Published: April 21, 2008
Black Democrat Leader Jim Clyburn Confesses
"My father was a Republican," declared black Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn, the majority whip in the US House of Representatives, when questioned by a reporter for the Orangeburg Times And Democrat about the "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican" nation-wide billboard campaign launched by the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Clyburn's hometown.
"Rep. Clyburn's stunning admission is a testament to the success of our billboard campaign thus far," said NBRA Chairman Frances Rice. "We are making great strides with recapturing the Republican Party's civil rights heritage," she said, "and exposing the racist past of the Democratic Party." Rice pointed out that Democratic Party racism is revealed in books such as "Unfounded Loyalty" by Rev. Wayne Perryman and "A Short History of Reconstruction" by Dr. Eric Foner.
"There are some signs of progress with our effort to get Democrats to apologize to blacks for the Democratic Party's horrendous racism," Rice said, "and we owe a note of thanks to a group of Republicans, The Carolina Stompers, who challenged the Democrats in North Carolina." The Stompers, Rice explained, exposed how the results of the 2006 report by the Commission appointed by North Carolina's governor forced the Democratic Party of North Carolina to issue a unanimous resolution apologizing for the Democratic Party's role in the bloody 1898 Wilmington Race Riots where dozens of black Americans were massacred. Rice noted that the apology of the North Carolina Democrats is on the Internet at: http://www.ncdp.org/node/1546
The Stompers also brought to light the letter to the North Carolina Democratic Party by Governor Richard H. Moore who wrote: "We can no longer ignore the fact that many of us grew up being taught a much sanitized - and inaccurate - history.... The truth is ugly."
Details about the Democratic Party's ugly civil rights history can be found on the NBRA website at: www.NBRA.info