A look back at Dr. Martin Luther King - The Myth of Republican Racism

This post is a look at King's legacy - the other one. Much less discussed, though no less true.

Dr. M. L. King was a Republican

From Andrew Breitbart's Big Government.com

by Publius

Today, in 1866, the Democratic government in New Orleans ordered a raid on a racially integrated meeting of the Republican Party. 40 people were killed and 150 were injured. Remember.

Blacks in the Revolutionary War

Emerging from the Shadows, 1775-1819:
Blacks in the Revolutionary War
The American Revolution was not broadly supported by whites, and the revolutionary leaders, who acted out of their commercial interest, found it difficult to recruit anyone else to fight for them. For example, it was necessary to promise political rights to "Sons of Liberty" recruited from Boston workers, and farmers in Massachusets were offered Indian land in upper New York state as a bribe. Not surprisingly, then, especially since there was no real conviction that Blacks were inherently inferior, the white ruling class recruited Blacks to be fighters and die for their cause.
Connecticut was rather slow to bring Blacks into its militias, and so Blacks who sought to gain land or freedom through the war had to join the militias in neighboring states. For example, the Black Rhode Island Regiment fought at the important Battle of White Plains.
Shown here is the flag of the Bucks of America, c. 1786, (Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society) which was a Massachusetts unit that was almost entirely Black. At the upper left is a square with the gold stars of the thirteen original colonies on a blue ground, and a buck is leaping near a pine tree. Many members of this unit came from Hartford and elsewhere in Connecticut before Blacks were allowed into the Connecticut militia.

Copy of the Honorable Discharge for Brister Baker, 1783, from Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, by William C. Nell. Brister Baker was a Black soldier who fought in the Second Connecticut Regiment. The meritorious discharge notes that Baker was enlisted into the Army in April 1777 and served six years faithfully. The discharge does not make note of the fact that Baker was Black, as would census records in the next century when biological racism emerged.

Of course, the issues over which the War of Independence were fought was a matter of complete indifference to Blacks because they were not involved in commerce. Consequently, there had to be rewards. Pensions were an obvious choice, for they did not make the recipient a property owner able to vote. If the person happened to be a slave, the obvious thing to do with his pension reward would be to assign it over to their owners to pay for their freedom. Here is a pension receipt for the Black soldier, Gad Asher, signed with his mark on 4 March, 1795. While Asher was from New Haven at the time, his son, Jeremiah Asher, later moved to Hartford where his descendents continued to live.

Oh, there's more...

We Will Not Be Silenced Producer on Fox and Friends

Late to the party...but I'm here now.

We Will Not Be Silenced - Part 1

We Will Not Be Silenced - Part 2

We Will Not Be Silenced - Part 3

We Will Not Be Silenced - Part 4

All I can say to the allegations put forth here is that we've got our work cut out for us.

Blacks and women gained the right to vote in...?

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Woman to Vote in America

If that includes "in the area that later became the United States," there are some candidates.
Some Native American women had rights to voice and what we might now call a vote, before European settlers arrive. The question usually refers to women voters in the new governments established by European settlers and their descendants.
European settlers and their descendants? The evidence is sketchy. Women property-owners were sometimes given and sometimes exercised the right to vote during colonial times.

• In 1647, Margaret Brent of Maryland colony assumed her right to vote twice -- once for herself as a property owner and once for Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, because he had given her a power of attorney. The governor denied her request.
• Deborah Moody, in 1655, cast a vote in New Netherlands (which later became New York). She had the right to vote because she had a land grant in her own name.

First Woman to Vote in the United States After Independence

Because women in New Jersey had the right to vote from 1776-1807, and there were no records kept of what time each voted in the first election there, the name of the first woman in the United States to vote (after independence) is likely lost in the mists of history.
Later, other jurisdictions granted women the vote, sometimes for limited purpose (such as Kentucky allowing women to vote in school board elections beginning in 1838).
Here are some candidates for the title of "first woman to vote":

• Unknown. New Jersey gave "all inhabitants" and thus women the right to vote in its state constitution, 1776, then rescinded this right in 1807. The 1807 bill also rescinded the right of black men to vote.

From "Black Patriots of the American Revolution" by David Barton: James Armistead (Lafayette) (1760-1832)

James Armistead was one of the most important American spies during the Revolution. As a slave in Virginia, he witnessed much of the War; and following the British siege of Richmond in 1781, he asked his master, William Armistead, for permission to serve in the cause of American independence with General Marquis de Lafayette, a young Frenchman who came to fight with the Americans. His master agreed, and Lafayette accepted his services. Lafayette dispatched Armistead to the camp of the patriot-turned-traitor, Benedict Arnold (then a British general), to pose as an escaped slave looking for work. Arnold accepted Armistead and allowed him to work in the camp, thus placing him around other British generals, including British commander-in-chief Lord Cornwallis. Armistead obtained much vital information about British plans and troop movements, which he daily sent to General Lafayette. Ironically, Lord Cornwallis so trusted Armistead that he even asked him to become a British spy to watch the Americans. Armistead agreed and thus became a double-spy, feeding accurate information to the Americans and inaccurate information to the British. Upon learning that the British fleet was moving Cornwallis and his troops to Yorktown, Armistead quickly relayed that information to Lafayette and Washington, who gathered the American forces at Yorktown. After the British troops had landed and the British fleet had unsuspectingly departed from Chesapeake Bay, the Americans engaged the British while the French fleet blockaded the Bay to keep the British navy from returning. The Battle of Yorktown ensued, and the British – without their navy to provide reinforcements or supplies and with no way to retreat off the peninsula on which they were trapped – finally surrendered. Armistead’s crucial information had helped bring a victorious end to the American Revolution.
Following the War, Armistead returned to slavery on his master’s plantation. Three years later, in 1784, General Lafayette returned to America for a visit and met with his friend, Armistead. Lafayette penned a certificate to Virginia leaders praising the work and important contributions of Armistead. Armistead then petitioned the legislature for his freedom, which was granted on New Year’s Day, 1787. (In his latter years, Armistead also received a retirement pension from the State for his military services.) Following his emancipation, Armistead adopted the name Lafayette and thereafter called himself James Lafayette. He remained in the State as a farmer.
General Lafayette became an ardent foe of slavery both in America and in Europe, and it is believed that it was his association with James Armistead that helped clarify his views on slavery, leading him to begin his strong public crusade against that evil.
In 1824, General Lafayette made his final visit to America; his tour across the nation was greeted by crowds of thousands in city after city. When touring Richmond, the General recognized in the crowd his black comrade from four decades earlier (now an old man) and called him out by name and embraced him – the last time the two patriot friends were to meet.