1776 - Delaware protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1776 - Pennsylvania protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1776 - Maryland protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1777 - New York protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1780 - Massachusetts protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1784 - New Hampshire protects the right for black men to vote in their state Constitution.
1787 – Pennsylvania Delegate James Wilson proposes the Three-Fifth’s Compromise to the United States Constitution, which is to be included in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. The clause states that slaves will count as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of appointment to the House of Representatives and apportionment of direct tax revenues. The compromise arose due to the Pro-Slavery states wanting to count slaves as whole persons to increase their representation in the House, and to be appropriated more money, and the opposition from Anti-Slavery states who wanted to count slaves as less not because of their worth as humans, but to preserve and strengthen the antislavery majority in Congress.
1787 - The Continental Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance, which states that new states (the first being Ohio) will be created rather than expanding existing states. Most significantly, it states that slavery will be abolished in the Northwest Territory.
1787 - A large number of both white and black men vote to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1789 - Congress bans slavery on all federally owned territory.
1794 - Congress bans the exportation of slaves from any state.
1806 - Louisiana passes the first gun control laws, banning black people from owning guns or “all other offensive weapons.”
1808 - Congress bans the importation of slaves into any state.
1809 - Legislature in Maryland limits voting only to whites.
1819 - South Carolina bans slaves from possessing firearms unless under white supervision or written consent from their master.
1820 - The Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibits states established north of the Arkansas border to have slavery. Missouri and Alabama are newly formed and allow slavery, while Maine is to be a free state.
1825 - Florida passes legislation that allows for white citizens to "enter into all negro houses and suspected places, and search for arms and other offensive or improper weapons, and may lawfully seize and take away all such arms, weapons, and ammunition...." The residences of free blacks are also subject to this sort of unwarranted search and seizure.
1828 - The Democrat Party is founded by Andrew Jackson as he campaigns to become President of the United States. The Party is founded for a strong support of slavery. Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun become President and Vice President, respectively, and both are pro-slavery. Calhoun later became a Senator known for making controversial speeches and voicing a strong support of slavery and the inferiority of blacks.
1830 - The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is passed by a Democrat Congress and approved by Democrat President Andrew Jackson. This Act allowed for future Indian treaties to be negotiated with absolute authority given to the President. This act was not approved by any Indian Nation, including the Five Civilized Tribes.
1830 - Democrat President Andrew Jackson negotiates the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. This began the Trail of Tears and forced relocation of American Indians.
1831 - Democrat legislature in Delaware passes legislation that would require all free blacks wishing to possess a firearm to obtain a license from the Justice of the Peace.
1831 - Democrat legislature in Maryland bans all blacks from possessing a firearm.
1831 - Democrat President Andrew Jackson bans the distribution of antislavery literature and publications via mail. Jackson also demands that any Southerners have their names be made public should it be learned that they receive any such “inflammatory mail”.
1833 - A Democrat controlled legislature in Georgia passes a ban stating that "it shall not be lawful for any free person of colour in this state, to own, use, or carry firearms of any description whatever."
1835 - Democrat Legislature in North Carolina limits voting only to whites.
1835 - A Democrat controlled Senate ratifies the Treaty of New Echota with support and supervision by Democrat President Andrew Jackson. The Treaty forced the removal of the Cherokee Tribe, one of the Five Civilized Tribes, to present-day Oklahoma with all expenses of relocation paid, millions of acres of land, and $5 million. The Cherokee Tribe however, did not agree to the Treaty, were forced to relocate against their wishes, and were not given any money or compensation. The movement of the Cherokees comprised the majority of the Trail of Tears forced emigration.
1835 - Democrat President Andrew Jackson appoints Roger Taney to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a racist who supported slavery and wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Decision.
1836 to 1845 - Democrats enforce a gag order in Congress to prevent any mention or debate on the topic of abolition, slavery, or civil rights. The order also made any antislavery petitions void.
1836 - Vice President to Andrew Jackson, Democrat Martin Van Buren wins the White House on a strong pro-slavery platform. Van Buren had a strong and long pro-slavery record due to his actions as a state politician, Senator, and Governor of New York that go back to 1815.
1837 - Democrat Senator John C. Calhoun states that slavery is a “positive good” and fights for slavery to persist and Northern states to be obligated to return former slaves in a speech before the Senate.
1838 - Democrat President Martin Van Buren orders the use of military force against any Indians who had not left yet. It is estimated that between 2,000 to 15,000 Indians died as a result of the forced movement; the most commonly cited number is 8,000. An estimated 60,000 Indians were forcibly removed by Democrat Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
1844 - A Democrat controlled Supreme Court of North Carolina upholds a race-based gun ban because blacks were not considered citizens in State v. Newsom.
1845 - Democrat James K. Polk is elected president. Polk tries to appeal to both anti-slavery and pro-slavery sentiment by allowing slavery in Texas but not in Oregon.
1848- Democrat Senator John C. Calhoun denounces the Declaration of Independence for stating that all men are created equal.
1848 - A Democrat controlled Supreme Court of Georgia denies blacks their entitled rights in Cooper v. Savannah because "free persons of color have never been recognized here as citizens; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or to hold any civil office."
1850 - Under the Compromise of 1850, California is admitted as a free state, the slave trade is abolished in Washington D.C., and passed the Fugitive Slave act which would require all U.S. citizens to assist in returning runaway slaves. Those who opposed slavery were bitter about this compromise and served to unite them in their stance against slavery.
1852 - A Democrat controlled legislature in Mississippi bans gun ownership for all blacks.
1854 - Democrat controlled Congress and Democrat President Franklin Pierce approve of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which created the states of Nebraska and Kansas from the Kansas Territory The act left Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves on the issue of slavery.
1854 - The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act sparks strong opposition to defy elite slaveholders vying to control the entire federal government - the “Slave Power“. A coalition of Free-Soilers and Whigs join together to form the Republican Party. The new third party was formed solely to defeat slavery and contend that all men should be treated equal under law.
1856 - Republicans nominate first candidate John C. Fremont, whose campaign slogan is "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men, Fremont." Slave states vote overwhelmingly for Democrat James Buchanan, who personally supported slavery. Six of nine of the Republican Party’s planks involve ending slavery or securing the rights of blacks in America. The Democrat Party’s platform defends slavery, stating that “all efforts of the abolitionists [those opposed to slavery]. . . are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences and . . . diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union.” Fremont carries eleven free states in the North but lost the election to Buchanan.
1857 - Democrat President James Buchanan and his administration offer complete support to the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, including but not limited to cash bribes and patronage appointments to Congressmen who vote in favor.
The bill is rejected by voters in Kansas and in the Senate, but passes twice in the Democrat controlled House.
1857 - Democrat President James Buchanan personally lobbies to Democrat Associate Justice Robert Grier to vote with the majority in the upcoming Dred Scott v. Sandford case - which Grier does.
1857 – In Dred Scott v.. Sandford, Chief Justice Roger Tarney - a Democrat appointed by Democrat President Andrew Jackson – wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Decision, along with five other judges. Of all seven Supreme Court Justices who vote in favor of the Dred Scott majority opinion, Judge Samuel Nelson was the only one who was not a Democrat. Nelson and dissenting Judge Benjamin Curtis were the only Whigs. Judge John McLean, who also dissented, was appointed by Andrew Jackson and was a Democrat himself, but soon after appointment shifted from a Pro-Jackson Democrat to Anti-Jackson Democrat, Whig Party, the Free-Soilers, and then finally found home in the Republican Party.
The Dred Scott Decision rules that black people could never become American citizens, that “Negroes” were property, and all laws, legislation, court decisions, state constitutions, and state compromises outlawing or restricting slavery, enabling black people to vote, black citizenship, or black people equal rights, was unconstitutional. The rationale was based on two principles: slaves were property, and under the Fifth Amendment slavery could not be ruled against as it would be an unconstitutional deprivation of property without due process, and secondly, that black people were “beings of an inferior order” that were excluded in the phrase of “all men”.
The Court struck down many Northern laws that had already allowed blacks to vote, be citizens, exercise their rights, and further oppressed slaves in the South seeking freedom. Before this decision, free blacks were allowed to vote in every state but South Carolina. Slavery was abolished in 19 states by this time.
1858 - Democrat Senator John H. Hammond states that “Cotton is King” and that “the rock of Gibraltar does not stand so firm on its basis as our slave system” in a speech before the Senate.
1860 – Republican Abraham Lincoln elected as President. Democrat states to leave the Union. All of the 19 free states are heavily Republican and carry him into the White House. The Democrats platform is still one of supporting slavery and even handed out pamphlets of the Dred Scott decision to show their support for racism. All of the slave states voted for the Pro-Slavery Democrat presidential candidate.
1860 – Republican Frederick Douglass, a former slave and black suffragist, states in his lecture Unconstitutionality of Slavery that the Three-Fifths clause in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 is “a downright disability imposed upon the slave system of America, one which deprives the slaveholding States of at least two-fifths of their natural basis of representation” and that “the constitution encourages freedom, by holding out to every slaveholding State the inducement of an increase of two-fifths of political power by becoming a free State.”
Douglass also stated that “The Republican Party is the ship, all else is the sea” and seen as one of the most influential black men of the 19th century due to his close relationship with Republican Abraham Lincoln.
1860 to 1861 - Seven Democrat states secede from the Union while Democrat President James Buchanan is still in office. Buchanan refuses to take any action while the newly formed Confederate States of America begins capturing Union forts and is sympathetic to their struggle to maintain a pro-slavery majority. Democrat Jefferson Davis becomes President of the Confederate States of America.
1861 to 1863 – The 37th Congress meets. A total of 11 Senators represent all of the 11 states that will secede from the Union (vacancies due to multiple reasons including expulsion and resignation), all whom are Democrats. Many Senators and House members are expelled by resolution or resign due to their state seceding – all of whom are Democrats. Not all of them were members of the Confederate States. Some Democrat Congress members still served in the U.S. Congress even after their state seceded.
1861 - After three years of debate and an internal civil war due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas is admitted into the Union as a free state.
1861 to 1865 – The American Civil War erupts due to the Southern states leaving the Union. The Southern States secede in opposition Abraham Lincoln becoming President, whom they believe will limit or abolish slavery, which they view as an encroachment of their property rights as outlined in the Dred Scott decision of 1857. All 11 states that secede are overwhelmingly Democrat.
1863 - Republican President Lincoln passes Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in Southern states that had seceded.
1865 - Rebels in the South are not allowed to vote due to a Constitutional authority to disenfranchise rebels or to maintain peace and order. The South immediately becomes filled with black Republicans in state legislatures, since the overwhelming majority of the Rebels were Democrats.
Republicans for the first time control the entire Federal Government. Slavery is nonexistent in America, and full rights are given to black people under law in the next five years.
1865 - A Republican Congress passes the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery.
1865 - Democrats form the Ku Klux Klan to thwart the advancement of colored people and Republicans
1867 - Republicans pass their first civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1867) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level (via black codes). Democrat President Andrew Johnson vetoes the bill, stating that the bill would "operate in favor of the colored and against the white race." Republicans overrode the veto on April 9th. The act allowed all persons born in America to be citizens regardless of race or previous servitude (excluding tax-exempt Indians), enjoy property rights, and made it a crime for people to deny these rights.
1866 - Democrat legislature in Alabama bans the ownership and sale of guns or ammunition to blacks.
1866 - The Second Freedmen's Bureau Act is passed by Republican Majority in Congress. Democrat President Andrew Johnson vetoes the bill, but is overridden once again. This act gives former slaves equal rights. The act grants blacks full rights protected by the federal government including gun ownership, voting rights, freedom of speech, and to run for office. Most of these rights, if not all, had already been allowed to all blacks in all of the Republican states, while most or all of these rights had been denied to blacks in all of the Democrat states.
1867 - The US Anti-Slavery Conference by a Republican Congress reported that blacks were "forbidden to own or bear firearms, and thus were rendered defenseless against assaults" in Democrat states.
1867 - Nebraska is admitted into the Union as the first state where the option of slavery was no longer an issue, despite the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
1868 - The 14th Amendment is passed by a Republican controlled Congress, overturning the Dred Scott decision and allowing blacks equal protection under law.
1868 - Republican Ulysses S. Grant is elected President on a platform of promoting civil rights for all men, amnesty for Confederate leaders, and harsh prosecution of violent KKK members.
1870's - Black Republicans start capturing positions of power in the South. Blacks are elected as governors, senators, congressmen, and offices at all levels of government.
1870 - Tennessee passes the First “Saturday Night Special” Economic Handgun Ban which bans the sale of all handguns except the expensive Army and Navy handguns. The name is a reference to “Niggertown Saturday Night” revolvers, a type of cheap handgun popular among blacks. The act was passed specifically to prevent black people from obtaining handguns as most blacks in Tennessee were much poorer than whites. The ban arose as white supremacist concern arose over the rise in black gun ownership due to cheap handguns arriving on the market.
1870 - The 15th Amendment to the Constitution is passed. Not one of the 56 Democrat Senators vote in support of it. The Amendment states that no citizen shall be denied by any authority the right to vote based on their “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
1870 - Republican Hiram R. Revels elected to the Senate. The first black in the Senate, he holds Democrat Jefferson Davis's old seat (President of the former Confederacy).
1871 - Republicans pass their second civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1871) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level. Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, as it made the support or acts with the intention of denying American rights and freedom outlawed. It was proposed by Republican Congressman Benjamin Butler.
1871 - Republican Robert B. Elliott is elected for two terms in the House of Representatives, and later becomes the first black Speaker of the House.
1871 - Republican President Ulysses S. Grant signs The Klan Act and Enforcement Act, identifying the KKK as a terrorist group and outlawing the group.
1875 - Republicans pass their third civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1875) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level. It is proposed by Republicans Charles Sumner and Benjamin Butler and guarantees equal treatment to all citizens at “public accommodations” regardless of previous servitude or color.
1875 - Tennessee is the first state to support segregation in legislation. By 1890 many other Democrat controlled states follow suit.
1876 - Black Representative John Lynch notes, “The opposition to civil rights in the South is confined almost exclusively to States under Democratic control . . .”
1876 - Over the next two decades, Democrats in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia alter their Constitutions to disenfranchise black men, whereas previously they allowed blacks to vote due to reform from Reconstruction.
1876 - Republican Rutherford B. Hayes is elected President on a platform of promoting civil rights for all men.
1879 - A Democrat legislature in Tennessee passes a more comprehensive Economic Handgun ban on racist grounds.
1883 - A Democrat legislature in Arkansas passes an Economic Handgun ban, following Tennessee’s lead, to prevent blacks from owning guns as most blacks were much poorer than whites, on racist grounds.
1893 - A Democrat legislature in Alabama passes an Economic Handgun Ban that put "'extremely heavy business and/or transactional taxes'" on handguns so as "to put handguns out of the reach of blacks and poor whites.”
1896 - The Supreme Court approves of segregation in public facilities in Plessy v. Ferguson with Democrat Chief Justice Melville Fuller writing the opinion. Republican Associate Justice John Harlan stood alone in dissent.
1900 to 1963 - Democrats control the entire South. Democrats continue their nearly century long oppression of black people in the South via Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes. Democrat Theodore Bilbo serves as Governor and as a Senator for Mississippi, who is well known as "The Man", and a staunch supporter of racism and segregation.
1900 - In 1900, Democrat Senator Ben Tillman declared: “We made up our minds that the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were themselves null and void; that the [civil rights] acts of Congress . . . were null and void; that oaths required by such laws were null and void.”
1901 - Republican President Theodore Roosevelt enrages Democrats by dining and seeking advice from Booker T. Washington.
1902 - Democrat legislature in South Carolina bans the sale of handguns to all civilians except police and the KKK.
1907 - Democrat legislature in Texas enacts an Economic Handgun Ban to prevent blacks from owning pistols.
1913 - Democrat Woodrow Wilson introduces official segregation to the federal government. Including some of his racist actions were requiring facial photographs for government employment applications, and stating "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready” and that black desire for education is “unwarranted.”
Woodrow Wilson’s states in his film History of the American People that “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self preservation… until at least there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.
1913 to 1921 - Democrat President Woodrow Wilson presides over what many historians call "The Worst Period of Racism in American History". Segregation, lynching, white supremacy, discrimination, and other displays of racism were at their zenith.
1914 to 1918 - Blacks are forced to serve in segregated units in World War 1 with Democrat Woodrow Wilson as Commander in Chief.
1920 - Republican President Warren Harding bans segregation in the Federal Government implemented by previous Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, supports anti-lynching laws, and provides lectures against segregation.
1921 to 1921 - Republican Representative Leonidas Dyer introduces a federal anti-lynching bill in Congress, but Democrats in the Senate kill it. Republicans introduce many more anti-lynching bills, and a few Democrats do, but they are always killed by Democrat Senate and Democrat House leaders.
1932 - Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt never endorses anti-lynching legislation; he accepts segregation and disenfranchisement, and he condones discrimination against blacks in federally funded relief programs in his New Deal.
1933 to 1963 - In the 26 major civil rights votes, a majority of Democrats oppose civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican Majority supported civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.
1933 - The first federal minimum wage law is passed as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act in a Democrat controlled Congress. It is estimated that over 500,000 blacks lost their jobs as a direct result of the minimum wage price floor.
1935 - The National Industrial Recovery Act is found unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States with an unanimous decision by 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats.
1941 - A Democrat court in Florida upholds gun control laws. Justice Buford states that the gun control laws were “passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State....The same condition existed when the Act was amended… the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers....The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.”
1941 to 1945 - Blacks are forced to serve in segregated units in World War 1 with Democrat Franklin Roosevelt as Commander in Chief.
1942 - Robert Byrd, future Democrat Senator for West Virginia, joins the KKK - an illegal terrorist organization known for its violence against Catholics, Jews, Blacks, and Republicans of any color and religion.
1945 - Byrd states in a letter that he would never fight “with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”
1945 - Democrat Theodore Bilbo is elected to the Senate for two terms in a row. He is an outspoken advocate of segregation, and believes black men should not vote despite the 14th and 15th Amendments. There existed many allegations that his campaigns in Mississippi incited violence and disenfranchised black veterans.
1948 - Theodore “Bull” Connor, a Democrat, arrests Progressive Idaho U.S. Senator Glen Taylor for breaking segregation laws when speaking at a Southern Negro Youth Congress. “The Bull” would later become a Democrat National Committeeman and oppose Martin Luther King Jr. from protesting in Birmingham, Alabama.
1948 - Richard B. Russell, Democrat Senator from Georgia had in May 1948 attached an amendment to the Selective Services bill then being debated in Congress. The Russell amendment would have granted draftees and new inductees in the military an opportunity to choose whether or not they wanted to serve in segregated units. His amendment was defeated in committee. In June 1950 he tried to do this again, which is defeated - again.
1952 - Barry Goldwater becomes Republican Senator in Arizona. He becomes known in Arizona for his strong support of the NAACP (A black civil rights group) and desegregates the Arizona National Guard before Truman's desegregation of the military.
1953 - Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower appoints Chief Justice Earl Warren...
1954 -.... who states on the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, "We conclude that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
1956 - Democrat Senator Harry Byrd organizes the Massive Resistance Movement along with hundreds of other Democrat politicians on both the state and federal level. In Virginia, Byrd led a campaign along with Democrat Governor Lindsay Almond to deny state funds to desegregated schools and close public schools that had desegregated. The Massive Resistance lasted for two years until federal courts declared the Movement’s legislative acts unconstitutional.
1957 - Orval Faubus, Democrat governor of Arkansas, called out his state's National Guard to prevent the integration of Central High School in Little Rock. In response, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends U.S. troops to the city to escort nine frightened black teens into the school past riotous mobs inflamed by Faubus' defiance of a federal court order.
1957 - Republicans pass their fourth civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1957) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level. Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) supports racial segregation with the longest single filibuster ever on the Senate floor, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He began by reading the entire text of each state's election laws. Thurmond took a long steam bath beforehand to dehydrate, so he could drink water and avoid having to go to the bathroom.
1960 - Republicans pass their fifth civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1960) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level. The act allows for federal inspection of local voter registration information and made it a crime to obstruct anyone from voting or registering to vote.
18 Senators, all of them Democrats, worked together to create the longest filibuster in history by each taking turns over a period of 43 hours.
When the filibuster is over, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower signs the bill into law.
1963 - Democrat President John F. Kennedy appeals to Congress to pass civil rights legislation. The wording and proposed legislation came straight from Republican President Eisenhower and his Civil Rights Committee.
1964 - Republicans pass their sixth civil rights act (Civil Rights Act of 1964) in an attempt to restore rights to blacks that the Democrats have stolen at a state level.
Democrat Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia and Democrat Senator Al Gore Sr. of Tennessee lead filibusters with other Democrats. Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia - former KKK member - sets a record filibuster against the act with Democrat Senator Strom Thurmond at 14 hours.
In the House of Representatives, Republicans voted for the Civil Rights act by a margin of 80 percent to 20 percent - 138 to 34. The Democratic House margin was 61 percent to 39 percent - 152 to 96. Republican Minority Leader of the Senate, Everett Dirksen, makes a speech before the Senate to end the filibuster. Republican Senators voted 27-6, or 81.8 percent, to end the filibuster. Democrats voted for cloture at 65.7 percent - 44 to 23. Nine days later the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with 21 Democrats opposing and 6 Republicans opposing. Barry Goldwater was one of the Republicans opposing, stating the reason as keeping government out of private business. Goldwater however, already has an extensive track record of being highly supportive of desegregation and civil rights in his home state, his support of NAACP, and desegregation of the Arizona National Guard. Later he would voice his regret in his vote.
1964 - Democrat Senator Al Gore Sr. proposes an amendment that would allow segregation to persist. The amendment is supported by 23 Democrat Senators (out of 71 at the time) and zero Republicans.
1964 – Democrat Attorney General Robert Kennedy, younger brother to former president John Kennedy, assists FBI effort to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by approving wiretapping and electronic surveillance of the man considered the heart and soul of the Civil Rights Movement. The House Select Committee on Assassinations released a report soon afterward citing memoranda and reports validating that Democrat Robert Kennedy initiated the investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
1966 - Democrat President Lyndon Johnson appoints Robert Weaver as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - the first black cabinet member.
1967 - Democrat President Lyndon Johnson appoints the first black to the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall. The Senate approves him with a vote of 69 to 11.
1969 - The Philadelphia Plan, the nation's first Affirmative Action program, is implemented by Republican President Richard Nixon. This set loose quotas on the employment of minorities in only government construction programs.
1970's - Republicans regain control of the South, for the first time since Reconstruction - however, the North starts to turn Democrat. This has been attributed to the “Southern Strategy” of the Republican Party at the time to capture the South.
1971 - Democrats choose former KKK member Robert Byrd as Senate Majority Whip.
1977 to 1987 - Democrats choose former KKK member Robert Byrd as Senate Majority/Minority Leader.
1982 - Republican President Ronald Reagan publicly states that Bob Jones University should be prohibited from tax-exemption status as well as all other segregated schools.
1988 - Active Neo-Nazi and KKK Grand Master David Duke runs for President with support and endorsement from the Democrat National Committee. Later Duke ran as a Republican, and shortly afterwards the GOP sent letters to Duke urging him to stop running as a Republican due to his political and racist viewpoints. The Republican Party has never endorsed David Duke and many high-profile Republicans have expressed their disdain for Duke including former Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
1991 - Clarence Thomas, a black man, is appointed to the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marshall retires. Only 2 Republicans oppose his appointment, and only 11 of 57 Democrats support him. Democrat Senator Robert Byrd is the only Senator to oppose both black nominations to the Supreme Court (earlier he had opposed Marshall).
2000 to Present Day - Under Republican President George Bush unemployment among blacks is at a record low. In October 2006, black unemployment was 9.4% (compared to 10% under Democrat President Bill Clinton). The gap between black and white unemployment is 4.9%, the smallest it has ever been. Under the current rate, the difference in unemployment between whites and blacks will be gone within 20 years. The current rate has also been growing, and if this trend continues this gap may be gone within 15 years.
Black-owned businesses rose by 45%, 450% higher than the national average. Entrepreneurial activity among blacks has increased .04%, the highest ever recorded. Home ownership amongst blacks is at an all-time high of over 51%.
2000 - Republican President Bush appoints the first black man to become Secretary of State in 2000. All Senators confirm him.
2004 - Republican President Bush has the most diverse Cabinet in all history. Among his black appointments are National Security Advisor, Director of Personnel Management, Assistant Attorney General, Chairman of the FCC, Director of HUD, Secretary of Education, and Assistant Secretary of Education.
2004 - Condoleeza Rice is appointed by Republican President Bush as the first black woman to serve as Secretary of State. The US Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs approves her with a vote of 16-2, with Democrat Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry opposing. A full Senate confirmation vote approved her with 85-13. All opposing votes were either Democrats or Independents.
Present Day - In Democrat-controlled States, blacks are rarely elected statewide (with the exception of Former Senator Moseley-Braun from Illinois) and black Democrat Representatives to Congress are elected only from minority districts. Minority Republicans, on the other hand, are elected statewide in Republican States or districts.
