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The Democrats double standard over the KKK
Aquila
Frank Aquila - photo by Contributed to the Courier

Martin Luther King stated, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." No race is superior to another; but the Democrat party has tried to link President Trump and his supporters to the KKK without looking into their own mirror and history.

KKK Grand Wizard William Quigg donated and endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in March 2016 while Trump has disavowed any ties to the KKK. Trump stated all organizations of hate are unacceptable. This includes the KKK, Antifa, or Black Lives Matter, which uses their name as a mask to incite violence with political and racial tension.

Let's look at the facts of the KKK.

The Democrat Party created the KKK to fight against equal rights for blacks after Republican President Abraham Lincoln won the Civil War. No Democrat voted for the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to blacks. The KKK was honored at every Democrat National Convention from 1868 through the 1930's.

Several prominent Democrats were KKK members including President Harry Truman and Hugo Black who was appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971.

Democrat Majority Leader Robert Byrd, who was not only a KKK member, but a Grand Keagle, a recruiter for the KKK, signed up members for $10 a head. He joined because it "offered excitement" and because the Klan was an effective force in "promoting American values." He stated in a letter, "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth.... in every state in the nation." Byrd became the Democrat leader of the U.S. Senate and served from 1951 to 2010 and filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In the 1960's Martin Luther King, a Republican, fought against the Democrats, ultimately sacrificing his life for his dream of equality. It was Republicans and a black Republican by the name of A. Phillip Randolph who organized King's March on Washington in 1963, which was opposed by Democrat President John F. Kennedy, who used the FBI to target King while Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a Democrat, used wiretapping to spy on Martin Luther King.

Remember Gov. George Wallace? Democrat.

Bull Connor? Democrat.

They supported slavery and were the ones turning water hoses and dogs on black protesters in the 1960s
Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson, who as a senator also fought against the Civil Rights Act in 1957, said those "negroes" "were getting pretty uppity these days." LBJ continued, "Now, we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference." After Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he stated to two governors on Air Force One, "I'll have those n-----s voting Democratic for the next 200 years."

As recently as the 1980s, Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings publicly referred to blacks as "darkies" and Hispanics as "wetbacks" without suffering any punishment from his party.

In 1983, Republican President Ronald Reagan signed into law Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday. However, in 1985, then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, Democrat, signed Act 985 into law, making the birthdates of Martin Luther King and Robert E. Lee, the general who led the Civil War Confederate Army, state holidays on the same day in Arkansas.

On May 5, 1993, Clinton praised Senator J. William Fulbright as his "mentor" as he gave the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to a man who spent the vast majority of his public career and life as a proud segregationist and who voted against the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights acts.

I have no problem placing Civil War monuments in a Civil War museum; but there should not be a double standard. Monuments of racists Democrats should be also be taken down and placed in their own Racist Democrat Museum.