There’s no doubt that racism still goes on today. As we celebrate Black History Month this February, it’s important we realize that and look for ways to move forward and improve our systems. But equally true is that what the media tells us about racism isn’t necessarily true, including what they say about Republicans. Instead, historically speaking, the Democratic Party has often oppressed African Americans.
Nina May, whom I actually interviewed for my book, God, Trump and the 2020 Election, has researched this topic thoroughly and has some incredible insights. She wrote, produced and directed a documentary 15 years ago called Emancipation, Revelation, Revolution about the history of the civil rights movement in America. (She also recently came out with a Christian romantic comedy called First Lady, which you can read more about here.)
“Part of it is what happens to conservative blacks today who leave that liberal plantation and embrace the party of Lincoln,” she says about the documentary. “A lot of people don’t know that Abraham Lincoln was not just a Republican, but the very first Republican president that we had from the newly formed Republican Party, which was an abolitionist party. That was the main reason the Republican Party was formed.”
Nina says the Democratic Party hasn’t changed over the years—it’s always been a party of oppression, control and reduction of human rights.
“Now you see them running on a socialist platform, which is exactly that—socialism is slavery, basically,” she says. “So when they say, ‘Oh, the new Democratic Party has changed,’ well, it really hasn’t. You have someone like Hillary Clinton saying that Robert Byrd, who was a Grand Kleagle of the KKK, was her mentor and her conscience. They called him the conscience of the Senate. This was just a few years ago. This wasn’t hundreds of years ago. Barack Obama did a fundraiser for Robert Byrd.”
In fact, the Democratic Party was the proud founder of the KKK, Nina says. The KKK was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party. She also says 23 black congressmen, who were all Republicans, had to go to Congress armed because white Democrats were threatening their lives.
Nina recalls growing up in the South, where she says almost everyone was Democrat. She was even raised a Democrat. But when she saw the horrible racism among Democrats, she registered as a Republican as soon as she was eligible to vote. And although the Republican Party has certainly let Nina down in several ways, she says the Democratic Party—not the Republicans—is still the “party of oppression.”
Even the Jim Crow laws that took away the rights of newly freed slaves were initiated and passed by Democrats. In the same way Democrats devalued the inherent human value of black people in that age, Nina says they do the same thing now with unborn babies.
“There are a lot of similarities between slavery and abortion,” she says. “It is a battle that is being fought today very similarly to the abolition party that fought about 200 years ago. There are a lot of similarities there. And it goes back to the devaluing of human life. That’s what liberals do. They have this sort of hierarchy of elitism, that some are more worthy than others.”
So why is the common thought today that Republicans are the ones who are inherently racist? History seems to prove the exact opposite. Sadly, it seems that even many Republicans don’t even know their own history.
“History has been hidden,” Nina says. “It’s not taught in school. None of this is taught in school. … I’ve asked people who work at the RNC [Republican National Committee] if they know who the first Republican president was. They have no idea. Who was the first black Republican senator? They have no idea. It’s very embarrassing—it really is.”
The switch came around the time that Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive, Nina says. Unfortunately, President John F. Kennedy was killed. Lyndon B. Johnson was vice president, and he knew he couldn’t get elected without the black vote. So what did he do? Nina says he became an avid supporter of the civil rights movement—and that’s when the Democratic Party became known as the more progressive and pro-black party.
For that reason, she says, we must equip ourselves with truth if we want to change minds. I encourage you to listen to my interview with Nina. She shares much more fascinating history that most Americans nowadays don’t even know. Click here to listen to the podcast!
