MLK FOUGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATS ... Frances Rice

MLK FOUGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATS

By Frances Rice

As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us pause to reflect on who he was and why his struggle to obtain civil rights for black Americans was necessary.

First, Dr. King was a Republican until the day he died because he knew that the Republican Party, from its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, championed freedom and civil rights for blacks.  For details on the history of civil rights, see the NBRA Civil Rights Newsletter posted on the NBRA's website.

Second, the nemesis of Dr. King's valiant and historic campaign to end discrimination and gain equality for blacks was the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan.  Led by the former Senator and Klansman Robert Byrd, Democrats launched a despicable crusade to smear and undermine Dr. King.  This relentless disparagement of Dr. King resulted in his being physically assaulted and ultimately to his tragic death.

When Dr. King left Memphis, Tennessee in March of 1968 after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Byrd 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.

Prior to his death, Democrats bombed Dr. King's home several times. The scurrilous efforts by the Democrats to harm Dr. King included spreading rumors that he was a Communist and accusing him of being a womanizer and a plagiarist.

An egregious act against Dr. King occurred on October 10, 1963.  Democrat President John F. Kennedy authorized his brother, Democrat Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, to wiretap Dr. King's telephone using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Wiretaps were placed by the FBI on Dr. King's telephones in his home and office. The FBI also bugged Dr. King's hotel rooms when he traveled around the country.

The trigger for this unsavory wiretapping was apparently Dr. Kings' criticism of President Kennedy for ignoring civil rights issues, according to the author David Garrow in his book, "Bearing the Cross".   As was pointed out in the book by Wayne Perryman "Whites, Blacks and Racist Democrats", Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator.  After Kennedy became president, he was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.

The justification given by the Kennedy Administration publicly for wiretapping Dr. King was that two of Dr. King's associates, including David Levinson, had ended their association with the Communist Party in order to work undercover and influence Dr. King.   However, after years of continuous and extensive wiretapping, the FBI found no direct links of Dr. King to the Communist Party.

Kennedy's disdain for blacks further manifested itself when the King family sought help with getting Dr. King out of a Birmingham jail.  Kennedy's civil rights advisor, Harris Wofford who was a personal friend of Dr. King, made a telephone call on behalf of Kennedy without Kennedy's knowledge.  That call resulted in Dr. King's release.  Kennedy was angry about the call because he feared he would lose the Southern vote.  History shows, though, that the call by Wofford eventually worked in Kennedy's favor and is the primary reason so many blacks today wrongly venerate Kennedy.

The unrelenting efforts by Democrats to tarnish Dr. King's reputation continued for years after his death.  To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the Democrats' smear campaign and made Dr. King's birthday a holiday.

Today, while professing to revere Dr. King, Democrats are still attempting to sully his image by claiming that he was a socialist.  In reality, Dr. King was a Christian, guided by his faith and Republican Party principles as he struggled to gain equality for blacks.  He did not embrace the type of socialist agenda that is promoted by the Democratic Party today, which includes fostering dependency on government handouts that trap blacks in generational poverty.

Frances Rice is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association.  She may be contacted at:  www.NBRA.Info   
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About the author: Lieutenant Colonel Frances Rice, United States Army, Retired is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and retired from the Army in 1984 after 20 years of active service. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Drury College in 1973, a Masters of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977. In 2005, she became a co-founder and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that is committed to returning African Americans to their Republican Party roots. 

Be Civil? ... by Frances Rice

BE CIVIL?

By Frances Rice
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It's a sure sign that Republicans are winning a debate on issues when Democrats, aided by well-meaning civility police pundits and activists, demand that Republicans stop showing their passion and "be civil.”

I am still waiting for those with such a keen sense of civility to demand that Democrats cease their unrelenting and uncivil, even racist, attacks on black Republicans. I won't hold my breath.

High on the Democrats' list of those to be denigrated are accomplished black Republicans who do not toe the Democrats' liberal agenda line. Shamefully, Democrats do not want poor black children to have as role models any black person who does not engage in victim mongering and works hard to become prosperous rather than become dependent on government handouts.

The message that Democrats gives to poor blacks is despicable. If you remain poor, uneducated and vote for Democrats, we will celebrate your victimhood. If you get a good education, get a good job and vote for Republicans, we will denigrate you as "acting white,” a "sellout", an "Uncle Tom", a "House Negro", a "House N-word", a "Lawn Jockey", and worse.

Brazenly, on the left-wing Internet website called "The News Blog," Democrats posted a doctored photograph of then Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele (now chairman of the RNC) when he was running for a Senate seat, depicting Steele as a "Simple Sambo" with a blackened minstrel-style face, nappy hair and big, think red lips. The cartoon caption read: "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house.” This contemptible racist stereotype is the same one Democrats used to demean black men during the era of slavery and segregation.

In addition to other outrageous racist images of Dr. Condoleezza Rice produced by several Democrats, cartoonist Jeff Danziger depicted Dr. Rice as an ignorant, barefoot "mammy", reminiscent of the stereotyped black woman in the movie "Gone with the Wind" about the slave era black woman who remarked: "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies". This is the type of racist stereotype Democrats used to demean black women during the era of slavery and segregation.

Democrats now love Gen. Colin Powell, but spewed out racist attacks on Powell before he endorsed Obama and embraced the liberal agenda of higher taxes and a bigger government to provide poverty producing handouts to blacks.

A video was shot by WKRN Video Journalist Beau Fleenor at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee that shows Al Sharpton demeaning Gen. Powell and Dr. Rice, when Sharpton was asked to give his opinions about whether Powell and Rice were "House Negroes". That video can be found on the Internet.

An article that appeared in a Portland, Oregon paper was one of many exposing how hardly a ripple of protest was made by black Democrats when Harry Belafonte publicly denounced Gen. Powell as a "House Negro".

With impunity, the late Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy called black judicial nominees, including Judge Janice Rogers Brown, "Neanderthals.” Democrat Senator Harry Reid slurred Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an incompetent Negro who could not write good English. "Slap at Thomas stinks of racism," was the headline of the New York Daily News' December 7, 2004 editorial.

Even black Democrats will be maligned if they dare step off of the Democratic Party's political plantation. When black Democrat Juan Williams wrote his book entitled "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-end Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America" that exposed the deplorable conditions in black communities caused by the Democrats running those communities, Williams was denounced on national TV by another black Democrat as a "Happy Negro".

For details about how Democrats during the 1960's even smeared Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a Republican, see the article posted on the NBRA website. "Civility, Ours and Theirs" is an article that provides more details about how Democrats vilify black Republicans while wagging their finger at Republicans about being civil. Our political discourse can be elevated to the high standards demanded by the civility police only when Democrats are also required to play by the rules of civility.

Frances Rice
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Frances Rice, a retired lawyer and US Army Lieutenant Colonel, is chairman of the National Black Republican Association and may be contacted at: www.NBRA.info