Election américaine: MLK était républicain et le KKK démocrate! (Looking back at the strange half century gap in the Democrats’ own history)

We were all Republicans in those days. The Democrats were training fire hoses on us, siccing dogs on us. Frances Rice (National Black Republican Association)

My uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his lifetime was a Republican, as was my father, his brother, Rev. A. D. King, and my grandfather, Dr. Martin Lutsiher King Sr. The Republican Party historically has supported the rights of the oppressed. During the times of slavery, many of the abolitionists were Republicans.  Alveda King

Pourquoi les Démocrates feraient-ils l’impasse sur leur propre histoire entre 1848 et 1900 ? Peut-être parce que ce n’est pas le genre d’histoire des droits civiques dont ils veulent parler – peut-être parce que ce n’est pas le genre d’histoire de droits civiques qu’ils veulent avoir sur leur site Web. David Barton

Le Ku Klux Klan est primitivement issu de la défaite et de l’occupation des onze États sécessionnistes de l’Union en 1860-1861 et membres des États confédérés d’Amérique (CSA), territoire familièrement appelé « Dixieland » par les troupes fédérales et de la réaction spontanée des éléments les plus actifs de la population devant les excès commis par celles-ci et surtout par leurs collaborateurs civils. Il renaît beaucoup plus tard au moment de la Première Guerre mondiale, mais cette fois-ci sous la forme d’une association légale et culturelle, ouverte à tous les WASP, du Nord comme du Sud, désireux de défendre les valeurs qu’ils considèrent comme fondamentales de la « Nation blanche » américaine. Le second Ku Klux Klan disparaît officiellement en 1944. (…) La création du Ku Klux Klan est à l’origine une conséquence directe de la défaite des troupes confédérées contre les unionistes (Yankees) à la fin de la guerre de Sécession et s’inscrit durant une période tendue de l’histoire des États-Unis avec l’assassinat du président Abraham Lincoln en 1865, les massacres des Noirs à Memphis et à La Nouvelle-Orléans en 1866 et la procédure de destitution du président Andrew Johnson de 1867 à 1868. Le Ku Klux Klan est fondé dans la nuit du 24 au 25 décembre 1865, par six jeunes officiers sudistes désœuvrés (J. Calvin Jones, Frank O. McCord, Richard R. Reed, John B. Kennedy, John C. Lester, James R. Crowe) habitant la ville de Pulaski, dans le Tennessee. (…) L’association s’inspire à l’origine des fraternités d’étudiants, tradition américaine venue d’Europe et en particulier des universités britanniques et allemandes, d’où l’utilisation de termes grecs et d’un rituel parodique des loges maçonniques. (…) Petit à petit, le Ku Klux Klan devient de plus en plus important et cherche à se structurer avec l’aide plus ou moins ouverte de notables civils ou militaires de l’ancienne confédération sudiste. Le Klan va se transformer en une armée secrète de résistance du Sud. C’est ainsi que Nathan Bedford Forrest, un ancien général de cavalerie de l’armée confédérée, est choisi comme chef et organisateur en 1867. (…) La victoire des nordistes a plusieurs conséquences : le maintien des ex-États confédérés de 1860 dans l’Union, l’abolition de l’esclavage, l’économie rurale du Sud ruinée. Le Klan s’oppose aux récentes lois qui accordent aux Noirs des droits plus proches de ceux des Blancs qu’auparavant. La volonté de laisser aux habitants du sud une autonomie politique vis-à-vis de l’État fédéral est un levier important dont se sert le Klan. Le Ku Klux Klan souhaite avoir un impact sur le résultat des élections. Il va influer par toutes sortes de moyens : intimidation, chantage et corruption pour imposer ses candidats au sein du parti démocrate, puis pour faire triompher ceux-ci aux élections pour les institutions des États sécessionnistes. (…) À la suite de l’assassinat le 18 mai 1870, du sénateur républicain John W. Stephens en plein tribunal et à la violence croissante des klanistes, le gouvernement fédéral réagit officiellement contre cette organisation terroriste. (..;) le Ku Klux Klan en tant qu’organisation active disparaît rapidement. Il est officiellement interdit en 1877. (…) C’est le livre The Clansman (L’Homme du Clan) de Thomas Dixon paru en 1906, mais surtout son adaptation au cinéma par David Wark Griffith dans son film The Birth of a Nation (Naissance d’une nation) sortie en 1915, qui marque la renaissance du KKK. Celle-ci est principalement l’œuvre de William Joseph Simmons. Ce dernier se sert de la popularité du film et de son parti pris pour le Klan et les sudistes pour réunir quelques personnes et relancer le Klan. Il inaugurera la renaissance du Klan au sommet de la Stone Mountain, en Géorgie. À cette époque et alors qu’ils s’engagent dans la Première Guerre mondiale sous la direction d’un président progressiste, Woodrow Wilson, mais sudiste et partisan de la reconnaissance de la libre détermination des peuples par le droit public international (thèse qui justifie la sécession a posteriori et condamne ainsi paradoxalement Abraham Lincoln et invalide l’arrêt de la Cour suprême sur la perpétuité de l’Union), les Américains blancs de tous les États ont la sensation pour la première fois de constituer une véritable nation centrée autour des valeurs des pères fondateurs : autodétermination, liberté d’entreprise, individualisme et respect absolu de la propriété. Le second Ku Klux Klan sera donc très différent du premier, bien qu’il combatte également aussi pour la « suprématie de la race blanche ». Mais comme les Blancs ne se sentent plus menacés en ce sens, il rajoute désormais à cette problématique le rejet de la nouvelle immigration non « nord-européenne » et non protestante et la préservation des valeurs qu’il considère comme celles que les Pères fondateurs ont incarnées. Le nouveau Ku Klux Klan n’est plus uniquement une organisation née de la défaite sudiste : il est désormais parfaitement légal, ouvert à tous les Américains blancs, protestants et conservateurs ; il parvient à transcender les anciens clivages partisans et régionalistes et cherche à rassembler tous les Américains « authentiques » qui voient comme des influences permissives endogènes ou venues de l’étranger les nouvelles tendances de la société (communisme, syndicalisme révolutionnaire, socialisme, féminisme, athéisme, catholicisme, crime organisé, libéralisation des mœurs…). Certaines (rares) personnalités religieuses lui apportent une caution voire un soutien actif, comme la méthodiste Alma Bridwell White, par ailleurs première femme évêque aux États-Unis. Discrètement patronné par le président Wilson, puis par ses successeurs, le mouvement prend une ampleur considérable en quelques années et ne concerne plus uniquement le Vieux Sud. Il apparait comme une fraternité de masse, et en être membre est considéré comme une marque de patriotisme. Au milieu des années 1920, les membres du second Ku Klux Klan sont estimés à cinq millions. Rapidement, il devient une force politique influente avec laquelle les hommes politiques doivent compter. Le quartier général du second Ku Klux Klan s’installe à Washington. Plusieurs parades gigantesques sont même organisées dans la capitale. (…) Le Ku Klux Klan est officiellement interdit en 1928. Par ailleurs, un certain nombre d’affaires criminelles révèlent la corruption des dirigeants, petits ou grands, d’une organisation qui forte de son ancrage territorial se comporte comme la mafia des Wasp. Toutes ces raisons ainsi que la crise de 1929 affaiblissent l’organisation qui n’en contrôle pas moins un certain nombre de voix nécessaires à l’obtention de l’investiture démocrate. La même année fut créée une Commission des activités antiaméricaines de la Chambre des Représentants, afin de lutter contre le Klu Klux Klan. (…) Le choix de Harry S. Truman, ancien sympathisant du Klan, comme vice-président par Franklin Roosevelt en 1944 a souvent été interprété comme un appel du pied aux électeurs du sud. Bien que démocrate conservateur, Truman a cependant toujours été l’un des plus fermes soutiens de la politique sociale de Roosevelt en tant que représentant du Missouri, très fortement affecté par la crise économique. Il a même permis aux Afro-Américains de devenir officiers dans l’armée au cours de son deuxième mandat. (…) Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, de nombreuses personnes tenteront de faire renaître une troisième fois le Ku Klux Klan. Il arrivera de temps à autre un regain d’activité de certains groupuscules lors d’événements tels que la loi contre la ségrégation dans les années 1950 et 1960. Wikipedia

Lifting the Klan mask revealed a chaotic multitude of antiblack vigilante groups, disgruntled poor white farmers, wartime guerrilla bands, displaced Democratic politicians, illegal whiskey distillers, coercive moral reformers, sadists, rapists, white workmen fearful of black competition, employers trying to enforce labor discipline, common thieves, neighbors with decades-old grudges, and even a few freedmen and white Republicans who allied with Democratic whites or had criminal agendas of their own. Indeed, all they had in common, besides being overwhelmingly white, southern, and Democratic, was that they called themselves, or were called, Klansmen. Elaine Frantz Parsons

In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party’s infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life. To that end they worked to curb the education, economic advancement, voting rights, and right to keep and bear arms of blacks. The Klan soon spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a reign of terror against Republican leaders both black and white. Those political leaders assassinated during the campaign included Arkansas Congressman James M. Hinds, three members of the South Carolina legislature, and several men who served in constitutional conventions. Eric Fioner

By the 1920s (…) In the South, where the great majority of whites were Democrats, the Klansmen were Democrats. (…) In the South, Klan members were still Democratic, as it was essentially a one-party region for whites. Klan chapters were closely allied with Democratic police, sheriffs, and other functionaries of local government. Due to disenfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites around the start of the 20th century, the only political activity for whites took place within the Democratic Party. (…) Hugo Black (…) was elected US senator in 1926 as a Democrat. In 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Black to the Supreme Court without knowing how active in the Klan he had been in the 1920s. He was confirmed by his fellow Senators before the full KKK connection was known; Justice Black said he left the Klan when he became a senator. Wikipedia

En 1905, un groupe de 29 notables afro-américains se réunit pour débattre des problèmes des « gens de couleurs » — i.e. « colored people » : cette expression anglosaxonne est couramment employée à l’époque pour désigner les personnes qui ne sont pas blanches. Ils discutent des solutions possibles à ces problèmes, et des stratégies à mettre en œuvre. La question centrale est, à l’époque, celle de l’exercice du droit de vote par les noirs des États du Sud des États-Unis. Une ségrégation de fait est organisée depuis 1890. L’un après l’autre, les États du Sud promulguent de nouvelles constitutions, qui créent des barrières à l’inscription sur les listes électorales pour les noirs, et complexifient les règles du scrutin. Des hommes qui votent depuis 30 ans s’entendent répondre qu’ils ne sont plus « qualifiés » pour pouvoir voter, et l’inscription des noirs sur les listes électorales chute de façon spectaculaire. Les hôtels américains étant encore ségrégués à cette époque, ce groupe d’hommes se réunit, sous la direction de l’intellectuel W. E. B. Du Bois, diplômé de l’université Harvard, dans un hôtel situé sur le versant canadien des chutes du Niagara. C’est pour cette raison que le groupe fut connu par la suite sous le nom de « Niagara Movement » (Mouvement du Niagara). Un an plus tard, trois blancs rejoignent le groupe : le journaliste William English Walling, la travailleuse sociale Mary White Ovington et le travailleur social Henry Moskowitz, qui est à l’époque l’un des dirigeants de la New York Society for Ethical Culture. (…)  si, dans les faits, l’Assemblée générale de fondation du mouvement se tient le 30 mai 1909, à la Henry Street Settlement House, à New York, la date du 12 février 1909 reste dans l’histoire pour dater la naissance officielle de la NAACP. La NAACP est fondée par un groupe de personnes venues d’horizons très divers, dont : W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimké, Henry Moskowitz (issu d’une communauté juive mais non pratiquant), Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling (le dernier fils d’une famille de planteurs du Sud ayant possédé des esclaves) et Florence Kelley, une progressiste, amie de Du Bois. À cette époque, l’organisation, qui ne rassemble que 40 personnes, s’appelle encore le National Negro Committee. Du Bois joue un rôle clé en organisant l’événement et en supervisant son déroulement. Dans l’assistance, on remarque la journaliste afro-américaine, et militante contre le lynchage, Ida B. Wells. À sa seconde assemblée générale, le 30 mai 1910, l’organisation prend son nom actuel : la NAACP. (…) La deuxième Assemblée générale du mouvement aboutit à la mise en place d’une organisation plus influente, plus diversifiée aussi. La direction est dominée par des blancs, dont un certain nombre d’intellectuels juifs américains. En fait, à sa fondation, la direction de la NAACP ne compte qu’un seul afro-américain, W. E. B. Du Bois. Celui-ci lance en novembre 1910 The Crisis, qui devient l’organe de presse du mouvement. Et il faut attendre 1975 pour qu’un noir devienne président de la NAACP, même si des afro-américains ont dirigé son Conseil d’administration avant cette date. La communauté juive contribue largement à la fondation de la NAACP, et assurera son financement, tout au long de son histoire. D’après le site internet de la chaîne de télévision PBS, PBS.org : « Au début des années 1900, les journaux juifs établissaient des parallèles entre le mouvement des Noirs dans le sud [des États-Unis] et la fuite des Juifs d’Égypte, insistant sur le fait que les noirs, comme les juifs, vivaient dans des ghettos, et qualifiant les émeutes anti-Noirs dans le Sud [des États-Unis] de pogroms. […] les leaders juifs défendaient l’idée que les deux groupes seraient gagnants si les États-Unis évoluaient vers une société basée uniquement sur le mérite, sans considérations liées à la religion, à l’ethnicité ou à la race. » Le Comité juif américain, le Congrès juif américain et l’Anti-Defamation League mènent à cette époque une lutte très forte contre le racisme. Les juifs font des contributions financières importantes à de nombreuses organisations de défense des droits civiques, dont la NAACP, la Ligue urbaine, le Congrès pour l’égalité raciale et le Comité de coordination non violent des étudiants. « Près de 50 pour cent des avocats défenseurs des droits civiques actifs dans le sud au cours des années 1960 étaient juifs, poursuit le site PBS.org, tout comme plus de 50 pour cent des blancs qui se rendirent dans le Mississippi en 1964 pour s’opposer aux lois ségrégationnistes. » (…) En 1913, la NAACP dirige l’opposition à l’introduction par le président Woodrow Wilson de la ségrégation raciale au sein du gouvernement fédéral. En 1914, elle compte 6 000 membres, et 50 branches locales. Elle obtient, par son lobbying, le droit pour les afro américains de servir dans l’armée pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Au total, 700 000 afro américains s’engagent, et 600 d’entre eux sont faits officiers. (…) La NAACP engage également un procès contre le système des primaires blanches, dans les États du Sud, qui ont créé des primaires réservées aux blancs. Comme ces États sont sous la domination quasi exclusive du parti démocrate, les primaires sont le seul lieu où une vraie compétition électorale peut encore s’exercer, et les noirs en sont exclus, ce qui revient à les éliminer du champ politique. Dans son arrêt Smith vs Allwright (en), en 1944, la Cour suprême se prononce contre les primaires blanches. Les États du sud sont contraints de modifier leur législation, mais ils mettent rapidement en place d’autres méthodes pour empêcher les noirs de participer au processus électif. Wikipeda

In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism. It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s. During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. 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. Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to 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 Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King. In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King’s leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a “trouble-maker” who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968. (…) It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including 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. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation’s fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs. Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans. (…) The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats. (…) Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans. Francis Rice

Ce furent les républicains qui, pendant cent ans, portèrent le flambeau de la lutte des noirs pour l’égalité. (…) C’est le parti républicain qui créa le NAACP, pour mettre fin aux lynchages des noirs et fit adopter, en 1860, les premiers projets de lois sur leurs droits civiques. (…) Lesdites lois furent annulées par les démocrates, dès leur reprise en main du Congrès en 1892. (…) Ce furent les républicains qui fondèrent l’association des HCBU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) et ordonnèrent, en 1969, le renforcement de la discrimination positive, en faveur des noirs qui le méritaient vraiment (le contraire du Rachidadatisme !). (…) Les républicains revinrent à la charge et luttèrent pendant soixante ans contre les démocrates, avant de parvenir à faire adopter d’autres décrets de lois sur les droits civiques de 1950 et 1960, sous l’égide du sénateur républicain Everett Dirksen de l’Illinois. (…) Ces mêmes démocrates s’employèrent constamment à maintenir les noirs en esclavage, créèrent le KU Klux Klan pour terroriser les républicains noirs et blancs, firent voter des codes discriminatoires contre les noirs ainsi que les lois dites de Jim Crow. De 1860 à 1960, ils s’opposèrent systématiquement à toute application des droits civiques. Le moment venu, ils mèneront des attaques contre Martin Luther King et d’autres militants, à coups de tuyaux de jardinage incendiaires et chiens supermordeurs. (…) Et Kennedy dans tout ça ? En 1957, il vota, en tant que sénateur, contre le Civil Rights Act. Tout comme Al Gore senior, père de celui auquel les « papys » d’Oslo ne décernèrent le Prix Nobel de la Paix que pour enquiquiner George Bush. (…) Devenu président, John Fitzgerald Kennedy s’opposa à la marche sur Washington, erronément dite de Martin Luther King, car elle avait été organisée par A. Philip Randolph: un autre républicain noir. John Kennedy demanda à Robert, son « Attorney General » de frère, de placer Martin Luther King sur écoutes et de le signaler au FBI comme suspecté de connivences avec des communistes. (…) En 1964, ce furent les sénateurs démocrates Sam Erwin, Robert Byrd, ex-membre du Ku Klux Klan et Al Gore senior, encore lui, qui s’opposèrent à la « feuille de route », comme dirait George Bush, du serpent de mer des Droits civiques pour les Noirs. Aujourd’hui, il est de bon ton de rappeler que ce fut Lyndon B. Johnson qui les fit appliquer, mais dans son discours du 4 janvier 1965, il ne leur avait consacré que trente deux mots sur 4500. Les noirs républicains savent compter! (…) De guerre lasse, les démocrates pointeront le doigt sur Richard Nixon et sa « Southern Strategy », destinée à ouvrir les yeux aux noirs du sud qui persistaient à voter pour les démocrates, comme si cela allait de soi. Pari réussi pour certains Etats, fût-ce à titre posthume, comme la Géorgie et la Louisiane. En tout cas, ce fut Nixon qui, en 1972, mit fin aux atermoiements et coupures de cheveux de nègres en quatre, et fit définitivement appliquer la loi de Discrimination Positive. Diana Mordasini

Contre l’actuel matraquage médiatique anti-Républicain et pour un candidat venu de nulle part nouveau Martin Luther King dont les parents se seraient connus quatre ans APRÈS sa naissance …

Création de la NAACP et de l’association des HCBU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), abolition de l’esclavage (un certain président républicain nommé… Lincoln!), application de la loi de Discrimination Positive en 1972 (Nixon) …

Fondation du Ku Klux Klan, vote de codes discriminatoires et lois Jim Crow, opposition (Kennedy et Al Gore senior compris) contre le Civil Rights Act en 1957, attaques contre le républicain Martin Luther King, opposition à la marche sur Washington d’un autre républicain noir A. Philip Randolph …

Intéressante remise des pendules à l’heure, du site Primo-Europe, sur les attributions respectives des deux grands partis américains par rapport au combat pour les droits civiques des noirs et notamment les remarquables talents démocrates de récupération et d’auto-attribution des succès d’autrui comme de dissimulation des détails gênants ….Obama : halte à la récup… !
Diana Mordasini
Primo-Europe

Le propre d’un message subliminal, c’est d’être presque indécelable.

On ne saurait en dire autant du jeu auquel se livre une certaine presse américaine, toujours la même, secondée par les prétendus faiseurs d’opinions du monde médiatique français depuis la victoire de Barack Obama sur Hillary Clinton. On serait plutôt dans le gros grain, cher aux couseuses de jupes.

Or donc, la semaine dernière, ARTE mettait un couvercle sur ses sempiternels documentaires destinés aux coprophages et autres détraqués, pendant que TF1, et d’autres chaînes, jusqu’à l’italienne RAI News 24, se lançaient dans le collage.

Voici donc Martin Luther King et Obama, puis Kennedy et Obama et, pour couronner lesdits tours de passe-passe, des images du fameux « Bloody Sunday » (1) où une manifestation de noirs, voulant se rendre de Selma à Montgomery, en Alabama, avait été durement réprimée par les forces de l’ordre.

Commençons par la fin

Obama avait déclaré que ses parents s’étaient connus pendant cette marche-là. De cette rencontre idéologique entre cette mère athée et un jeune Kenyan boursier aurait éclos l’amour dont il allait être le fruit.

Aïe! Hawaïi en Alabama ? Passe encore pour quelqu’un qui croyait, il y a deux semaines, que l’Oregon était voisin du Kansas et que les Etats-Unis étaient au nombre de cinquante-sept.

Là où le bât blesse, c’est qu’il est né le 4 août 1961 à Honolulu et que l’émeute en question eut lieu exactement le 7 mars 1965. Ses parents avaient donc eu tout le temps de se rencontrer à l’université de Hawaïi, s’y marier, le mettre au monde et divorcer… en 1963 ! (2)

Second point, à l’adresse de ceux qui, à chaque fois qu’ils évoquent Martin Luther King, font semblant d’oublier, (dans la majorité des cas, ils ne le savent même pas) que ce dernier était républicain. Comme plusieurs membres éminents du NAACP, et Condoleeza Rice, et… Colin Powell, parfois dit conservateur indépendant, qui furent appelés par les républicains aux responsabilités que l’on sait. Chez les démocrates, ils n’eussent jamais cessé de jouer les utilités.

La question qui revient automatiquement dès que l’on ose affirmer que les membres noirs du parti républicain ne sont ni des traîtres, ni des « Uncle Tom », est la suivante: « Des noirs conservateurs…Mais, que veulent-ils donc conserver?  » Réponse: « La vérité historique sur la longue lutte de leurs ascendants pour l’égalité des droits et la justice. »

Fils de pasteur, Martin Luther King, avait à sa disposition la bibliothèque abondamment fournie de son père.

Ceux d’Histoire lui apprirent très vite que:

1 – Ce furent les républicains qui, pendant cent ans, portèrent le flambeau de la lutte des noirs pour l’égalité.

2 – C’est le parti républicain qui créa le NAACP, pour mettre fin aux lynchages des noirs et fit adopter, en 1860, les premiers projets de lois sur leurs droits civiques.

3 – Lesdites lois furent annulées par les démocrates, dès leur reprise en main du Congrès en 1892.

4 – Ce furent les républicains qui fondèrent l’association des HCBU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) et ordonnèrent, en 1969, le renforcement de la discrimination positive, en faveur des noirs qui le méritaient vraiment (le contraire du Rachidadatisme !).

5 – Les républicains revinrent à la charge et luttèrent pendant soixante ans contre les démocrates, avant de parvenir à faire adopter d’autres décrets de lois sur les droits civiques de 1950 et 1960, sous l’égide du sénateur républicain Everett Dirksen de l’Illinois.

Il suffit d’ouvrir des livres comme ceux d’Eric Foner (Short History of Reconstruction) ou du révérend Wayne Perryman (Unfounded Loyalty) pour avoir une idée des talents de récupérateurs des démocrates et leur propension à s’attribuer les succès d’autrui.

6 – Ces mêmes démocrates s’employèrent constamment à maintenir les noirs en esclavage, créèrent le KU Klux Klan pour terroriser les républicains noirs et blancs, firent voter des codes discriminatoires contre les noirs ainsi que les lois dites de Jim Crow.

De 1860 à 1960, ils s’opposèrent systématiquement à toute application des droits civiques. Le moment venu, ils mèneront des attaques contre Martin Luther King et d’autres militants, à coups de tuyaux de jardinage incendiaires et chiens supermordeurs.

7 – Et Kennedy dans tout ça ? En 1957, il vota, en tant que sénateur, contre le Civil Rights Act. Tout comme Al Gore senior, père de celui auquel les « papys » d’Oslo ne décernèrent le Prix Nobel de la Paix que pour enquiquiner George Bush.

8 – Devenu président, John Fitzgerald Kennedy s’opposa à la marche sur Washington, erronément dite de Martin Luther King, car elle avait été organisée par A. Philip Randolph: un autre républicain noir. John Kennedy demanda à Robert, son « Attorney General » de frère, de placer Martin Luther King sur écoutes et de le signaler au FBI comme suspecté de connivences avec des communistes.

9 – En 1964, ce furent les sénateurs démocrates Sam Erwin, Robert Byrd, ex-membre du Ku Klux Klan et Al Gore senior, encore lui, qui s’opposèrent à la « feuille de route », comme dirait George Bush, du serpent de mer des Droits civiques pour les Noirs. Aujourd’hui, il est de bon ton de rappeler que ce fut Lyndon B. Johnson qui les fit appliquer, mais dans son discours du 4 janvier 1965, il ne leur avait consacré que trente deux mots sur 4500. Les noirs républicains savent compter!

10 – De guerre lasse, les démocrates pointeront le doigt sur Richard Nixon et sa « Southern Strategy », destinée à ouvrir les yeux aux noirs du sud qui persistaient à voter pour les démocrates, comme si cela allait de soi. Pari réussi pour certains Etats, fût-ce à titre posthume, comme la Géorgie et la Louisiane. En tout cas, ce fut Nixon qui, en 1972, mit fin aux atermoiements et coupures de cheveux de nègres en quatre, et fit définitivement appliquer la loi de Discrimination Positive.

Alors, Caroline Kennedy, membre du staff de campagne de Obama, et flanquée par Al Gore : à vomir!

Ephémérides

– Une curiosité: saviez-vous que le livre de référence du Ku Klux Klan s’appelle « le Kloran », directement inspiré de Quran (sic!). Il porta même ce dernier nom jusqu’au début du vingtième siècle, quand William J. Simmons (1880-1945), personnalité de premier plan du mouvement, lui conféra sa dernière mouture, en ajoutant des insanités antisémites à celles qui s’y trouvaient déjà, afin de mieux coller à l’affaire Leo Frank, jeune et riche juif né à Brooklyn mais vivant en Géorgie.

Accusé d’avoir, le 27 avril 1915, violé, puis tué, Mary Phagan, une fillette de 13 ans, il fut jugé et condamné à mort malgré les nombreuses zones d’incertitude du dossier.

Il finira par obtenir que la peine fût commuée en perpétuité. Furieux, le KKK et d’autres racistes, parmi lesquels de grands « démocrates » comme l’éditeur et futur sénateur Thomas Edward Watson (1892-1966) et William Jennings Bryan incitèrent la population, par voie de presse (« Le Jeffersonian », s’il vous plaît!) au lynchage. Leo Frank, en chemise de nuit, fut arraché de force à sa cellule, emmené loin de la ville et pendu sous l’acclamation et les injures antisémites de dizaines d’adeptes du « Kloran » ex- Quran.

On croit rêver ! Voilà pourquoi les républicains noirs n’ont de leçons à recevoir de personne, en matière de Droits de l’Homme.

– La trêve annoncée par le Hamas: un cadeau à leur ami labouriste George Galloway, lui-même amoureux de Barry O’ Bomber, complice des époux terroristes Ayers (Weather underground, alias « Progressive for Obama »), et tous sponsors du professeur Rashid Khalidi. En un mot comme en cent, le gang organisateur du fameux show à moitié raté de Ahmadinejad à la Columbia University de New-York.

Il suffit de compter six mois, et l’élection présidentielle américaine aura livré son verdict. Dieu merci, Israël restera vigilant.

– Obama qui, en petit comité, ne parle des juifs qu’en les appelant « Kikes » (youpins) renonce aux fonds publics pour financer sa campagne? Of course! Avec tous les pétrodollars qui ne cessent de couler dans son escarcelle.

– L’un des plus beaux films anti-KKK que j’aie jamais vus s’appelait « Storm Warning » de Stuart Heisler (1951) Il était interprété par Ronald Reagan, syndicaliste républicain et qui, malgré la vox populi gauchiste de Hollywood et d’ailleurs s’avérait parfois être un excellent acteur. Il avait à ses côtés Ginger Rogers (qui savait faire autre chose que danser), Doris Day ( qui, cette fois, ne chantait pas) et l’excitant Steve Cochran, en Hank-le-salaud.

Diana Mordasini © Primo, 20 juin 2008

NDLR Primo :

1 – L’expression « Bloody Sunday » sera reprise des années plus tard pour décrire le dimanche tragique du 30 janvier 1972 où 28 personnes seront blessés par l’armée britannique en Irlande, lors d’une marche du même type. 14 personnes mourront. Le groupe U2 se fera connaître par ce tube « Sunday, bloody Sunday » en 1983. Paul Greengrass en tirera un film bouleversant en 2002.

2 – Ce genre de mensonges semble décidément une habitude dans le camp démocrate. Par pure démagogie, Hillary Clinton avait prétendu avoir reçu son prénom en hommage à Sir Edmund Hillary. Or, personne ne connaissait Edmund Hillary au moment de sa naissance, étant donné qu’il ne gravit l’Everest que cinq ans plus tard.

Voir aussi:

TENNESSEE GOP HONORS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

MEMPHIS, TN – The Republican Party’s historical contribution to ending slavery and advancing civil rights for minorities in America should not be forgotten as Tennessee and America celebrate Black History Month.

In remarks Monday at a press conference outside the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Robin Smith, a member of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission recounted many of those historical facts.

Robin Smith
http://www.tngop.org
Feb. 11, 2007

Prepared Remarks

The Tennessee Republican Party salutes the memory of those who have sacrificed, those who lost their lives in their commitment to civil rights and those who continue to remind the citizens of our nation of the need to stand for that which is good, decent and humane in the fight for the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “to be judged by the content of your character, not the color of your skin.”

History reflects a strong foundation and relationship with African Americans and the Republican Party to pursue freedom, equality and civil rights.

The founding of the Republican Party as a third political party resulted in the divide over the issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln asked the opinions of his closest advisors and counsel and stood against the political advice of the day to steer away from the abolition of slavery.

During the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Republican-led Congress added Constitutional Amendments that declared the rights of freed slaves to be citizens, own property, vote and enjoy equal treatment. Not one single Democrat supported the Constitutional Amendments declaring civil rights.

Democrats fought through hate to intimidate African Americans to abstain from their voting rights and to undo legislation passed by Republicans to prevent equal access and dignity. To circumvent the U.S. Constitution, Democrats employed poll taxes, literacy tests and gerrymandering districts, holding African Americans from exercising their right to vote.

The targets of the Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard, were blacks pursuing their rights and white Republicans who led efforts to protect their fellow citizens’ rights. From 1882 to 1964, it is estimated that 3446 African Americans and 1297 white Americans died from lynching.

President Theodore Roosevelt received and created a furor due to the counsel he sought from Booker T. Washington and having entertained him as the first African American to dine in the White House.

Until 1935, every African American federal legislator was a Republican with the first African American Air Force and Army four-star generals appointed by Republicans.

The founding of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded on February 12, 1909. February 12: The shared date of Abraham Lincoln’s birth.

Republican President Dwight Eisenhower mobilized the 82nd Airborne to allow children of color to attend public school in Little Rock, Arkansas in the face of hateful resistance from the Democrat Governor.

In 1957, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Eisenhower following a filibuster conducted by 18 Democrats in the U.S. Senate that lasted five days and five hours attempting to kill the legislation. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was signed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson following KKK member and Democrat Senator Robert Byrd’s filibuster of 14 hours. Klansman Byrd, who remains a Democrat Senator today, was joined by 22 other Democrats voting against this humane legislation. Tennessee’s Democrat Senator Al Gore, Sr. joined Byrd and others in voting against the Civil Rights Act.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was memorialized by President Ronald Reagan in declaring a national holiday in his honor.

President George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court as a Justice.

President George W. Bush appointed the Colin Powell to serve as Secretary of State, the first African American to do so with Condoleeza Rice appointed to the post as the first African American woman to lead internationally.

During the last eight years, home ownership and small business ownership among African Americans has reached historical records.

This is not an exhaustive list. Yet, the history of the Party of Lincoln vividly and concretely displays the nature of the Republican Party: to believe in the people rather than the government; to share values that are good and decent and inspire individuals to pursue their God-given rights and success; and to commit to partisanship with a purpose rather than for power.

The Civil Rights Museum exists due to the hard work of many, especially Dr. Benjamin Hooks, who was just a few weeks ago awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor by President Bush.

Without question and argument, there remains the need to be vigilant and vocal for that which is right regarding the equal treatment regardless of skin color. Let February’s designation as Black History Month provide a time to revisit the historical record to celebrate the achievements and victories but acknowledge the possibility of the human heart to stray from truth to that which is politically expedient.

President Roosevelt paints the picture that bests captures the desire, priority and vision of the Tennessee Republican Party: “Above all we must stand shoulder to shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed of our comrades, but only demanding that they be in very truth Americans, and that we all work together, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and the greatness of our common country.”

Voir également:

Why Martin Luther King Was Republican

Frances Rice

Aug 16, 2006

It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. 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.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Sen. Al Gore Sr. And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to 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 Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King’s leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a “trouble-maker” who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including 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. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation’s fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.

Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.

Critics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President against Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.

Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater also ignore the fact that Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on Jan. 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only 35 words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King’s protest against the Vietnam War, Johnson referred to Dr. King as “that Nigger preacher.”

Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist “Dixiecrats” did not all migrate to the Republican Party. “Dixiecrats” declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was know as the party for blacks. Today, some of those “Dixiecrats” continue their political careers as Democrats, including Robert Byrd, who is well known for having been a “Keagle” in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another former “Dixiecrat” is former Democrat Sen. Ernest Hollings, who put up the Confederate flag over the state Capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd praised Byrd as someone who would have been “a great senator for any moment,” including the Civil War. Yet Democrats denounced then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott for his remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.). Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Byrd and Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.

The 30-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970s with President Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.

After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3 kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).

Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.

In order to break the Democrats’ stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party’s economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.

Voir de même:

Controversial Ad Links MLK, GOP

Darryl Fears

The Washington Post
October 19, 2006

When a black conservative group ran a radio ad proclaiming that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, reaction was swift. « We’ve gotten some e-mails and telephone calls filled with vitriol, » said Frances Rice, chairman of the National Black Republican Association. « They’ve called me Aunt Jemima, a sellout, a traitor to my race. »

In the battle for the black electorate, liberals, who make up the overwhelming majority of black voters, have long disagreed with conservatives over ideology, public policy and economic strategies to better the lives of African Americans. But when conservatives placed the civil rights movement in a Republican context, black liberals said, they crossed a line.

« To suggest that Martin could identify with a party that affirms preemptive, predatory war, and whose religious partners hint that God affirms war and favors the rich at the expense of the poor, is to revile Martin, » said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which the slain civil rights leader helped establish.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched with King in the 1960s, called the ads an « insult to the legacy and the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. » and « an affront to all that he stood for. »

The spot, which ran for a time in the District, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania, will soon run again in those areas, as well as in Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Rice said.

The debate surrounding the ad is the latest skirmish in the ongoing battle over the King legacy. Foes of affirmative action, for example, often cite a line from King’s « I Have a Dream » speech in 1963 in which he prayed that his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the « content of their character, » an adoption that makes black liberals fume. But in the latest fight, civil rights veterans may be surprised to find that some black conservatives agree with them.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R), who is running for the U.S. Senate, denounced the King ad, and Donald E. Scoggins, president of Republicans for Black Empowerment and a former member of the association, said it was a terrible idea.

Black Republicans railed against the radio ads, with the sharpest criticism coming from former members of the black Republican association.

« The vast majority of black Republicans I know would not have approved of the ad, » Scoggins said.

In the ad, a black woman says, « Dr. King was a real man, » and a second one responds, « You know he was a Republican. »

« Dr. King, a Republican? »

The women go on to say that Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan, lumping together those in the South with others in the North who reached out to African Americans with New Deal programs and by desegregating the armed forces.

The backlash was so fierce that Rice stopped answering telephone calls. « We anticipated some controversy, but my goodness, we struck a nerve, » she said in an interview from Sarasota, Fla.

« I absolutely do not regret the ads, » said Rice, 62, a native of Atlanta, King’s hometown. He « absolutely was a Republican, » she insisted. « We were all Republicans in those days. The Democrats were training fire hoses on us, siccing dogs on us. »

It is true that Southern Democrats, many of whom called themselves « Dixiecrats, » blocked the social and political progress of black Southerners for decades. Among them was Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a former local leader in the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd has said he regrets his affiliation.

In 1960, King was arrested for trespassing during a sit-in and held in Georgia’s Reidsville prison. Fearing for his son’s life, Martin Luther King Sr. appealed to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to secure his release.

When King was freed, his father vowed to deliver 10 million votes to the Democrat, even though Kennedy was only a reluctant supporter of civil rights. That began four decades of black people voting for liberals.

The younger King voted for Kennedy, and for Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson four years later. In that election, King publicly denounced the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater.

Today, the vast majority of black voters are Democrats, including former ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young and former presidential hopeful Jesse L. Jackson, two former King aides.

That is why the ad was « a joke, » said Christopher Arps, a former spokesman for Rice and the association. « Anyone with any sense knows that most black people were Republican at one time. But it’s a far stretch to think that in the ’60s Martin Luther King was a Republican. »

Arps and Scoggins resigned from the association board last year when they disagreed with Rice on a separate issue. She wanted to support President Bush when he came under fire for his administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

« In terms of what we’re trying to do, encourage more blacks to look at the Republican Party, I didn’t think we could do that in an in-your-face-type way, » Scoggins said. « There were bodies floating in the street. »

In addition to Scoggins and Arps, at least four other members resigned. Rice questioned their fortitude. The group was founded so that black conservatives could assert themselves, she said, and « when it came time to do something, some stepped back. »

« It was a ‘my way or the highway’ sort of thing, » Scoggins said. « I was crushed when this thing happened because it turned out to be completely the opposite of what I thought it would be. »

COMPLEMENT:

« Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican! »

— Raging Elephants on Friday, January 7th, 2011 in a web post

Houston group says Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican

Meghan Ashford-Grooms

Politifact

January 17th, 2011

https://web.archive.org/web/20190122212840if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/F64k_INn-Tc?rel=0&wmode=opaque

Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece Alveda King speaks in this National Black Republican Association video.

Raging Elephants, a Houston-based group involved in unsuccessful efforts to stop GOP state Rep. Joe Straus from winning another turn as Texas House speaker, says on its website that it’s dedicated to bringing more « Americans of color » to the ranks of conservative voters.

Posted on the site is a video of a speech by the group’s leader, Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani, titled « Apostle Claver tells the world how the real party of racism is the Democrats. » Also on the site, the group claims: « Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican! »

We weren’t aware that the late civil rights leader ever expressed a partisan affiliation.

Yet, we discovered, Republican groups have previously declared King one of their own. In 2006, the Sarasota, Fla.-based National Black Republican Association ran radio ads in Washington, D.C.; Georgia; Maryland; Ohio; and Pennsylvania including the statement that King was a Republican, according to an Oct. 19, 2006, Washington Post news story.

And in 2008, according to news reports, the same group — whose website says it « is dedicated to promoting the traditional values of the black community, which are in concert with the core Republican Party philosophy of strong families, personal responsibility, quality education and equal opportunities for all » — paid for eight billboards bearing that message in Florida and South Carolina, as well as 50 billboards in Denver during the Democratic National Convention, where Barack Obama became the party’s presidential nominee.

In July 2009, Raging Elephants made the same claim on a Houston billboard, according to a July 14, 2009, news article on the Fox News Channel’s website and a July 9, 2009, column in the Houston Chronicle.

Kamau-Imani told FoxNews.com that the purpose of the billboard was to get blacks to rethink their political affiliation; African Americans typically vote for Democrats. « We think it’s imperative that (the GOP) try and attract more people from the communities of color to vote their values — to vote conservative, » Kamau-Imani told FoxNews.com.

The King message has drawn objections. In Houston, the Fox News story says, local activist Quanell X held a news conference to speak out against the sign. Earlier, an Associated Press news article about the billboards posted in Florida reported that the chairman of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus, Democratic state Rep. Joe Gibbons, called the statement ridiculous. « To make a claim without presenting proof is bogus, » he is quoted as saying in the July 4, 2008, story.

Frances Rice, chairwoman of the National Black Republican Association, was quoted by the Post in 2006 as saying that the backlash from the radio ads was so great that she stopped answering telephone calls. But she stood by the claim that King was a Republican. « We were all Republicans in those days, » she told the Post. « The Democrats were training fire hoses on us, siccing dogs on us. »

The Post story says it’s correct that Southern Democrats « blocked the social and political progress of black Southerners for decades. »

When we asked Raging Elephants for information to support its claim that King himself was a Republican, Kamau-Imani pointed us to a video made by the National Black Republican Association featuring one of King’s nieces, Alveda King, founder of the faith-based group King for America. In the Sept. 14, 2008, video, she says: « I just want to share with you a little bit about my family and my history. My uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his lifetime was a Republican, as was my father, his brother, Rev. A. D. King, and my grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. »

She adds: « The Republican Party historically has supported the rights of the oppressed. During the times of slavery, many of the abolitionists were Republicans. »

Our attempts to contact Alveda King were unsuccessful.

Next, we sought historical expertise, including by asking Thomas Jackson, a history professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and author of From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice, for his take on the video.

He told us that Alveda King’s description of the Republican Party’s history was on the mark. « The Party of (Abraham) Lincoln defended black rights most vocally in the 1860s and 1870s, then abandoned the cause when the Democrats and the (Ku Klux) Klan defeated Republican state governments in the South. Blacks started their historic switch to the Democrats during the New Deal, » which were economic programs implemented in the 1930s under President Franklin Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression.

But Jackson said that he would not consider King a Republican, calling him instead a  » ‘tax and spend’ democratic socialist. »

« He wanted the nation to spend billions of dollars directly to employ the unemployed when the private sector failed, and a vigorous mixture of affirmative action and anti-poverty programs championed by the liberal-left, and targeted federal spending in impoverished areas, especially the nation’s slums, » Jackson said.

David Garrow — author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for biography — advised against assigning King to either party. « It’s simply incorrect to call Dr. King a Republican, » Garrow told us.

However, he said he wouldn’t call King a Democrat, either, because he had « very positive feelings » about Republican Richard Nixon in the late 1950s and « extremely positive feelings » about Republican Nelson Rockefeller, the New York governor who later served as vice president. Also, Garrow said, King became « a very harsh critic » of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson over his escalation of the Vietnam War and « wouldn’t necessarily have backed (Democratic presidential nominee) Hubert Humphrey in ’68 had he (King) lived. »

We asked Garrow about the 2006 Post article’s statements that King had voted for Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. He said there is little doubt that King did so.

But that doesn’t mean King made public his political preferences. In his book, Garrow writes that during the 1960 race between Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, King declined to endorse either nominee — even after Kennedy associates interceded with officials in Georgia to help secure King’s release from jail on a probation violation. The closest King came to that was a few days before the election when he released a statement that said: « I want to make it palpably clear that I am deeply grateful to Senator Kennedy for the genuine concern he expressed. … (He) exhibited moral courage of a high order. »

King’s father, however, was so grateful to Kennedy that he announced he was shifting his traditionally Republican presidential preference to vote for Kennedy, according to Garrow’s book.

King was more vocal about the candidates in the 1964 presidential election, when Johnson faced GOP nominee Barry Goldwater, who as an Arizona senator had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Garrow told us that King « certainly did all but explicitly endorse LBJ in ’64 and strongly criticize the Goldwater candidacy. » Garrow writes in Bearing the Cross that King urged his supporters to vote against Goldwater and all GOP candidates who did not disassociate from him.

According to the King Online Encyclopedia, from Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, King campaigned for Johnson and welcomed his win.

Next, we wondered what the King Center in Atlanta, founded by King’s wife, the late Coretta Scott King, had to say about his partisanship. In 2008, Steve Klein, the center’s communications director, told the National Journal that « there is absolutely no confirmation that (King) was a Republican. … He was never a member of any political party — and never formally endorsed any candidates. »

Klein noted Coretta Scott King’s recall of a 1960 phone call from Kennedy when her husband was in jail. In her book, My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr., she wrote that she took the call but was later unsure what to say about it. « My husband had a policy of not endorsing presidential candidates, » her book says. « And at this point, I did not want to get him or myself identified with either party. »

The 2008 AP story about the Florida and South Carolina billboards included a statement from King’s son, Martin Luther King III: « It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest that he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African American votes in Florida and many other states. »

Friends and associates of Martin Luther King Jr. also objected. The AP article says that the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King, « said there is no reason why anyone would think King was a Republican. » Lowery told the AP that King almost certainly voted for Kennedy and that the only time he openly talked about politics was when he criticized Goldwater in 1964.

The story quotes Lowery as saying: « That was not the Martin I know, and I don’t think they can substantiate that by any shape, form or fashion. It’s purely propaganda and poppycock. … Even if he was, he would have nothing to do with what the Republican Party stands for today. »

Finally, we checked with political experts in the states where King spent most of his adulthood. Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said King « didn’t die a Republican. » But Bullock speculated that King could have been Republican in his youth when Southern Democrats were intensely segregationist. William Stewart, a political scientist at the University of Alabama, said that if King was a Republican, he kept it a secret. King focused on civil rights, Stewart said, and « partisan politics wasn’t relevant. »

Upshot: Raging Elephants points to a King family member whose declaration lends support for its claim that King was a Republican: his niece Alveda. We didn’t divine how she reached that conclusion. Another King relative, his son, disagrees, as do respected academic experts and former King associates and friends. The record shows that as a civil rights leader, King avoided partisan identification.

We rate the statement False.

Voir enfin:

Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat?

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Jan 11, 2019

Political parties are always looking for endorsements from community leaders and other influencers. Having support from prominent figures can make or break a candidate or party. It’s no surprise that sometimes political groups will also try to claim affiliation with historical figures of note. One favorite subject is civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.—which party did he support?The official answer is neither. King talked very infrequently about his personal politics and was not formally affiliated with either political party. Nor did he explicitly endorse any candidate. In fact, he stated, “I don’t think the Republican Party is a party full of the almighty God, nor is the Democratic Party. They both have weaknesses. And I’m not inextricably bound to either party.” What’s more, the parties of King’s time were different from the parties we know today; policies and platforms have changed drastically over time. According to King biographer David J. Garrow, King was fond of some Republican politicians, such as Richard Nixon, although it is almost certain that King voted for Democrats John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Among the few times he ventured into open partisanship was to denounce Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who, as a senator, had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. King said in an interview, “I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy.” Although King supported Johnson’s presidential campaign, he later spoke out about his dissatisfaction with Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War.That King was often tight-lipped about his personal politics does not mean that he was not passionate about politics generally. His commitment to social and economic justice for African Americans defined his career, and he frequently expressed skepticism toward capitalism generally. He famously said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” King was intensely invested in expanding votership among African Americans, heading a group in the late 1950s that aimed to register new African American voters in the South. So, if you want to closely align your political practice with that of King, perhaps the best way would be registering to vote and ensuring that others have the right to do the same.