# Why do African Americans support the Democrats- the party of slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2013, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393 "2013-09-09T07:05:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/41 "2013-09-09T17:03:27Z")
I’d like to. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/42 "2013-09-09T17:08:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It just shows how amazingly well Democrats have managed to revise history. It shows no such thing. The Democratic Party didn’t take the credit for the CRA, they took the _blame_ for it among white Southern voters. Sure, they’ve enjoyed ironclad support among black voters since, but as **tomndebb** astutely notes, there were no black votes in the South. The Voting Rights Act wouldn’t be passed until the following year, and it was still a generation before the majority of blacks in the South were able to register or actually vote. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby\_Slippers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/94ad74/32.png) [@Ruby\_Slippers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby_Slippers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/43 "2013-09-09T17:14:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t forget Jesse Helms. And his colleague, Senator John East, called by some “Helms on Wheels.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/44 "2013-09-09T17:39:14Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans actually supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act in larger\*\*\* numbers \*\*\*than Democrats. > > [Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_party) Really? That cite says that the final version received 199 “Ayes” from Democrats and 163 from Republicans. You really shouldn’t say “numbers” when you actually mean “percentages.” > [@The wikipedia article cited above](#): > > By party > > The original House version: > > ``` > Democratic Party: 152–96 (61–39%) > Republican Party: 138–34 (80–20%) > > ``` > > Cloture in the Senate: > > ``` > Democratic Party: 44–23 (66–34%) > Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%) > > ``` > > The Senate version: > > ``` > Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%) > Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%) > > ``` > > The Senate version, voted on by the House: > > ``` > Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%) > Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%) > > ``` ETA: I am mindful of the fact that a percentage is a number. Have a cookie if you were contemplating bringing that up. My advice stands. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/45 "2013-09-09T18:07:13Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Just watched the film Lincoln. > Given that the Democrats really, really wanted to keep slavery, what happened since that African Americans now vote for them in such large numbers? Where did you get this from? This seems to be the new stink emanating from the fever swamps of the right - a very similar letter appeared in the paper a few days ago. Perhaps the Republican push for African-American voters is now “don’t think about what we’re doing to you today, think what we did for you 150 years ago?” BTW, did you hear “Party of Lincoln” at the last Republican convention? Republicans used to use that phrase every five minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/46 "2013-09-09T18:16:25Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Republicans actually supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act in larger numbers than Democrats. > > [Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_party) > > It just shows how amazingly well Democrats have managed to revise history. You really should read up about the civil rights movement. This was not a Democrat versus Republican thing. Remember, a Democratic AG under a Democratic president forced the admission of black students into southern universities - against the wishes of Democratic governors. And moderate Republicans like Rockefeller definitely weren’t against civil rights. You should also read about the fight about seating delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Goldwater himself wasn’t racist, but he was blind to the effects of his policies, and plenty of those who supported him in the few states he won were. And I’m sure you are aware that LBJ knew what the impact of passing the CRA would be to Democrats in the south - but he pushed for it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/47 "2013-09-09T18:25:38Z")
So the current Republican Party of 2013 has embraced Lincoln and the 13th Amendment of 1865. But as we recently saw, they’re not quite up to accepting Martin Luther King and “I have a dream” from 1963. So what year is it with civil rights for the Republican Party? Current trends would seem to indicate they want to set the clock sometime before 1870 and the enactment of the 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868 - I’m not sure what side of the line it falls on but you don’t hear Republicans endorsing it. So I guess the Republican platform is that civil rights in America reached their peak in 1867. The racial situation was perfect in that year and everything that’s happened since then has been a decline. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/48 "2013-09-09T18:33:22Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I don’t know why the answer has to be more complicated than since the late 60’s the Democratic party has been perceived to do more for minorities, especially blacks (hispanics too, which accounts for the large percentage of hispanic voters who vote Democrat), than the Republicans have. That trend has continued to this day. To me, there is simply no mystery here. I’ll take it a little farther. Other than the OP’s misunderstanding of recent political history as relates to minorities in America and the evolution of both parties since the mid 1900s and, of course, \*\*adaher’s \*\*always interesting, yet always slightly out of kilter views, what matters is how the parties treat minorities today. Even if you accept the premise that the Democrats aren’t doing much of anything for minorities, at least they aren’t actively attempting to harm them as Republicans are. What is so difficult to understand about this? It is insulting, as a minority myself, that Republicans believe us so stupid that we would fall for the ‘party of Lincoln’ nonsense when, whenever we are within earshot of the party’s spokespeople today, not 60 or 100 years ago, they disparage us, act as though we have no right to be here, openly impugn our intelligence, mock and demean our culture, attempt all manner of subterfuge to disenfranchise us, dismiss us as not worthy of respect, and constantly look for new ways to justify deporting us. This type of commentary is so overt and prevalent that we don’t even have to seek it out. Imagine being reminded every day via radio, TV, and print that you are undesired solely because of your ethnicity, and that those with political clout, or access to those who do, are brazenly discussing ways to fix that problem. Why minorities, including blacks, Hispanics with the exception of Cubans, and most Asians, generally want nothing to do with Republicans seems like simple math to me and spouting idiocy like being the party of Lincoln won’t change that equation. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/49 "2013-09-09T18:50:55Z")
I just like how what happened 150 years ago matters but what happened 50 years ago does not. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/50 "2013-09-10T00:56:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So what year is it with civil rights for the Republican Party? Current trends would seem to indicate they want to set the clock sometime before 1870 and the enactment of the 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868 - I’m not sure what side of the line it falls on but you don’t hear Republicans endorsing it. Split it down the middle with the 14th. [They don’t like all of it](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129007120). ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/51 "2013-09-10T01:18:17Z")
I, a black democrat, did want to scream when I saw a video by the Democratic party saying they they ALWAYS supported rights for minorities. I hate history falsehoods. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2013, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/52 "2013-09-10T04:33:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So the current Republican Party of 2013 has embraced Lincoln and the 13th Amendment of 1865. But as we recently saw, they’re not quite up to accepting Martin Luther King and “I have a dream” from 1963. I wonder what would happen if someone proposed a Republican platform plank saying that Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. I bet it would not pass unanimously. If it weren’t voted on in an open session, it might not pass at all. The Republican party of 55 years ago would have passed it easily. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/53 "2013-09-11T00:49:32Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I, a black democrat, did want to scream when I saw a video by the Democratic party saying they they ALWAYS supported rights for minorities. Frankly I’d be grateful if you would. Then, count how many people call you a DINO. Or you could count the crickets while you wait for those people to come flocking round. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/54 "2013-09-11T04:42:57Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I just like how what happened 150 years ago matters but what happened 50 years ago does not. And on a different set of issues, what happened 30 years ago matters but what happened 5 years ago does not. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/55 "2013-09-11T08:15:05Z")
The Democratic party wad never the party of slavery, it was the default dominant political party in America after the collapse of the Federalists. As President Andrew Jackson gained power, his opponents, many (but not all) ex-Federalisrs, formed the Whig party. The Whigs were far from an abolitionist party, however, and there were northern anti-slavery Whigs and Deep South “Cotton Whigs”. Things began to unravel party-wise after the Compromise of 1850, and the Republican party was founded by anti-slavery Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs. After the South lost the Civil War and, especially, after the Republican Reconstruction period, the dominant national party became the Republicans, and they remained dominant till the rise of Woodrow Wilson and his election to the presidency in 1912. Even afterward, the Republican had a Last Hurrah of sorts during the 1920s, only to be brought down hard by the Great Depression that began in 1930 after the 1929 stock market crash. During the period of Republican dominance, roughly 1865-1930,–from the Gilded Age through the Jazz Age–the one reliably Democratic region in America was the South, and not just the deep “cotton South” but the border South as well. In the rest of the country only the major cities were reliably Democrat, and even then there were many exceptions (Philadelphia, Cincinnati). The South’s identification with the Democrats was party historical, as the two giants of the emerging Democratic party of the early 19th century were Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, both of them Southerners. Jefferson was always more popular in the agrarian South than in the increasingly industrial North, and the South in effect reverted to its Democatic roots in the wake of the Civil War and, especially, Reconstruction. Black, or African-Americans, remained loyal to the anti-slavery Republicans (when they could vote, mostly only outside the Jim Crow South) till, as others have mentioned, FDR’s New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt did much for African-Americans, as did his successor, Harry Truman, and while it took a few years, within a couple of decades most African-Americans had become reliably Democratic voters. FWIW: the Republicans moved in the opposite direction, in effectcourting the South, politically, starting in the 50s, contintuing through the 60s, culminating in the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 and his so-called “Southern (electorial) Strategy”, which caused the formerly only moderately conservative Republican national party to swing sharply to the Right, which ensured, ultimately, that the most relaiably Republican regiion of the country would now constitite the states of what used to be the Old South! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/56 "2013-09-11T08:47:20Z")
The Republicans began their drift away from their anti-slavery attitudes as early as the Compromise of 1877: > **[Compromise of 1877](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877)** > > The Compromise of 1877, also known as the Wormley Agreement or the Bargain of 1877, was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among members of the United States Congress, to settle the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The Democrats agreed to the election of Hayes and in turn he withdrew the Army from the South, leaving the Democrats in control there. The Compromise itself secured Hayes's authority as a politi... There really is nothing surprising in the two parties slowly changing political philosophies over the past 150 years, as I said back in post #13. This is what happens to people over a lifetime - they sometimes completely change their political beliefs. This is what happens to parties over a period that’s, after all, something like two lifetimes for a person. The notion that some people have that political parties, especially ones with names as vague as Democratic and Republican, would never change their basic beliefs is naïve about how life works. ---
**Author:** ![Doggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/87869e/32.png) [@Doggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doggo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/57 "2013-09-12T12:40:07Z")
Thanks for all the replies. I see that I started a pretty lively debate. ---
**Author:** ![thepillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@thepillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thepillar)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/58 "2013-09-12T14:21:34Z")
> [@Doggo](#): > > Just watched the film Lincoln. > Given that the Democrats really, really wanted to keep slavery, what happened since that African Americans now vote for them in such large numbers? It’s because they’re a sad little bunch suffering from amnesia, and hence inexplicably choose to remain in the very place where they’re marginalized and ostracized. In Porphyry’s words: > [@](#): > > [They] are similar to those who enter a foreign region, not only in casting aside [their] native manners and customs; but from the long use of a strange country [they] are imbued with affections, manners, and laws foreign from [their] natural and true religion, and with a strong propensity to these unnatural habits. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/59 "2013-09-12T14:23:31Z")
What? ---
**Author:** ![thepillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@thepillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thepillar)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393/60 "2013-09-12T14:48:07Z")
When one is forcefully removed from their native home and enslaved in a foreign land, the last thing that individual would do is to go on and support anything contrived by their captors. If anything, it’s the Back-to-Africa movement instituted by the likes of Marcus Garvey that African Americans should have been fervently supporting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-african-americans-support-the-democrats-the-party-of-slavery/668393.md?page=4)