Segregationist Democrats Suppressed Black And White Republican Voters For A Hundred Years (William Haupt III Exclusive Editorial)
“I will have nothing to do with this civil rights bill, written by white Republicans. They and the liberal left-wing Democrats who signed it will now have to find a way to enforce it.” -George Wallace
Image Credit: Library of Congress / Public Domain
By William Haupt III [Tennessee Watchdog Journalist, Columnist, Author, and Citizen Legislator] –
Since Democrats have rewritten history in Common Core classrooms we hear little about how the Segregationist Democrats made Blacks walk through hell and high water just to vote after the Civil War. And we hear less how Segregationist Democrats isolated, disenfranchised, and intimidated many White Republicans from voting and even running for office during and after Reconstruction.
To solidify the nation, Lincoln chose Southern Democrat Andrew Johnson as his running mate for the 1864 election. Johnson sojourned through the Civil War incognito which hid his socio-political dark side. But after Lincoln was murdered his loyalty to the Confederacy became obvious when he refused to sign the Republican Civil Rights Act of 1865, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Johnson denounced them as laws that were not in the best interests of the South or of the nation.
The Republican Reconstruction plan was comprehensive. It not only rebuilt Southern states, it also assimilated former slaves into mainstream American society. This included education, job training, and apprentice programs, as well as helping with Reconstruction. But this never came to fruition. Andrew Johnson put former Southern plantation owners in charge of managing Reconstruction. They arduously persecuted White Republicans who worked to register Black Republican voters.
Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes passed by Southern Democrats after the Civil War that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws existed for 100 years from Reconstruction until 1965. They suppressed both Black and White Republicans from voting by subjecting them to outrageous, unconstitutional laws to register to vote.
They were enforced by segregationists with constant wanton vigilante violence of the worst kind.
Written by a Republican Congress, both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it a federal crime to engage in voter intimidation or threaten someone trying to cast a vote. Vote denial, which is preventing a legally eligible voter from exercising his or her right to vote, is a federal crime. Any efforts to suppress, prevent, or deny anyone the right to vote is a felony.
With the rise of the progressive movement and the election of Barack Obama, antiquated terms of the past found their way into progressive political dialogue. Progressives resurrected these catch-all phrases to grow, distinguish, control and isolate their flock of identity groups from social reality. This progressive Orwellian “Newspeak” enables them to convolute and distort history’s real facts.
“The aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought so people think your way.” -George Orwell
The term “voter suppression” is an antique buzzword that has been redefined by the left in recent years to label Republicans as “disenfranchising identity groups” with voter ID laws. They say red states are “trying to steal elections” since state voter ID laws make it more difficult for minorities to vote. They are accusing the Republican Party of doing what Segregationist Democrats did to Black and White Republicans for 100 plus years in the South! Democrats are denying their own history!
It took a Republican written law, the 1965 Voting Rights Act to end voter suppression in the South!
When Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, signed election reforms into law, Democrats framed a derogatory talking point for their party claiming that new Georgia’s voting laws were “Jim Crow 2.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Kemp did this to prevent his 2018 opponent Stacey Abrams, a Black woman, from ever running for office again. She called this a “despicable voter suppression bill!”
Joe Biden announced, “Georgia just threw a dagger through the throat of American democracy.”
Democrats conveniently forget the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to end voter suppression and protect the voting rights of all Americans. States that are passing voting ID laws are obligated to do so, to safeguard the vote of every citizen in their state. Since every illegal vote balloted will nullify a legal vote, by ensuring all votes remitted are legal, they are following the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “Those guilty of voter suppression are those encouraging illegals to vote.”
Since the new Georgia voting laws were signed into law, Democrats can’t stop calling them “Jim Crowe -2.” They are thrilled they found a new way to use the race card for electoral advantage. If voters let Democrats run from their past sins that’s stupidity, but don’t let them blame them on the GOP.
“Negroes are getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us.”-Lyndon Johnson
If Democrat Andrew Johnson had worked with Congressional Republicans on Reconstruction, Civil Rights, and enforced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments which gave former slaves equal rights, it wouldn’t have taken a century to end segregation and voter suppression by Southern Democrats. Liberal media is chastising the wrong party for voter suppression and blaming it on voter ID laws.
During Reconstruction, over 2,000 Blacks held local and federal public office. The first 23 US Black Congressmen were Republicans. Despite threats and intimidation from Democrats to keep them from running they refused to be bullied by Southern Democrats and deprived of their rights. It was not until 1934 when unemployed Northern Blacks took advantage of FDR’s New Deal programs that the first Democrat, Arthur Mitchell, was elected to U.S. Congress from the Northern state of Illinois.
Democrats are so obsessed with hiding the fact that they fostered voter suppression and enforced it with Jim Crow laws, they have written this dark era out of Common Core history books. Students are not taught that groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Louisiana White League and the Knights of the Camelia obstructed all attempts to assimilate former slaves into society. They intimidated White Republicans who tried to help Blacks register to vote and committed acts of violence against both.
“It’s a sad day when we are called racist for trying to enforce our state laws.”-George Wallace
Democrats imposed Jim Crow laws upon freed slaves by manipulating voting qualifications. They established isolated Black voting precincts, gave Blacks literacy tests and charged poll taxes. The Jim Crow laws made registering to vote difficult for Blacks, and the Black only precincts were a well kept secret. Texas announced it was “the party of White Democrat voters only.” White Republicans and Blacks were excluded from all elections. Segregationist Democrats controlled the entire state.
Until the 60s, the Democrat controlled South not only had segregated precincts for Black voters, but White precincts had segregated party booths. Most precincts had “one Republican booth” which had long lines to try and discourage them from voting. There were far more booths for Democrats.
The South opposed Reconstruction and the Republican Party’s support of Black civil and political rights. The Democratic Party identified itself as the “White man’s party.” By 1877, the Democrats controlled every state in the South and enforced strict Jim Crow laws to keep Blacks from voting.
The South remained a one-party region until the Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s. Most ranking Northern Democrats belonged to “party machines” and turned a deaf ear to the Southern Democrats who still enforced discriminatory Jim Crow laws, and excluded Blacks from their party.
“I refuse to change my ways no matter what left-wingers from any party tells me.”-George Wallace
The consequence of the Democratic controlled South was that most Southern Congressmen were automatically re-elected every election. Due to seniority in the U.S. Congress, Southerners were able to control the committees in both houses of Congress and killed most all civil rights legislation.
Their colleagues in the North simply went along to get along since they had no skin in the game.
Democrats were not only the party of Jim Crow but also the party of Tammany Hall, their political machine in the North. While they claim voter ID laws “suppress the minority vote,” today, Congress is trying to pass Tammany-style legislation with feel good names like “For the People Act.” With a Congress split 50/50 between the two parties, this is suppressing the rights of half the U.S. voters.
Fearing a red wave during the midterms, Biden and the Democrats have been rewriting history and calling Republicans the party of White supremacy and fostering Jim Crow-2 laws to disenfranchise identity groups. This is the defining moment for Common Core. Those who have not witnessed the failures of public school education need to open up a pre-Common Core textbook and revisit their history.
“No other discipline has its portals so wide open to the public as history.”- Johan Huizinga
Gene Wolfe wrote “The best offense is a good defense.” Democrats know the minority vote is no longer a given after Trump got 13% of the Black and Hispanic vote in 2020. Since the left is the party of the liberal wealthy, white college grads and factions such as climaters, and unions they are desperate to hang onto the minority vote. They are turning the issue of voter fraud into an issue of “voter suppression” with new DOJ approved voter ID laws passed to enforce the Voting Rights Act.
Throughout the 2016 campaign many GOP leaders refused to defend Trump and media crucified him. It was voters who ultimately judged him. The secret ballot allows people to vote any way they wish. Nobody is suppressing anyone’s vote when machines are the only ones seeing and counting the votes. Democrats have forgotten 100 years of U.S. history. They passed Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, literacy tests and laws, and intimidated the Black voters. That was real “voter suppression.”
If Democrats control both chambers of Congress after the midterms, they will federalize elections and end all state control of the process. This will enable Democrats to suppress the vote of anyone they wish, since states will have no authority to write their own election laws. This gives Democrats more power than they had under Jim Crow-1 and will allow them to keep Republicans out of office.
Tomorrow voters can “make America great again” or watch their beloved republic sink deeper into the bowels of progressive socialism. The choice is either living off bones of Democrat dependence and suppression of liberty, or unlimited Republican opportunities and freedom to catch the America Dream.
“Voter suppression today is a myth. It is a term used by one single political party to smear perfectly legal activities, like voter ID laws, by claiming they are illegal.” -Christian Adams, DOJ
William Haupt III is a retired professional journalist, author, and citizen legislator in California for over 40 years. He got his start working to approve California Proposition 13. His work also appears in The Center Square, The Western Journal, Neighbor Newspapers, KPXJ 21 (Shreveport, LA), Killeen Daily Herald, Aberdeen American News, InsideNova, Kankakee Daily Journal, Monterey County Weekly, Olean Times Herald, The Greeneville Sun and more. Follow William on Twitter @iii_haupt.
