By Frances Rice
When we celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, it is
fitting that we pause to recognize the origin of this important part of our
African American heritage.
June
19th marks the day in 1865 when word reached blacks in Texas that slavery in
the United States had been abolished.
More than two years earlier, on January
1, 1863, Republican President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation
Proclamation.
Delivered
during the American Civil War, this proclamation ordered the freeing of all
slaves in states that were rebelling against Union forces. The proclamation had
little effect in Texas, where there were few Union troops to enforce the order.
News
of the proclamation officially reached Texas on June 19, 1865, when Union
General Gordon Granger, backed by nearly 2,000 troops, arrived in the city of
Galveston and publicly announced that slavery in the United States had ended. Republicans had passed the Thirteenth
Amendment on January 31, 1865 that was ratified on December 6, 1865 to abolish
slavery in the United States.
Reactions
among newly freed slaves ranged from shock and disbelief to jubilant
celebration. That day has been known ever since as Juneteenth, a name probably
derived from the slang combination of the words June and nineteenth.
Juneteenth
commemorations began in Texas in 1866.
Within a few years they had spread to other states and became an annual
tradition, celebrating freedom for blacks in addition to many other themes,
including education, self-improvement, African American accomplishments
throughout history, and tolerance and respect for all cultures.
The
racial divisiveness prevalent today would not exist if the Democrats in control
of the Southern states had left African Americans alone at the moment in
history when blacks were freed from slavery and the Juneteenth celebrations
began. Instead Democrats set for
themselves the horrendous task of keeping blacks in virtual slavery.
Southern
Democrats passed discriminatory Black Codes in 1865 to suppress, restrict, and
deny blacks the same privileges as whites. The Codes forced blacks to serve as
apprentices to their former slave masters.
On December 24, 1865, the Ku Klux Klan was started by Democrats to lynch and terrorize
Republicans, black and white, and the Ku Klux Klan became the terrorist arm of
the Democratic Party.
To
counter the discriminatory and terrorizing actions by Democrats, Republicans
passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was
designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South,
one that was fair to blacks.
Further,
the Fourteenth Amendment pushed by Republicans was ratified in 1868 that granted
blacks citizenship. The Fifteenth Amendment also pushed by Republicans was
ratified in 1870 that granted blacks the right to vote.
Undaunted,
Democrats passed discriminatory Jim Crow Laws in 1875 to restrict the rights of
blacks to use public facilities. In response, Republicans passed the Civil
Rights Act of 1875 which prohibited racial discrimination in public facilities.
Shamefully,
Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws, and when the Democrats regained
control of Congress in 1892, they passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned
civil right laws enacted by Republicans. Further, the U.S. Supreme Court sided
with Democrats and issued a ruling in the case of "Plessy v.
Ferguson" in 1896 that established the "separate but equal"
doctrine. That opinion stated that it
was not a violation of the Constitution to have separate facilities for
blacks.
James
Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the inspirational song, "Lift Every Voice
and Sing" in 1900 in collaboration with his talented musician brother,
John Rosamond Johnson, to commemorate President Abraham Lincoln's
birthday. The NAACP itself was founded on President Lincoln's 100th
birthday, February 12, 1909.
Johnson, who was born and educated in
Jacksonville, Florida, served as field secretary for the NAACP in 1916 when he
was offered the position by Joel E. Springham after attending the Armenia
Conference on racial issues. In 1920, Johnson became the general secretary
of the NAACP, the first black man to hold that office. He resigned from
his position with the NAACP in 1930 after serving the organization for nearly
15 years.
Among Johnson’s works is The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured
Man, a novel about a black man who passed for white, published anonymously in
1912 and reissued in 1927 under his own name.
The
words and sentiment of the inspirational song, "Lift Every Voice and
Sing" that became known as the “Black National Anthem” had meaning at the
time it was crafted because blacks were still fighting against racist laws and
actions imposed by racist Democrats. There is no reason for the song to be used
today, thanks to the civil rights battles fought from the 1860s through the
1960s.
During
the civil rights era of the 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought to stop
Democrats from denying civil rights to blacks. Dr. King fought against Democrat
Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor in Birmingham who let
loose vicious dogs and turned skin-burning fire hoses on black civil rights
demonstrators.
Democrat
Georgia Governor Lester Maddox famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks
from patronizing his restaurant. Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace stood
in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963 and thundered, "Segregation
now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." All of these racist
Democrats remained Democrats until the day they died.
The
so-called "Dixiecrats" remained Democrats and did not migrate to the
Republican Party. The Dixiecrats were a
group of Southern Democrats who, in the 1948 national election, ran a third
party ticket that supported segregation and Jim Crow laws passed by Democrats. Even
so, they continued to be Democrats for all local and state elections, as well
as for all future national elections.
Unknown
today is the fact that the Democratic Party supported the Topeka, Kansas school
board in the 1954 "Brown v. Topeka Board of Education" Supreme Court
decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President
Dwight Eisenhower. This landmark decision declared that the "separate but
equal" doctrine violated the 14th Amendment and ended school segregation.
After
the Brown decision, Democrat Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus tried to prevent
desegregation of a Little Rock public school. President Eisenhower sent troops
to Arkansas to desegregate the schools and pushed through the 1957 Civil Rights
Act. In 1958, Eisenhower established a permanent US Civil Rights Commission
that had been rejected by prior Democrat presidents, including President
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Ignored
today is the fact that it was Roosevelt who started blacks on the path to
dependency on government handouts during the Great Depression with his
"New Deal" that turned out to be a bad deal for blacks. Even though
Roosevelt received the vote of many blacks, Roosevelt banned black American
newspapers from the military because he was convinced the newspapers were
communists.
Much
is made of Democrat President Harry Truman's issuing an Executive Order in 1948
to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower
who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.
Little
known is the fact that it was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois,
not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, who pushed through the landmark 1964
Civil Rights Act. Dirksen was honored in a Time
magazine article that featured him on the June 19, 1964 cover for his pivotal
role in the passage of that law.
The chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd, a former official in the Ku Klux Klan who remained in Congress until his death in 2010 . None of these racist Democrats became Republicans.
The Chicago Defender, the
largest black-owned daily in the world, praised Dirksen "for the grand
manner of his generalship behind the passage of the best civil rights measures
that have ever been enacted into law since Reconstruction."
Dirksen was instrumental to the passage of civil
rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965, and 1968.
Dirksen crafted the
language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in
housing. He fine-tuned the language of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, which helped
break the filibuster of the Democrat senators.
He borrowed justifying language
from the diary of Victor Hugo and said: “it was an idea whose time had come.”
Dirksen argued that a law aimed at ending discrimination by hotels,
restaurants, and other business employers met the standard set by Hugo.
When President Johnson signed the bill, he handed the first pen to Dirksen as a token of his appreciation for his critical role in getting the bill passed into law.
When President Johnson signed the bill, he handed the first pen to Dirksen as a token of his appreciation for his critical role in getting the bill passed into law.
The chief opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore, Sr. and Robert Byrd, a former official in the Ku Klux Klan who remained in Congress until his death in 2010 . None of these racist Democrats became Republicans.
Democrats
ignore the pivotal role played by Senator Dirksen in obtaining passage of the
landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, while heralding President Johnson as a civil
rights advocate for signing the bill.
Notably,
in his 4,500-word State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965,
Johnson mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five
words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting
rights. Information about Johnson's
anemic civil rights policy positions can be found in the "Public Papers of
the President, Lyndon B. Johnson," 1965, vol. 1, p.1-9..
In
their campaign to unfairly paint the Republican Party today as racists,
Democrats point to President Johnson's prediction that there would be an exodus
from the Democratic Party because of Johnson's signing the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
Omitted from the Democrats' rewritten history is what Johnson actually
meant by his prediction. Johnson's statement was not made out of a concern that
racist Democrats would suddenly join the Republican Party that was fighting for
the civil rights of blacks.
Instead, Johnson feared that the racist Democrats
would again form a third party, such as the short-lived States Rights
Democratic Party. In fact, Alabama's Democrat Governor George C. Wallace in
1968 started the American Independent Party that attracted other racist
candidates, including Democrat Atlanta Mayor (later Governor of Georgia) Lester
Maddox.
Behind closed doors Lyndon Johnson said: "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."
Behind closed doors Lyndon Johnson said: "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."
Democrat
President John F. Kennedy is also lauded as a civil rights advocate. In reality, Kennedy voted against the 1957
Civil rights Act while he was a senator. After he became president, John F.
Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by
A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican.
President
Kennedy, through his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King
wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in
order to undermine Dr. King. To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan
made Dr. King's birthday a federal holiday, ignoring how the Democrats had
smeared Dr. King.
Democrats
today castigate Republican Senator Barry Goldwater as anti-black. However a
review of Senator Barry Goldwater's record shows that he was a Libertarian, not
a racist. Goldwater was a member of the
Arizona NAACP and was involved in desegregating the Arizona National Guard.
Goldwater
also supported the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960,
as well as the constitutional amendment banning the poll tax. His opposition to
the more comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964 was based on his libertarian
views about government. Goldwater believed that the 1964 Act, as written,
unconstitutionally extended the federal government's commerce power to private
citizens, furthering the government's efforts to "legislate morality"
and restrict the rights of employers.
It
is instructive to read the entire text of Goldwater's 1964 speech at the 28th
Republican National Convention, accepting the nomination for president that is
available from the Arizona Historical Foundation. By the end of his career,
Goldwater was one of the most respected members of either party and was
considered a stabilizing influence in the Senate. Senator Goldwater's speech
may be found also on the Internet.
In
the arsenal of the Democrats is a condemnation of Republican President Richard
Nixon for his so-called "Southern Strategy." These same Democrats
expressed no concern when the racially segregated South voted solidly for
Democrats for over 100 years, yet unfairly deride Republicans because of the
thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party that began
in the 1970's.
Nixon's "Southern
Strategy" was an effort on his part to get fair-minded people in the South
to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were
discriminating against blacks. Georgia did not switch until 2004, and Louisiana
was controlled by Democrats until the election of Republican Governor Bobby
Jindal in 2007.
As
the co-architect of Nixon's "Southern Strategy", Pat Buchanan
provided a first-hand account of the origin and intent of that strategy in a
2002 article that can be found on the Internet.
In
that article, Buchanan wrote that when Nixon kicked off his historic comeback
in 1966 with a column about the South (written by Buchanan), Nixon declared
that the Republican Party would be built on a foundation of states rights,
human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to
the "party of Maddox, Mahoney and Wallace to squeeze the last ounce of
political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice."
During
the 1966 campaign, Nixon was personally thanked by Dr. King for his help in
passing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Nixon was also responsible for the
passage of civil rights legislation in the 1970's.
The
father of Affirmative Action is Arthur Fletcher who was the Assistant Secretary
of Labor under Nixon. Fletcher crafted the 1969 Philadelphia Plan that was
merit-based and set the nation‘s first goals and timetables to ensure blacks
had equal access to federal contracts. Affirmative Action has been turned into
an unfair quota system that even most blacks do not support.
Fletcher,
as president of the United Negro College Fund, coined the phrase "the mind
is a terrible thing to waste." Fletcher was also one of the original nine
plaintiffs in the famous "Brown v. Topeka Board of Education"
decision. Fletcher briefly pursued a bid for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1995.
For
more details on the true history of civil rights please read the article “Republicans
and Democrats Did Not Switch Sides On Racism” at:
Just
as Democrats built their economic power base on the backs of poor blacks during
the time of slavery, Democrats today have built their political power base on
the backs of poor blacks today.
As
author Michael Scheuer stated, the Democratic Party is the party of the four
S's: slavery, secession, segregation and
now socialism.
Democrats
have been running black communities for the past 60 years, and the failed socialist
policies of the Democrats have destroyed the economic and social fabric of black
communities. Yet, Democrats have the gall to blame Republicans for the
devastation created by the Democrats.
The
time has come for blacks to end their loyalty to the Democratic Party, stop
having their vote taken for granted and seize control over their own destiny.
Only
then will blacks be truly free.
