1 00:00:02,180 --> 00:00:08,720 When you think about racial equality and civil rights, which political party comes to mind? 2 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:12,040 The Republicans? Or, the Democrats? 3 00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:15,740 Most people would probably say the Democrats. 4 00:00:15,740 --> 00:00:19,120 But this answer is incorrect. 5 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:25,360 Since its founding in 1829, the Democratic Party has fought against every major civil 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:30,180 rights initiative, and has a long history of discrimination. 7 00:00:30,180 --> 00:00:37,500 The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, founded 8 00:00:37,510 --> 00:00:43,930 the Ku Klux Klan, imposed segregation, perpetrated lynchings, and fought against the civil rights 9 00:00:43,930 --> 00:00:48,220 acts of the 1950s and 1960s. 10 00:00:48,220 --> 00:00:55,500 In contrast, the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an anti-slavery party. 11 00:00:55,500 --> 00:01:01,220 Its mission was to stop the spread of slavery into the new western territories with the 12 00:01:01,220 --> 00:01:04,380 aim of abolishing it entirely. 13 00:01:04,380 --> 00:01:09,460 This effort, however, was dealt a major blow by the Supreme Court. 14 00:01:09,460 --> 00:01:17,720 In the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford, the court ruled that slaves aren’t citizens; 15 00:01:17,729 --> 00:01:19,130 they’re property. 16 00:01:19,130 --> 00:01:23,100 The seven justices who voted in favor of slavery? 17 00:01:23,100 --> 00:01:24,620 All Democrats. 18 00:01:24,630 --> 00:01:27,310 The two justices who dissented? 19 00:01:27,310 --> 00:01:29,150 Both Republicans. 20 00:01:29,150 --> 00:01:35,970 The slavery question was, of course, ultimately resolved by a bloody civil war. 21 00:01:35,970 --> 00:01:42,100 The commander-in-chief during that war was the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln 22 00:01:42,100 --> 00:01:44,380 – the man who freed the slaves. 23 00:01:44,380 --> 00:01:50,220 Six days after the Confederate army surrendered, John Wilkes Booth, a Democrat, 24 00:01:50,220 --> 00:01:52,500 assassinated President Lincoln. 25 00:01:52,500 --> 00:01:59,540 Lincoln’s vice president, a Democrat named Andrew Johnson, assumed the presidency. 26 00:01:59,540 --> 00:02:05,580 But Johnson adamantly opposed Lincoln’s plan to integrate the newly freed slaves 27 00:02:05,580 --> 00:02:08,820 into the South’s economic and social order. 28 00:02:08,820 --> 00:02:14,860 Johnson and the Democratic Party were unified in their opposition to the 13th Amendment, 29 00:02:14,860 --> 00:02:20,180 which abolished slavery; the 14th Amendment, which gave blacks citizenship; 30 00:02:20,180 --> 00:02:23,880 and the 15th Amendment, which gave blacks the vote. 31 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:28,880 All three passed only because of universal Republican support. 32 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:34,580 During the era of Reconstruction, federal troops stationed in the south helped secure 33 00:02:34,580 --> 00:02:37,000 rights for the newly freed slaves. 34 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:42,520 Hundreds of black men were elected to southern state legislatures as Republicans, 35 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:47,799 and 22 black Republicans served in the US Congress by 1900. 36 00:02:47,799 --> 00:02:53,400 The Democrats did not elect a black man to Congress until 1935. 37 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:59,909 But after Reconstruction ended, when the federal troops went home, Democrats roared back into 38 00:02:59,909 --> 00:03:01,650 power in the South. 39 00:03:01,650 --> 00:03:07,840 They quickly reestablished white supremacy across the region with measures like black codes 40 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:12,560 – laws that restricted the ability of blacks to own property and run businesses. 41 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:19,300 And they imposed poll taxes and literacy tests, used to subvert the black citizen’s 42 00:03:19,300 --> 00:03:20,620 right to vote. 43 00:03:20,620 --> 00:03:22,880 And how was all of this enforced? 44 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:28,960 By terror -- much of it instigated by the Ku Klux Klan, founded by a Democrat, 45 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:30,900 Nathan Bedford Forrest. 46 00:03:30,900 --> 00:03:34,940 As historian Eric Foner - himself a Democrat - notes: 47 00:03:34,940 --> 00:03:40,980 “In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party.” 48 00:03:40,980 --> 00:03:45,900 President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, shared many views with the Klan. 49 00:03:45,900 --> 00:03:51,349 He re-segregated many federal agencies, and even screened the first movie ever played 50 00:03:51,349 --> 00:03:57,360 at the White House - the racist film “The Birth of a Nation,” originally entitled 51 00:03:57,380 --> 00:03:58,720 “The Clansman.” 52 00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:04,860 A few decades later, the only serious congressional opposition to the landmark Civil Rights Act 53 00:04:04,860 --> 00:04:08,469 of 1964 came from Democrats. 54 00:04:08,469 --> 00:04:12,020 Eighty percent of Republicans in Congress supported the bill. 55 00:04:12,020 --> 00:04:15,140 Less than 70 percent of Democrats did. 56 00:04:15,140 --> 00:04:21,579 Democratic senators filibustered the bill for 75 days, until Republicans mustered the 57 00:04:21,580 --> 00:04:24,840 few extra votes needed to break the logjam. 58 00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:30,080 And when all of their efforts to enslave blacks, keep them enslaved, and then keep them from 59 00:04:30,090 --> 00:04:35,909 voting had failed, the Democrats came up with a new strategy: If black people are going 60 00:04:35,909 --> 00:04:39,180 to vote, they might as well vote for Democrats. 61 00:04:39,180 --> 00:04:44,509 As President Lyndon Johnson was purported to have said about the Civil Rights Act, 62 00:04:44,509 --> 00:04:49,200 “I’ll have them n*****s voting Democrat for two hundred years.” 63 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:54,970 So now, the Democratic Party prospers on the votes of the very people it has spent much 64 00:04:54,970 --> 00:04:57,440 of its history oppressing. 65 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:02,820 Democrats falsely claim that the Republican Party is the villain, when in reality it’s 66 00:05:02,830 --> 00:05:07,789 the failed policies of the Democratic Party that have kept blacks down. 67 00:05:07,789 --> 00:05:11,580 Massive government welfare has decimated the black family. 68 00:05:11,580 --> 00:05:15,980 Opposition to school choice has kept them trapped in failing schools. 69 00:05:15,980 --> 00:05:22,520 Politically correct policing has left black neighborhoods defenseless against violent crime. 70 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:27,800 So, when you think about racial equality and civil rights, which political party 71 00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:29,680 should come to mind? 72 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:35,300 I’m Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, 73 00:05:35,300 --> 00:05:38,500 for Prager University.