OPINION:
The Jim Crow laws were common in the post-Reconstruction years in the South. Their goals were to return Black citizens to a form of servitude and deny them any opportunity to progress. Under them, Black citizens received harsher criminal penalties than Whites for similar crimes, education at all levels was denied to Black children and Black voting was suppressed.
All this and more were begun by Southern Democrats, the National Democratic Party and Democratic post-Civil-War President Andrew Johnson. But it didn’t end there. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 lacked a sufficient number of Democratic votes to reach the two-thirds necessary for passage; it was failing. Republican votes provided the final one-third of the votes needed to gain passage.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was in even worse shape. It needed 290 votes in the House to pass, but only 231 Democrats voted for it; once again, Republicans secured its passage. In the Senate, only 10 Democrats voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965; again here, the Republican votes enabled passage.
Democrats should cease laying their creation of Jim Crow laws at the feet of the Republican Party. The GOP should shove the above facts into the Democrats’ faces at every opportunity, then tout what Republicans did for Black Americans in this area.
MAJ. JAMES M. DORN
U.S. Army Reserve (retired)
Chino Hills, California
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