(Including Abraham Lincoln’s letter to New York Tribune’s Horace Greeley on the civil war and slavery)
Last December I wrote that African-Americans should take over the Democratic Party.
What does take over the Democratic Party mean? Glad you asked.
African-Americans have now established without a doubt (a) as we saw in the Senatorial race in Alabama, in which Doug Jones was able to win in a ruby-red state, (b) the Gubernatorial race in Georgia in which Stacy Abrams nearly defeated the Republican candidate,© in Florida where Andrew Gillum narrowly lost to the Republican, (d) and in South Carolina where African-American voters gave life to Joe Biden’s presidential hopes which were all but on life support until the Clyburn endorsement and Biden’s subsequent wins on super Tuesday. That the Black vote is the most solidly dependent base of support the Democratic party has.
According to a recent survey, 70% of respondents say they will vote for the Democrat, regardless of who the nominee is in the upcoming general elections.
No other group can claim such loyalty to the party.
This time around, the concept of America laid out in the declaration of independence will be saved if African-American people(the conscience of America) turns out to vote.
African-Americans have not always been the backbone of the Democratic party, and yes, we must concede that not all of the people within the party love black people. Let us dispense with the pretense and face reality.
The existential threat to black men and even our women and children, is the threat posed by white supremacists wearing police uniforms with the backing and power of the laws at their command.
At the same time, that this threat as been entrenched from as far back when blacks first walked off the plantations, the Democratic party has been eerily silent on the issue.
Today the Democratic party is as silent on race as is the Republican party.
Nevertheless, blacks can hardly be mad at the Republican party, the party has made it clear it does not want the black vote. It has made it clear from its purgings, it’s utterances, and its silence, that blacks are not welcome, it has not tried to hide its disdain for African-Americans.
Sure, there is a single Republican US Senator, Tim Scott in South Carolina and not a single black in the house on the Republican side after Will Hurd departs.
Apart from the seemingly lost Tim Scott, a self-hating Candace Owens and a couple other black crackpots like the comical carnival barker of a former sheriff from Wisconsin who awards himself medals, blacks have avoided the party like it is the plague.
But the disdain Republicans harbor for the 40 plus million black people in this country goes farther than a lack of representation in their party, it goes to the racist exclusionary and destructive policies they have enacted in local & state legislatures and the US congress.
Voter suppression laws. Laws giving police departments cover even when they murder innocent unarmed blacks. Onerous voter ID laws. Supporting police misconduct against African-Americans, regardless of blatant police crimes. The list is long and varied so when people ask why do black people overwhelmingly vote Democratic, they are either being facetious or they are being ridiculous, in light of the evidence.
Make no mistake about the facts here when it comes to the existential crisis blacks face, the Republican party is at the heart of every issue that has caused pain to the African-American community.
Unfortunately, like in every issue, we can think of on this seminal issue, there are many people in black skin who will quickly tell you that Donald Trump has done great things not just for America, but for the African- American community.
One such [coon] told Trump to his face at a sit-down that he was the best president for blacks since Abraham Lincoln.
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel laughed at him upon which he did a video detailing why he believes Trump has been good for black people.
The metric that the “pastor” used to define Trump’s greatness, just happened to be Barack Obama’s economy.
I found it amusing that these very same black pastors found it incredibly difficult to give president Barack Obama any credit for being a [great and exemplary president], but is willing and eager to heap on Trump accolades he hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve.
YOU WOULD THINK THAT BEFORE HE FURTHER EMBARRASSES HIMSELF HE WOULD DO THE RESEARCH?
THOSE WHO MAKE THESE SCURRILOUS UNEDUCATED COMMENTS DO THE BLACK COMMUNITY NO GOOD. THEIR COMMENTS GIVE OUR ENEMY FODDER TO FURTHER ABUSE US, AS CAN BE SEEN BY THOSE WHO ARE USING THIS VIDEO TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT LIES ARE IN FACT TRUTH
But then I remembered that when Moses led our people out of Egypt they turned on him because they did not have meat or leeks.
I remembered that Harriet Tubman carried a pistol, reportedly for the negroes who would run back to the slavers and report on where the safe houses were.
So I am not surprised by the so-called pastors who could not support Barack Obama because he did not come from the trenches like a Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton.
Neither am I annoyed that because of Religion, not knowing who they are, they cling to a brand of Christianity that enslaved them, and still have them mentally shackled to the very party which houses en-masse, the descendants of their ancestor’s tormentors.
Most importantly I am not bothered by them, because they could not bother to educate themselves outside the theological brainwashing they were given to learn some American history, rather than bow down to [his-story]. To learn how the Democratic party transformed from the party of the Dixiecrats. To learn how the Democratic party gave Blacks the civil and voting rights act.
To learn how the Republican party has become a white nationalist party.
Or bother to learn that the so-called greatness of Lincoln was centered on the preservation of the Union, and not on freeing a damn enslaved black.
Letter to Horace Greeley
Written during the heart of the Civil War, this is one of Abraham Lincoln’s most famous letters. Greeley, editor of the influential New York Tribune, had just addressed an editorial to Lincoln called “The Prayer of Twenty Millions,” making demands and implying that Lincoln’s administration lacked direction and resolve.
President Lincoln wrote his reply when a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation already lay in his desk drawer. His response revealed his concentration on preserving the Union. The letter, which received acclaim in the North, stands as a classic statement of Lincoln’s constitutional responsibilities. A few years after the president’s death, Greeley wrote an assessment of Lincoln. He stated that Lincoln did not actually respond to his editorial but used it instead as a platform to prepare the public for his “altered position” on emancipation.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do morewhenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
(From-Abrahamlincoln.org)
Yea.…
A little perspective is sometimes refreshing. Will it change minds, will the truth alter long-held idealistic misconceptions?
Probably not, nevertheless, even if now revealed truths are not enough to erase past lies and misinformation, the truth will from henceforth stand as a light for future generations not yet exposed to manufactured truths.
As the moral conscience of the Democratic Party, it is now time for African Americans to take hold of this party and ensure that they leverage it for what they are worth, not just to the party, but also to America.
No amount of romanticized whitewashing can change the facts that Abraham Lincoln did not free the enslaved people out of moral conviction he did what he had to do to save the Union.