and 96 percent of GOP House members approved” the measure. Every single Democrat in Congress voted no.
Sixth, the 15th Amendment guarantees the right to vote for every American, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” At the time Congress passed it, there were a total of 56 congressional Democrats, and not one of them voted for it. The 15th Amendment would go on to be ratified on February 3, 1870.
Seventh, the Democrat platform of 1860 “continued to campaign for immigrant rights and slavery. The 1864 platform denounced the Civil War and called for negotiations with the Confederacy. The 1868 platform denounced ‘negro supremacy’.” Blacks haven’t been the exclusive targets of Democrat racism, however. Democrat Party platforms from the last thirty years of the 19th century, as well as the 1900 platform, show that Asians, the Chinese, “the Mongolian race,” “servile races,” and the Japanese have been targets as well. During this time, Democrats didn’t abandon racism toward blacks, either; their 1892 platform decried blacks’ voting rights.
Eighth, Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). According to Larry Elder,
In 1872 congressional investigations, Democrats admitted beginning the Klan as an effort to stop the spread of the Republican Party and to re-establish Democratic control in Southern states. As PBS’ “American Experience” notes, “In outright defiance of the Republican-led federal government, Southern Democrats formed organizations that violently intimidated blacks and Republicans who tried to win political power. The most prominent of these, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in Pulaski, Tenn., in 1865.” Blacks, who were all Republican at that time, became the primary targets of violence.
Ninth, the election of 1876 was mired in controversy. While Democrat Samuel J. Tilden had, without question, won the popular vote, neither he nor Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had the number of electoral votes required to win the presidency. In a compromise, Hayes was awarded the electoral votes he needed to win, and federal troops were withdrawn from the South, formally ending the Reconstruction era. According to the website Digital History,
When the federal troops were withdrawn, the Republican governments in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina collapsed, bringing Reconstruction to a formal end.
Under the so-called Compromise of 1877, the national government would no longer intervene in southern affairs. This would permit the imposition of racial segregation and the disfranchisement of black voters.
When the federal troops were withdrawn from the South, the Republican governments in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina collapsed, bringing Reconstruction to a formal end. Under the so-called Compromise of 1877, the national government would no longer intervene in southern affairs. This would permit the imposition of racial segregation and the disfranchisement of black voters.
—Digital History—
Tenth, in the election of 1880, Democrats nominated Winfield Scott Hancock, who had been a Union general during the Civil War. He’d emerged a war hero, but significantly, “Hancock was a Democrat who fought to preserve the Union but not to end slavery or see Black Americans protected by the United States Constitution.”
It was a very shrewd move on the part of Democrats. Recognizing this, Republicans distributed a handbill that highlighted the stark differences between the two parties—and that effectively laid out reasons not to vote for the Democratic ticket.
While today some of the language used in the flyer would be considered inappropriate, the points it conveyed resonated with the public. In the end, the popular vote was very close, even though the vote in the electoral college was not. James A. Garfield was elected.
Eleventh, racist Democrats in the South after the Civil War no longer had the institution of slavery to bring blacks down, so they found other ways. “Jim Crow laws” were widely used for this purpose. Jim Crow was a character created by Thomas “Daddy” Rice. In the 1830s, Rice wrote and performed for audiences in blackface and spoke in a black dialect. The name Jim Crow caught on, and by the late 1830s it had become a negative term people used to refer to a black man. We’ve noted that during Reconstruction (a period lasting from 1855-1877), federal laws were passed that afforded certain basic civil rights to blacks. However, in
the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures, having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate blacks to suppress their voting. Extensive voter fraud was also used. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, with increasing violence against blacks during campaigns from 1868 onward. In 1877, a national Democratic Party compromise to gain Southern support in the presidential election [an event we highlighted in our eighth point on this list] resulted in the government’s withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained political power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, Democratic Redeemer governments legislated Jim Crow laws, officially segregating black people from the white population.
—Not Just in the South—
Democrats running for office in Ohio in 1867
Go here for more information.
Go here and here to read some examples of Jim Crow laws and to learn about the segregation and oppression they engendered. Jim Crow laws were enacted not just during the 19th century in the years following the Civil War, but also well into the 20th century.
Twelfth, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921, was a Democrat who promoted and adopted racist policies and who glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Under Wilson, the federal government resegregated numerous agencies in the US government. Yes, resegregated. Integration had taken place during Reconstruction decades before Wilson took office. Wilson “brought with him an administration loaded with white supremacists who segregated offices and removed black men from political appointments.”
In 1915, President Wilson also arranged for The Birth of a Nation, a silent movie glorifying the Ku Klux Klan, to be screened at the White House. The Birth of a Nation was successful and contributed to a resurgence of the Klan. The film was the first film to be shown in the executive mansion. Wilson’s interest in the movie shouldn’t surprise us, because he was quoted in it.
Thirteenth, the Ku Klux Klan continued its campaign of intimidation, and no tactic in the KKK’s arsenal was more effective than lynching.1 You can understand why. It’s important for us to know that
• Between 1886 and 1968 there were 4,743 lynchings recorded.
• There were 3,446 blacks lynched out of the 4,743 lynchings. That calls [counts] for 72.7% of [the] lynchings.
• Whites accounted for the extra 27.3%.
These are just the lynchings that were recorded! In 1922, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill authored by Missouri Republican Representative Leonidas Dyer that would have made lynching a federal crime. President Warren G. Harding supported the bill, but Senate Democrats from southern states filibustered it, thereby blocking its passage. They filibustered it again in 1923 and 1924.
In 1922, 1923, and 1924, Senate Democrats from southern states filibustered a bill authored by Missouri Republican Representative Leonidas Dyer that would have made lynching a federal crime.
Fourteenth, the Democrat Convention in 1924 was called Klanbake because of the controversy that swirled around it involving the Ku Klux Klan. Not all Democrats supported the revived KKK, and some even wanted the party’s platform to condemn the Klan for its violent activities. A plank was proposed. Pro-Klan delegates opposed the candidacy of New York Governor Al Smith (a Catholic) and supported the candidacy of his chief opponent, William McAdoo (a Protestant). The convention was deeply divided. Writing about the proceedings, Randy Dotinga seasons his report with quotes from Robert K. Murray, a historian.
The vicious KKK debate finally ended in a chaotic two-hour vote that produced the most “prolonged pandemonium in an American political gathering.”
“The delegates engaged in fist fights, arguments, name calling, wrestling matches, and brawls, while the galleries howled and stomped their feet.” The fighting veered toward a riot that was only averted when 1,000 NYC cops hurried to the scene.
Debate over adopting the anti-Klan plank was fierce. In the end, the plank was rejected by a vote of 546.15 to 542.85. In Celebration, “tens of thousands of hooded Klansmen rallied in a field in New Jersey, across the river from New York City. This event…was also attended by hundreds of Klan delegates to the convention, who burned crosses, urged violence and intimidation against African Americans and Catholics, and attacked effigies of Smith.”
After casting 103 ballots, delegates nominated a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, to run for president on the Democratic ticket. He would lose to Republican Calvin Coolidge in November.
Fifteenth, Democrat Hugo Black, who was a US Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. As a US Senator, Black strongly opposed anti-lynching legislation, even when the sponsors of the bill also were Democrats.
In 1935 Black led a filibuster of the Wagner-Costigan anti-lynching bill. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that when a motion to end the fillibuster was defeated “[t]he southerners- headed by Tom Connally of Texas and Hugo Black of Alabama—grinned at each other and shook hands.”
Sixteenth, Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Hugo Black to the Supreme Court in 1937. He served until September 17 1971, just days before his death. Shortly after Black became an Associate Justice, reporter Ray Sprigle of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a story disclosing Black’s involvement in the KKK. The report caused quite a stir, and Sprigle won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. As a Supreme Court Justice, Black “went on to reintroduce America to the long-dormant phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ twisting its meaning. Black also wrote the majority opinion that deemed internment camps in the United States constitutional in 1944.”
Seventeenth, in 1938, during a filibuster of the Wagner-Van Nuys anti-lynching bill—a bill, by the way, bearing the names of two Democrat senators, Robert Wagner and Frederick Van Nuys— Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, also a Democrat, declared,
If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.
Eighteenth, in 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed James Byrmes to the US Supreme Court. Byrmes was a segregationist who in 1919 said, “This is a white man’s country, and will always remain a white man’s country.”
Nineteenth, FDR committed racist acts and failed to defend races who were vulnerable.
- In 1942, internment camps were established by Executive Order 9066 to house American citizens descended from Japanese and Japanese expatriates.
Jesse Owens had defied the propaganda of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany by winning four gold medals on German soil at the Berlin Olympics of 1936. After the games, FDR invited only the white athletes to meet with him. Of course, Owens received no such invitation.
FDR invited only white athletes to meet with him following the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
- While Roosevelt was critical of lynching, he would not support a federal anti-lynching law. He said Southern Democrats, especially Senators, would retaliate by blocking other bills Roosevelt supported that were essential for the country’s survival: “If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk.”
- FDR also has been accused of not doing enough to help the Jews during the Holocaust and World War 2.
Twentieth, evangelist Billy Graham led a crusade in Jackson, Mississippi in 1952. Graham’s policy was clear regarding race—members of all races would be welcome at his events. Mississippi Democrat Governor Hugh White didn’t like the policy and asked Graham to schedule different services for white and black audiences. Graham refused.
Billy Graham in 1966
Twenty-first, In 1956, a document was drafted in the US Congress called “The Declaration of Constitutional Principles” or simply the “Southern Manifesto.” In it, 101 political leaders expressed their opposition to racial integration in public facilities and venues, including schools. Ninety-nine of the leaders were Democrats and two were Republicans. One signatory to the document was J. William Fulbright, Senator from Arkansas and eventual mentor to Bill Clinton. Fulbright has been described as a racist, a “notorious segregationist,” pro-communist, and anti-Semitic. Recently, “the famous Fulbright fellowship…[was] renamed…the “J. William Fulbright–Hillary Rodham Clinton Fellowship.”
Former Democrat Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright has been described as a racist, a “notorious segregationist,” pro-communist, and anti-Semitic. Recently, “the famous Fulbright fellowship…[was] renamed…the “J. William Fulbright–Hillary Rodham Clinton Fellowship.”
Twenty-second, Bruce Bartlett, author of Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past,” explains that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower repeated his call for civil rights legislation in his 1957 State of the Union address. Previously, the legislation had passed in the House but had died in the Senate because of opposition from Southern Democrats. Lyndon B. Johnson was the Senate’s Majority Leader. Opponents of the legislation were looking to him to oppose it, just as he had in the past. (While a congressman, Johnson had called President Harry Truman’s civil rights initiative “a farce and a sham—an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill…I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill.”) Johnson, however, wanted to become president. He led Senate Democrats to agree to a watered-down version of the bill. Eisenhower was disappointed, but it was the best he could get.
Johnson explained his approach this way:
These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.
Forgive the language—I’m just reporting what was said. On Air Force One, President Johnson was speaking to two like-minded governors and explaining some of the benefits Democrats would reap from his “Great Society” programs. Johnson said, “I’ll have those niggars voting Democrat for the next 200 years.”
Twenty-third, In 1958, Billy Graham planned a rally on the steps of South Carolina’s capitol building. South Carolina Democrat Governor George Timmerman objected and successfully nixed the plans to hold the rally at the capitol. Governor Timmerman said, “There is, in fact, no reason to select the State House unless the real purpose is to capitalize, for propaganda, purposes, on the appearance of a widely known advocate of desegregation. It is Graham’s endorsement of desegregation that has brought him front-page acclaim.” The meeting was relocated to Fort Jackson, a federal venue. As many as 60,000 people of different races attended, and the meeting drew “the largest turnout for a non-sporting event in state history.”
Twenty-fourth, in 1962 George C. Wallace, then a Democrat, was elected Governor of Alabama. He was inaugurated on January 14, 1963. In his inauguration speech he proclaimed, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”
Twenty-fifth, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963
Twenty-sixth, Contrary to the assumptions of many today, Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- In the House of Representatives, 80 percent of Republicans voted for the measure, while just 61 percent of Democrats voted for it.
- In the Senate, Republicans were at last able to end a filibuster brought by Democrats. Eighty-two percent of Republicans supported cloture along with just 66 percent of Democrats.
- In the vote on the legislation itself, 82 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats gave their support.
Twenty-seventh, Surprise, surprise! The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also became law largely because of Republicans.
- Ninety-four percent of Republicans in the US Senate supported the Voting Rights Act, contrasted to 73 percent of Democrats.
- When the Senate voted on the final version of the bill from the House, one lone Republican Senator opposed it, along with 17 Democrats.
- In the House of Representatives, 82 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats voted for the legislation.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law largely because of the work of Republicans.
Twenty-eighth, Lester Maddox was elected governor of Georgia in 1970 and was a Democrat at the time. An ardent segregationist, Maddox once said, “That’s part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity.”
Twenty-ninth, In 1989, the NAACP sued three state officials, including then-Arkansas Democrat Governor Bill Clinton, under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a federal statute. According to the Arkansas Gazette on December 6, 1989, “the evidence at the trial was indeed overwhelming that the Voting Rights Act had been violated.” The court ordered the redrawing of electoral districts to enhance the strength of votes from the black community
Writing at nationalreview.com, Deroy Murdock reports,
During his 12-year tenure, Governor Clinton never approved a state civil-rights law. However, he did issue birthday proclamations honoring Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. He also signed Act 116 in 1987. That statute reconfirmed that the star directly above the word “Arkansas” in the state flag “is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.” Arkansas also observed Confederate Flag Day every year Clinton served. The governor’s silence was consent.
Also, examples of merchandise from Bill Clinton’s presidential run in 1992 have appeared that reflect Confederate sympathies.
Thirtieth, as a presidential candidate in 2000, Al Gore declared to the NAACP that his father was voted out of office after voting for the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The Senior Gore, however, opposed the Civil Rights Act and voted against it. In 1970, Gore, Sr. lost to Republican Bill Brock in a contest that centered on the Supreme Court, the war in Viet Nam, and prayer in public schools.
Thirty-first, in a National Review article titled “Whitewashing the Democratic Party’s History,” Mona Charen writes, “As recently as 2010, the Senate’s president pro tempore was former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.).” Go here to learn more about this KKK role.
During World War 2, Byrd wrote,
I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
Go here to view a brief timeline of Byrd’s actions with regard to race relations.
Thirty-second, Barak Obama has increased racial tensions in this country since becoming president. One glaring manifestation of this truth that if you’re opposed to his policies, you’re accused of racism. Check out articles here, here, here, and here.
This president is the most racist president there has ever been in America. He is purposely trying to use race to divide Americans.
—Ben Stein, speaking of President Barak Obama—
Thirty-third and finally, Hillary Clinton apparently has garnered support from people willing to embrace the Confederate flag (also go here). While a candidate can’t control who supports him or her, the candidate can disavow attitudes of prominent supporters with whom he or she disagrees. Hillary Clinton does not have the best track record with regard to race, especially when one considers her husband’s policies when he was Governor of Arkansas. Yet she has been quick to accuse Republicans of racism.
In fact, accusations of racism among Republicans has become a Democrat mantra.
You see, Democrats don’t just rewrite the past, they misrepresent the present, too.
Copyright © 2016 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All Rights Reserved.
Note: An expanded version of this article still lists the same 33 items but offers more detailed information about some of the named events. You can access that article here.
Note:
1David Barton, Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White, (Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press, 2004), 115.