Democrats are “the party of the KKK”

Given the fact that your party created the KKK I find it ironic that you’re taking the time to explain how Lincoln’s flaws somehow erase his legacy as the great emancipator. Does the fact that your party invented the KKK to kill African American Republicans enter into your calculus at all?

Each election cycle many of my Democratic friends, like you, attempt to paint Republicans as racists. They attempt to link our candidates to David Duke and the KKK. When I point out that it is the Democratic Party that has a legacy of racism they suggest that the parties somehow switched. Somehow they were able to erase their legacy and endow it to the Republican Party. The Democratic Party may have given up on their use of the stick in favor of the carrot to control the African American community, but is an absolute lie to suggest the Republican Party has adopted their deplorable past.

The reality is that the Republican Party’s legacy is one of emancipation, voting rights, civil rights and freedom for all Americans. Throughout the history of our great nation, the Democrats opposed the Republican Party’s social justice efforts.

After the Civil War, the Republicans elected 23 African Americans (13 of whom were ex-slaves) to Congress. It took the Democrats sixty more years to elect an African American to Congress. In the south, the Democrats held out until two years after I was born (1973) to elect an African American. Here in Texas, the Republican Party was founded by African Americans in 1876 and African Americans across other states followed suit.

In 1865, 100% of Republicans voted to free the slaves by passing the 13th Amendment while 77% of Democrats voted against the measure. Three years later 100% of Republicans voted to give African Americans the same civil rights as whites through the passage of the 14th Amendment while 100% of Democrats voted against the measure. Two years later 100% of Republicans voted to guarantee African-Americans the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, again every single Democrat voted against the amendment. These key legislative victories form the basis of the Republican Party’s legacy of freedom and justice for all. Every Republican, from Lincoln to Reagan, can be proud of this legacy.

When the Democrats were unsuccessful in their efforts to block Republican legislative efforts to help African Americans they founded the Ku Klux Klan. In 1872, the Democrats admitted forming the organization as an effort to stop the spread of the Republican Party in the South. As recently as 2010 the Senate’s president pro temp was former KKK Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd — the Democratic Senator from West Virginia.

At the start of the 20th Century, the Democrats took control of Congress and promptly repealed every single Republican-passed civil rights law and it wasn’t until 1957 that a civil rights bill passed. In the meantime, Democrats passed the Jim Crow laws, poll taxes and literacy tests in their states to prevent African-Americans from electing Republicans to Congress.

By the 1960’s the Republicans along with 36% of Democrats passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act — 64% of Democrats opposed the legislation. Bill Clinton’s political mentor, Democratic Senator William Fulbright, filibustered the bill for 83 days. Senator Al Gore Sr. voted against the Civil Rights Act and lost his seat as a result. The pair went so far as to sign a pledge (along with 99 other Democrats) to oppose the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and their commitment to segregation forever. Eventually Fulbright, Gore and Byrd renounced their racist pasts and attempted to rectify their mistakes. In contrast, while Democrats were running from their past indiscretions Republicans like Richard Nixon were passing the country’s first Affirmative Action laws with specific goals and timetables.

The Republican Party was built on a foundation of states’ rights, human rights, small government, and a strong national defense. We support the rule of law, the constitution and equal opportunities for all. We’ve never worn hoods or lynched our political foes. Racism is the ugly past of the Democratic Party not ours…