Black Republican
The tragic evolution of the Republican Party can be seen in the way it has failed Black Americans. (Part of a series on the modern conservative coalition.)
Reconstructing America
President Abraham Lincoln’s party has an inspiring history and a disillusioning tragedy. One of the world's oldest political parties began amid America’s new birth of freedom. The Civil War climaxed with the Southern states ending their system of chattel slavery thus pushing the nation into a long-term test that is still examining the people of this nation. The manifestation of this experiment is in the continued fight for freedom among Black Americans, who were once brutally bound to a system of race-based slavery and perpetual servitude. Over the years, the relationship between Black Americans and the state has evolved as we find new and inventive ways to survive.
The history of struggle and promise also comes to fruition with Black Americans' struggle to work within the American political system. In its inaugural decades, the Republican Party appealed to Black Americans because it was the abolition party. The years that followed the Civil War were devoted to idealistic attempts to create multiracial democracy in the Southern states on the part of some Republicans. The effort required political capital and a willingness to continue fighting the Civil War. Both the will and the capital proved to be sparse. However, in the short period of Reconstruction, the first Black Senators and House members were elected to the U.S. Congress.
Joseph Rainey was elected to the South Carolina delegation of the United States Senate from 1868-1870. There, he advocated for education and the protection of African Americans from the Ku Klux Klan. Rainey was forced out of office by organized violence as well. Another pioneer in the tumultuous Reconstruction years was Hiram Revels of Mississippi, the first Black Senator. The former minister was imprisoned in 1854 for preaching to the Black community. Though he traveled as a preacher, including the church I attended as a kid, his other role was organizing Black fighting units in Maryland during the Civil War. Revels was born free and a man with pride, thus refusing to submit to second-class citizenry. One example was when he refused to move from his seat to the smoking car of a train in Kansas. The conductor eventually let it go…a rarity. Revels moved to Mississippi and was a community leader for Black and White residents with his calls for interracial cooperation. He served on the Mississippi state legislature with 30 other African Americans during Reconstruction. His role in the state legislature jettisoned him to being appointed to the U.S. Senate, where he supported universal amnesty for Confederate soldiers who agreed to recognize the Union. He supported freedmen's schools through funding educational infrastructure as well as calling for efforts to publicly desegregate Southern society.
Another stalwart was Blanche K. Bruce, who was appointed to the Senate as a representative of Mississippi. Bruce was the first Black American to stay the entire term in the Senate. Bruce opposed the initial proposal of a Chinese Exclusion Act of 1878 and called for investigations into election violence in his state. Immigration and fair elections could help bring the South into modern life.
Reconstruction only lasted for roughly 12 years until a spate of organized violence on the part of White southerners allowed for a reversal of fortune for Black political hopes. Still, all of this advocacy happened through the Republican Party. Bruce would go on to serve as Register of the Treasury (appointed by Republican presidents) in the 1880s and 1890s.
A Building Force
Throughout the reign of Jim Crow politics, Black Americans primarily supported the Republican party. After all, it was the party of Lincoln and the party of Revels, Rainey, and Bruce. However, the GOP was rapidly moving away from idealistic democratic aspirations as it wedded itself to industrialists who balked against labor rights and efforts to limit worker exploitation in the face of wealth inequality and hazardous work conditions. Even in an age of open violence and domestic terrorism, Black Americans found ways to participate in public life, attain experience in civics, and demonstrate their humanity.
One example is James Weldon Johnson, known for writing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which was first performed in 1900 for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Singing it at national events in today's America can be controversial in conservative crowds.
Before serving as the first Black executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Johnson was a principal of the Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida, and improved the curriculum and facilities. He became the first African American appointed to the Florida bar in 1897. Later, he served as U.S. Consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua under President Theodore Roosevelt. T.R. was a progressive president who attempted to reach the GOP's Black coalition despite wavering when backlash was present, such as in the Brownsville incident.
Johnson was pivotal in burgeoning efforts to call attention to lynching around the United States. It was a heinous act that was ceremonious for reactionary White communities. In the Jim Crow Era, over 4,400 Black Americans were lynched, and the number is likely much higher. This was a time when Black bodies were consistently under physical and sexual assault. The NAACP was started in 1909 by advocates of multiple communities, including W.E.B Dubious, Ida B. Wells, Mary White Ovington, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling, and Oswald Garrison Villard. It was inspired by the Springfield, Illinois Race Riot of 1908, President Abraham Lincoln's hometown. On the centennial of Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1909, concerned leaders met to construct a national organization that fought for African American communities as racial violence remained prominent. This solution culminated from years of organizing within the Niagara Movement, led by W.E.B Du Bois and Wiliam Monroe Trotter.
Northern Democrats and a broad coalition of Republicans supported anti-lynching laws, and the NAACP also blessed its passage. One attempt was with the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill presented by Republican Leonidas Dyer of Missouri. The bill would not pass due to Southern Democrats filibustering it. However, it was mainly the Republican Party and a small (but budding) wing of Democrats that even gave an ear to the issue.
Johnson also supported voting rights and eliminating voter suppression efforts like poll taxes and literacy tests that were hoisted disproportionately on Black communities despite literacy rates being low in White communities as well (especially down South).
James Weldon Johnson died in 1938 as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration crystallized a powerful national coalition within the Democratic Party. An alliance that would combine advocates of labor fairness (and, by extension, fundamental civil rights) with social conservatives. Black Americans began voting for Democratic officials more than Republican ones as the party progressively elevated the concerns of people of color. This was not an automatic process; to this day, Black Americans (and other marginalized groups) must organize to amplify their voice. Still, the Republican Party underwent a transformation that shrunk its Black coalition in exchange for racial reactionaries. That process haunts the party to this day.
Executive orders were created during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations to address defense industry discrimination and desegregate the military. New Deal programs helped all working-class Americans, especially those of color overrepresented in that labor categorization. Neither president was a vigilant supporter of civil rights, but Truman established the Committee on Civil Rights and supported anti-lynching legislation as a Missouri Democrat. (Remember, a Missouri Republican proposed the Dyer law earlier in the century.) Both administrations maintained relationships with leaders in the Black community, which was a departure from prior iterations of the party.
At this point, the Democratic Party was using the heft of the federal government to protect African Americans from violence and discrimination as the Radical Republicans attempted to do over half a century before.
The Transformation
It should be remembered that the Democratic Party was born out of a rush for democracy in the mid-19th century, with non-landowning White men gaining suffrage. The party is built to be a democratic alternative and counterweight to the antidemocratic tendencies within our constitutional Democratic Republic.
Black Republican membership remained after the height of the New Deal but showed signs of declining. Dwight Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952 and 1956. Even though he was not a vocal supporter of civil rights, he sent federal troops to Arkansas to aid in desegregation after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision and “brought record numbers of African Americans into all levels of government, including the White House.”
When Eisenhower's vice president ran for president in 1960, Jackie Robinson supported him as the vestiges of the old Republican Party were still apparent. Robinson was skeptical of Democrats, especially as many within the powerful southern delegations were opposed to civil rights actions and strict adherents to being “Constitutional Democrats,” or code for segregationists. The Major League Baseball pioneer lobbied the Nixon campaign to do more than the Kennedy campaign around Martin Luther King Jr’s 1960 arrest in Georgia after a lunch counter sit-in that challenged segregation laws. However, Nixon considered it grandstanding if he had called King to Robinson’s chagrin. Kennedy’s campaign ultimately would be known for harboring King’s release. Robinson reportedly told Nixon’s speechwriter that he deserved to lose. Still, the man who helmed the number 42 for the Brooklyn Dodgers stayed a supporter of the party of Lincoln. The Black vote shifted from favoring Nixon to Kennedy after the episode.
Robinson would continue to be disappointed with Republicans as Barry Goldwater would be the next one to run against the Democratic machine. The Arizona Senator voted against the Civil Rights Act, influenced segregationist Democrat Strom Thurmond to turn Republican and endorse him for president, and thus, was considered a racist in Robinson’s eyes. He even quipped that he “was fighting a last-ditch battle to keep the Republicans from becoming completely white…I lost my battle when Goldwater was nominated.” Nixon would go on to amplify Goldwater’s appeal to segregationists with the infamous Southern Strategy and accelerate the realignment of the Democratic and Republican voter coalitions.
On the other side of the aisle, as Democratic presidents supported titanic civil rights and voting rights legislation (even if it was just out of opportunism), Black support for Democrats would grow to outpace support for Republicans.
During the second Roosevelt years, a Black Democrat in Congress named Arthur Mitchell was the first to represent Illinois's First Congressional District. Mitchell supported transportation desegregation, anti-lynching laws, and the president's New Deal programs. His successor, William Dawson, supported civil rights laws and efforts to carry out military desegregation and pinpoint wasteful federal spending, especially as it pertained to inflated defense and weapons budgets.
But by the dawn of the post-Civil Rights Act era, a noticeable change in Congressional representation between the races was evident between the two parties. In the 1960s, there were no Black Republicans in Congress but four Black Democrats: Willaim Dawson of Illinois (1943 - 1970), Adam Clayton Powell of New York (1945-1971), Charles C. Diggs of Michigan (1955-1980), and Augustus Hawkins of California (1962-1991). A decade later, there is one Black Republican in Congress and ten Black Democrats. That one Black Republican was Edward Brooke, a senator from Massachusetts.
Brooke supported President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, which sought to increase federal spending to combat poverty, illiteracy, and general inequality. The Yankee senator agreed with increased federal spending on educational programs, promoted fair housing laws and affordable housing, and strongly agreed with passing civil rights legislation. However, Brooke was weary of some anti-poverty programs as he believed there needed to be work incentives and that long-term dependency on government was a potential danger. Brooke wanted to usher in a “progressive conservatism.” In this way, Brooke represents an older mold of Republicanism. He was even considered a possible vice presidential candidate under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Brooke also repudiated the Southern Strategy because he was well aware that Black attachment to the GOP label was based on its intertwining history of abolitionism. Still, throughout his tenure, the party also transformed in a way that repudiated Lincoln’s ghost rather than perpetuated its symbolic presence in American life.
Clarence
Clarence Thomas has been in the news lately for voicing an opinion about the progress made by the Supreme Court decision that desegregated schools: Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Public opinion has also scorned him for taking financial and lifestyle benefits from donors who have cases before the highest court in the land. To add even more pressure, Thomas was a vocal supporter of overturning Roe v. Wade (1973). Thomas is a significant figure and totem of the Republican Party after its Southern Strategy transformation. He spent his career in legal atmospheres over legislative and executive ones and replaced civil rights stalwart Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court in 1991. Unlike Marshall (and Black Republicans and Democrats of the past), Thomas is a staunch conservative and has used that ideology to support legal interpretations that have shredded the civil and human rights progress that emanated from the policy cultures of the New Deal and Great Society programs. Even if they weren't perfectly executed or hindered by defense and wartime spending, the history of enfranchisement can not be denied (something modern conservatives consistently overlook).
Thomas is sometimes referred to as the “Black face of White supremacy.”
Significant parts of the conservative movement were undeniably powered by a racialized reaction to the way federal initiatives enshrined multiracial democracy and integration. That can not be denied. This is not to cast dispersion on everyone participating in this political movement. It is a call for conservatives to acknowledge the blindspots of the movement while still defending genuinely non-racist people who supported its policy and cultural proposals. But Thomas has been integral in dismantling parts of the Voting Rights Act (something that former Black Republicans supported). The above description of Thomas may be crude. Still, it captures how his tenure on the court has alienated the legacy of Lincoln’s political party and Black leaders who tried to perpetuate and evolve that legacy.
A party built from a new birth of freedom is now trying to repudiate freedom.
Conservative Hope
Still, other Black Republicans of this era include Colin Powell, an extraordinary figure who has become a symbol of fortitude. For many, Powell symbolizes the hopes of neoconservatives in the immediate post-Cold War years. As Republicans slowly built their resume on being anti-communist (even if that meant scapegoating human rights movements as agents of the Kremlin), the larger party felt mainly galvanized to claim the spoils of Cold War victory as their own. After all, Democrats had presidential candidates like George McGovern and a “squish” like President Jimmy Carter, which created the perception of squeamishness, even if that wasn’t entirely true.
Though Powell found his most controversial moments amidst the build-up to President George W. Bush’s Iraq War, he even apologized for presenting false evidence to the United Nations when he was Secretary of State. As we see today, this is not easy to do in public life. Powell’s distinguished career symbolizes the hopes of the conservative movement on the question of race, primarily due to ongoing accusations that the political collective enabled a resurgence of racism in modern America. In 1979, He was appointed brigadier general and was senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger in the Reagan administration. Later, President Reagan appointed him as National Security Advisor in 1987. Under President H.W. Bush, Powell was the first African American to be appointed as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the invasion of Panama and Desert Storm. Powell, a socially moderate Black man who was a foreign policy hawk, carried that energy in his role in America’s security posts. He was the hope for the dying wings of the Republican Party.
Still, General Powell endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and President Joe Biden in 2020. He also supported President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president and a Democrat, in his presidential campaigns.
The party moved away from Colin Powell. He supported affirmative action, supported repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (President Clinton's contribution), supported gun control measures, and was moderate on abortion by believing in a woman’s right to choose.
In the same vein, Condoleeza Rice is another Black Republican of the modern era and often took socially moderate positions while remaining a national security hawk. Rice described herself as “mildly pro-choice” and supported affirmative action. Rice was a hawk on foreign policy and served as President George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor during the run-up to Iraq and as Secretary of State during the fallout of the ill-advised military excursion.
The failures of the Bush years may have contributed to the bleak future that lay ahead. Social moderation will become a scapegoat for many diehard conservatives who need something to blame as America reckons with its decaying status as the world’s preeminent unipolar power and the unpopularity of its ideas.
Trumpy Black Republicans
Today, prominent Black Republicans are Tim Scott, the Senator from South Carolina, and Byron Donalds, the Congressman from Florida. Scott has been on the record downplaying President Donald Trump’s most racially insensitive moments.
Byron Donalds was caught in a recent scandal around his conversation about the state of Black families today versus the Jim Crow Era.
There is nothing wrong with being a Black Republican. However, the departure from our ancestors' role in the party is present when current representatives engage in bad-faith positions. Edward Brooke was intellectually critical of expanding government activity around efforts to aid impoverished Americans. Still, he also acknowledged the role of racism in our society and the gaps in the quality of life it has fostered. He could also acknowledge the need for public initiatives to attempt to remedy those problems, even if there were granular critiques here or there. Colin Powell did not endorse another Republican president after working in three Republican administrations. During the birther movement, a racist political conspiracy theory about President Obama’s birth in America, Powell said, “The whole birther movement: Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party? I think the party has to take a look at itself."
“There's also a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party. What do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities."
- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
It is sad to see Tim Scott traffic in the critical race theory moral panic.
It is also unfortunate to see Byron Donalds’ support for a convicted former president whose campaign caters to stereotypes about marginalized groups.
The sycophancy of some contemporary Black politicians in the Trump GOP is against the legacy of some of America’s most storied Black Republicans, who carried the legacy of the African American freedom struggle on their shoulders. Even when outnumbered, they did not pervert their history to please a cult of personality or selfishly enrich themselves. The history of Black participation in the Republican Party includes speaking up against reactionaries within the party.
Because country over party.
Thank you for your reply. As per Dr. King, "I look forward to the day when my children will be judged on the content of their character, and not the color of their skin". I have read the arguments against seeking a 'colorblind' society, but I think that is the way to go for all Americans.
I'm a Democrat but do not agree that Republicans were "powered by a racialized reality". You make an accusation, playing the race card, with no proof. I and many more Democrats are wondering when you will listen to the common sense and practical wisdom of Glenn Loury and John McWhorter. The very fact that over 80% of murders of young Black males is caused by other young Black males requires introspection on the part of Black leadership.