I wish to thank C. Rucker of Floral Park for responding to my letter, which appeared in the Blank Slate Media papers of March 31.
I only wish that the writer had not misconstrued so much of what I wrote.
My letter dealt with Aaron Sorkin, the playwright and script-writer, whom I said was an eloquent spokesperson for liberalism in America.
Rucker charges that, in fact, it was the Republicans and not the Democrats who were the great civil rights advocates.
For example, Rucker writes:
Statement: Liberals ended slavery. Wrong.
Republicans voted 100 percent to end slavery, the Dems only 23 percent for the 13th amendment.
Statement: Liberals got the blacks to vote.
Wrong. Republicans voted Yes, most Dems No.
Here is where little to no knowledge of American history leads to distortion and misunderstanding.
On the face of it, Rucker is correct.
What he doesn’t understand, or chooses not to tell, is that the Democratic Party in that era was the party of slavery and plantation owners.
I apologize for getting into the historical weeds, but there is no other way to debunk Rucker’s charges.
Lincoln was the first Republican president and his party gets credit for freeing the slaves.
(I would speculate that were Lincoln alive today he would not be voting for Donald Trump.)
In the 1860s, there were two factions within the Republican Party — the moderates led by Lincoln, and later President Andrew Johnson, and the “Radical Republicans” led by Thaddeus Stevens.
The latter group imposed harsh Reconstructionist measures on the south and attempted to impeach President Johnson.
As a result, for decades, the whites in the south voted Democratic for every office from U.S. president to municipal dog-catcher.
Hence the term — “the Solid South.”
Then, a gradual realignment of the two parties began.
In 1948, President Truman supported civil rights legislation leading to formation of the Dixiecrat Party which ran Strom Thurmond against Truman.
In the 1960s, both JFK and President Johnson favored integration, thus leading to the further alienation of Democrats in the south.
Today, it is safe to say that most of the south is in the hands of conservative forces.
Sadly, Rucker seems unaware of these facts and, therefore, erroneously draws conclusions about which political party deserves credit for alleviating the plight of black Americans.
It is obligatory that social studies teachers make clear to their students that “the Solid South” meant the Democratic and conservative South, but today that region is largely Republican.
The views of the people remained the same, but they found a change in party labels reflected their true values.
When Rucker praises President Eisenhower for pushing through “the first Civil Rights bill in 1957,” he might have pointed out that this paled in significance to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both of which were signed by President Johnson.
Further evidence of blacks’ allegiance to the Democratic Party today is that there are 45 members of the Congressional Black Caucus and that the first Black president was Barack Obama.
Getting history right is essential for, as is written in John 8:32, “the truth shall make you free.”
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
