Do They Owe Us Too?

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Reparations Petition to Congress

Demanding a Formal Apology to African Americans for the Democratic Party’s 200-year History of Racism

We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:

Whereas the healing of wounds begins with an apology, and the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor held accountable for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices are having on us today,

Whereas as a result of the1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission Report of May 31, 2006, the North Carolina Democratic Party issued a unanimous apology on January 20, 2007 for the Democratic Party’s 1898 murderous rampage against blacks,

Whereas in 2007 the Democrats in control of Congress refused to pass the H.R. 40 bill, Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, that was first introduced in 1989 and was re-introduced in every Congress since then by black Democrat Congressman John Conyers of Michigan,

Whereas inner-city minister Rev. Wayne Perryman wrote a book, Unfounded Loyalty: An In-depth Look Into The Love Affair Between Blacks and Democrats, and filed a lawsuit against the Democratic Party on December 10, 2004, but, after admitting their history of racism under oath in court, the Democrats refused to apologize,

Whereas history shows that the Democratic Party through its racist agenda and “States’ Rights” claim to own slaves, sought to protect and preserve the institution of slavery from 1792 to 1865, thus enslaving millions of African Americans, while the Republican Party was started in 1854 as the anti-slavery party and fought to free blacks from slavery and championed civil rights for blacks,

Whereas the Democratic Party enacted Fugitive Slave laws to keep blacks from escaping from plantations; instigated the 1856 Dred Scott decision which legally classified blacks as property; passed the Missouri Compromise to spread slavery into 50% of the new Northern states; and passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act designed to spread slavery into all of the new Northern states,
Whereas the Democratic Party in the South formed the Confederacy, seceded from the Union and fought a Civil War to expand slavery where over 600,000 citizens were killed, including many thousand blacks,

Whereas starting in 1861, anti-Civil War Democrats in the North were called “copperheads” like the poisonous snake because they (a) wanted to appease the South and accept a negotiated peace that would have resulted in an independent Confederacy where blacks were kept in slavery, and (b) showed their deep opposition to the Civil War draft by taking their anger out on blacks, murdering and maiming blacks in virtually every Northern state,

Whereas anti-Civil War Democrats in New York engaged in “Four Days of Terror” against the city’s black population from July 13-16, 1863, and the anti-Civil War chant of the Democrats, as reported by one Pennsylvania newspaper, was: "Willing to fight for Uncle Sam", but not “for Uncle Sambo,"

Whereas the anti-Civil War Democrats verbally attacked Republican President Abraham Lincoln because he wanted to free the slaves through war and grant blacks civil rights, and drafted Northern men into the army to fight and die to make his Emancipation Proclamation a reality – a Proclamation that became the source of the Juneteenth celebrations that occur in black communities today,

Whereas after the Civil War, the Republican Party (a) pushed to amend the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment); (b) passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875; and (c) designed Reconstruction, a ten-year period of unprecedented political power for African Americans,
Whereas anti-civil rights Democrat Andrew Johnson became president when Republican President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and after the Civil War, the Democratic Party fought to end Reconstruction and deny blacks the promised “40 acres and a mule;” fought to overturn all civil rights legislation from the 1860’s to the 1960’s; and passed repressive legislation including the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws,

Whereas the book A Short History of Reconstruction by the renowned historian, Dr. Eric Foner, revealed that: (a) the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by Democrats as a Tennessee social club; (b) the Ku Klux Klan became a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy; and (c) the Ku Klux Klan spread into other Southern states, launching a ‘reign of terror‘ against Republican leaders, black and white,

Whereas the book A Short History of Reconstruction by Dr. Eric Foner exposed the facts that: (a) the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877 was an attempt by Republicans to get the Democrats to stop lynching Republicans, black and white, and respect the rights of blacks; and (b) contrary to legend, President Rutherford Hayes did not remove the last federal troops from the South, but merely ordered federal troops surrounding the South Carolina and Louisiana statehouses to return to their barracks,

Whereas after taking control of Congress in the late 1800’s, the Democratic Party passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned all civil rights legislation passed by the Republicans, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875,

Whereas the Democratic Party supported the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 that established the “separate but equal” segregation doctrine,

Whereas historical documents show that: (a) in an effort to stop the Democrats from lynching and denying civil rights to blacks, the NAACP was founded on Republican President Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday, February 12, 1909, by white Republicans Oswald Garrison Villard, Mary White Ovington and William English Walling; and (b) the first black general secretary of the NAACP was black Republican James Weldon Johnson who became the general secretary of the NAACP in 1920 and, in 1900, wrote the song, “Lift Every Voice,” known as the “Black National Anthem” in collaboration with his brother, John Rosamond Johnson,

Whereas after Democrat President Woodrow was elected in 1912 and while Congress was controlled by the Democrats, all black American civil employees where pushed out of federal government jobs, and the greatest number of bills proposing racial segregation and discrimination were introduced than had ever been proposed in our nation’s history,

Whereas even though Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of many black Americans due to his “New Deal,” he banned black American newspapers from the military because he was convinced the newspapers were communists and rejected anti-lynching laws pushed by Republicans, as well as efforts by Republicans to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission that did not get established until 1958 under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, (He rejected anti-lynching laws?????)

Whereas Democrat President Harry Truman not only rejected Republican efforts to enact anti-lynching laws and establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission, but also failed to enforce his 1948 Executive Order designed to desegregate the military, an order that was not effectively enforced until Republican President Dwight Eisenhower was elected,

Whereas with the party slogan: "Segregation Forever!," the Dixiecrats, who were Democrats, (a) formed the States' Rights Democratic Party for the presidential election of 1948; (b) remained Democrats for all local elections and all subsequent national elections; and (c) did not all migrate to the Republican Party as Democrats today falsely claim, but instead the Dixiecrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks,

Whereas during the civil rights era of the 1960's, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a Republican, was fighting the Democrats including: (a) Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox who famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant; (b) Democrat Public Safety Commissioner "Bull" Connor in Birmingham who let loose vicious dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators; and (c) Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace who stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963 and thundered, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,"

Whereas the Democratic Party supported the Topeka, Kansas school board in the Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (a 1954 Supreme Court decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) which declared that the “separate but equal” doctrine violated the 14th Amendment and ended school segregation,
Whereas in 1954, Democrat Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus tried to prevent the desegregation of a Little Rock public school, resulting in Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sending federal troops to prevent violence and enforce a court order desegregating the Little Rock school,

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy was not a civil rights advocate because he: (a) voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law (that was pushed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower); (b) opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (that was organized by black Republican A. Phillip Randolph); (c) authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to wiretap and investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist in order to undermine that Civil Rights leader; (d) was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues; and (e) only grudgingly agreed to make a telephone call to get Dr. King, Jr. out of the Birmingham jail after Dr. King, Sr. requested Kennedy’s help,

Whereas due to the nearly 100 years of opposition to civil rights laws by Democrats, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who ran for president against Lyndon Johnson in 1964, sought to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation, but his efforts were not heeded by the Democrats who later unjustly criticized Goldwater,

Whereas Democrat President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans due to the strong opposition of Democrats, and in his 4,500-word State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965, Johnson mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five words were devoted to civil rights and not one word about voting rights,

Whereas it was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, who was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960 and 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing,

Whereas Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former “Keagle” in the Ku Klux Klan, made a 14-hour filibuster speech in the Senate in June 1964 in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,

Whereas because Republican Senator Everett successfully fought to pass civil rights laws in the face of strong opposition to civil rights laws by the Democrats, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hailed Senator Dirksen’s “able and courageous leadership;” and "The Chicago Defender," the largest black-owned daily at that time, praised Senator Dirksen “for the grand manner of his generalship behind the passage of the best civil rights measures that have ever been enacted into law since Reconstruction,”

Whereas the statement by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson about losing the South after passage of the 1964 civil rights law was not made out of a concern that racist Democrats would suddenly join the Republican Party that was fighting for the civil rights of blacks, but instead, was an expression of fear that the racist Democrats would again form a third party, such as the short-lived States' Rights Democratic Party,

Whereas after Democrat President Lyndon Johnson expressed his concern that the racist Democrats in the South would be lost after the passage of the 1964 civil rights laws, Johnson’s concern came true when Alabama’s Democrat Governor George C. Wallace in 1968 started the American Independent Party that attracted other racist candidates, including Democrat Atlanta Mayor Lester Maddox,

Whereas in March of 1968, while referring to the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited, which motivated Dr. King to return to Memphis a few weeks later where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968,

Whereas Democrats expressed little, if any, concern when the racially segregated South voted solidly for Democrats; yet unfairly deride Republicans because of the thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party that began in the 1970's with President Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values, and who were discriminating against blacks,

Whereas Republican President Richard Nixon established Affirmative Action as a merit-based system to help African Americans prosper with his 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation's first goals and timetables, as well as his 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act that made merit-based Affirmative Action programs the law of our nation, but Democrats turned Affirmative Action into an unfair quota system;

Whereas Democrat Senator Robert Byrd who was a fierce opponent of desegregating the military complained in one letter: “I would rather die a thousand times and see old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen of the wilds,”

Whereas in the early 1970’s, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd pushed to have the Senate’s main office building named after a former “Dixiecrat,” Democrat Senator Richard Russell who was Senator Byrd’s mentor and leading opponent of ant-lynching legislation, and in 2001 Senator Byrd was forced to apologize for using the N-word on television,

Whereas Democrats did not denounce Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd who praised Senator Robert Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War; yet Democrats denounced Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond who was never in the Ku Klux Klan and, after he became a Republican, defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats,

Whereas Democrats today demean and discriminate against blacks including (a) Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy who called black judicial nominees “Neanderthals;” (b) Democrat Senator Harry Reid who slurred Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as someone who could not write good English; (c) Democrat Senator Joe Biden who boasted that his home state of Delaware was a slave state and slandered all black former presidential candidates (Rep. Shirley Chisholm who became the first black and the first woman to run for president in 1972; Senator Carol Mosely Braum; Rev. Jesse Jackson; and Rev. Al Sharpton) by declaring that Senator Barack Hussein Obama (the son of an white American woman and a man from Kenya) is the first “clean” black presidential candidate; (d) Democratic Party operatives who depicted Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele on the Internet as a “Simple Sambo;” (e) cartoonist Jeff Danziger and Pat Oliphant who portrayed Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice as a “stooge” and a bare foot, “Ignorant Mammy;” (f) Democratic Senator John F. Kerry who denounced Affirmative Action on the floor of the Senate in the 1990’s; (g) Senator Hillary Clinton who set the tone for the current race-based slander when she insulted Mahatma Gandhi of India who was a role model for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by calling Gandhi a gas station attendant; and (h) President Bill Clinton who – following in the footsteps of his mentor J. William Fulbright, a staunch segregationist – refused to enforce a court-ordered Affirmative Action Plan while president and was himself sued for discriminating against his black employees while he was the Governor of Arkansas,

Whereas the Democratic Party’s use of deception and fear to intimidate black Americans into voting for Democrats is consistent with the Democratic Party’s heritage of racism that included sanctioning of slavery and kukluxery – a perversion of moral sentiment among leaders of the Democratic Party; and the Democratic Party’s racist legacy bode ill until this generation of African Americans,

Now, therefore, for the documented atrocities and accumulated wrongs inflicted upon African Americans, we demand a formal written apology from the Democratic Party.