Democrat President John F. Kennedy is also lauded as a civil rights advocate. In reality, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act while he was a senator. After he became president, John F. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King. To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan made Dr. King's birthday a federal holiday, ignoring how the Democrats had smeared Dr. King. Democrats denounced Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond. However, there was silence when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised Senator Byrd, a former official in the Ku Klux Klan, as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment." Senator Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and, after he became a Republican, Thurmond defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. Democrats today castigate Republican Senator Barry Goldwater as anti-black. However a review of Senator Barry Goldwater's record shows that he was a Libertarian, not a racist. Goldwater was a member of the Arizona NAACP and was involved in desegregating the Arizona National Guard. Goldwater also supported the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960, as well as the constitutional amendment banning the poll tax. His opposition to the more comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964 was based on his libertarian views about government. Goldwater believed that the 1964 Act, as written, unconstitutionally extended the federal government's commerce power to private citizens, furthering the government's efforts to "legislate morality" and restrict the rights of employers. It is instructive to read the entire text of Goldwater's 1964 speech at the 28th Republican National Convention, accepting the nomination for president that is available from the Arizona Historical Foundation. By the end of his career, Goldwater was one of the most respected members of either party and was considered a stabilizing influence in the Senate. Senator Goldwater's speech may be found also on the Internet. In the arsenal of the Democrats is a condemnation of Republican President Richard Nixon for his so-called "Southern Strategy." These same Democrats expressed no concern when the racially segregated South voted solidly for Democrats for over 100 years, yet unfairly deride Republicans because of the thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party that began in the 1970's. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" was an effort on his part to get fair-minded people in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were discriminating against blacks. Georgia did not switch until 2004, and Louisiana was controlled by Democrats until the election of Republican Governor Bobby Jindal in 2007. As the co-architect of Nixon's "Southern Strategy", Pat Buchanan provided a first-hand account of the origin and intent of that strategy in a 2002 article that can be found on the Internet. In that article, Buchanan wrote that when Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column about the South (written by Buchanan), Nixon declared that the Republican Party would be built on a foundation of states rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the "party of Maddox, Mahoney and Wallace to squeeze the last ounce of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice." During the 1966 campaign, Nixon was personally thanked by Dr. King for his help in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Nixon also endorsed all Republicans, except the members of the John Birch Society. Notably, the enforcement of affirmative action began with Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher who became know as "the father of affirmative action enforcement") that set the nation's first goals and timetables. Nixon was also responsible for the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1970's. Fletcher, as president of the United Negro College Fund, coined the phrase "the mind is a terrible thing to waste." Fletcher was also one of the original nine plaintiffs in the famous "Brown v. Topeka Board of Education" decision. Fletcher briefly pursued a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1995. Nixon began his merit-based affirmative action program to overcome the harm caused by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson who, after he was elected in 1912, kicked blacks out of federal government jobs and prevented blacks from obtaining federal contracts. Also, while Wilson was president and Congress was controlled by the Democrats, more discriminatory bills were introduced in Congress than ever before in our nation's history. Today, Democrats have turned affirmative action into an unfair quota system that even most blacks do not support. For more details on the true history of civil rights please read the book "Blacks, Whites and Racist Democrats: The Untold History of Race and Politics within the Democratic Party from 1792-2009" by Wayne Perryman. Just as Democrats built their economic power base on the backs of poor blacks during the time of slavery, Democrats today have built their political power base on the backs of poor blacks today. As author Michael Scheuer stated, the Democratic Party is the party of the four S's: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism. Democrats have been running black communities for the past 40 years, and the socialist policies of the Democrats have destroyed the economic and social fabric of black communities. A wise man once wrote that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is way past time for blacks to end their unfounded loyalty to the Democratic Party, stop having their vote taken for granted and seize control over their own destiny. Only then will blacks be truly free. Frances Rice is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She can be contacted at: www.NBRA.info
