by George E. Curry
Few things are as repulsive as Black conservatives trying to
advance the Republican agenda by mischaracterizing the Civil Rights Movement or
distorting history. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice provided a textbook
example of this during a recent appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
When asked her thoughts on gun control, Rice replied: “Well,
Larry, I come out of a – my personal experiences in which in Birmingham, Ala.,
my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against White
nightriders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac,
and sitting there armed. And so I’m very concerned about any abridgement of the
Second Amendment…”
Moments later, she added: “…We have to be very careful when
we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. And
on this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances
that people like my father experienced in Birmingham,
Ala., when, in fact, the police weren’t
going to protect you.”
This expert on Soviet history obviously hasn’t studied
enough American history. There is no evidence that the Founding Fathers – or
the Fondling Fathers, as I like to call some of them – were in the least bit worried
about African-Americans being able to protect themselves against White
supremacists. In fact, half of them owned slaves. So did nine U.S.
presidents.
To brush up on her American history, Rice should read the
expert witness testimony submitted by Eric Foner,
then-president of the American Historical Association, in connection with the University
of Michigan’s defense of its
affirmative action programs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Slaves, of course, experienced the institution of politics
and law quite differently from white Americans,” wrote Foner,
a history professor at Columbia University.
“Before the law, slaves were property who had virtually no legal rights. They
could be bought, sold, leased, and seized to satisfy an owner’s debt, their
family ties had no legal standing, and they could not leave the plantation or
hold meetings without the permission of their owner.”
Given the treatment of African-Americans, it is incredulous
to assert, as Rice does, that the Founding Fathers were even remotely concerned
about allowing Blacks to protect themselves.
This is not the first time Rice has distorted facts for
political gain.
Speaking at the 2000 Republican convention, Rice praised her
father as “the first Republican I knew.” She declared, “Democrats in Jim Crow
Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father
has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.”
What Rice forgot was the truth: political parties don’t
register voters in Alabama.
Voters are added to the voting rolls by registrars. A profile of Rice written
by Dale Russakoff, a reporter for the Washington Post
and native of Birmingham, was even
more telling.
After a White registrar asked Rice’s
father a trick question to keep him from registering, according to Russakoff: “Rice says her father later learned of a
Republican functionary in the registrar’s office who would register blacks
secretly, as long as they registered Republicans – not the expansive grant of
suffrage suggested in her speech.”
Rice’s exploitation of the Civil Rights Movement is even
more notable because her middle-class parents, by her own admission, were not
active in the movement. Her father, John Rice, was a minister and her mother, Angelena, was a school teacher.
The Washington Post profile revealed, “On both sides of her
family, Condi Rice is descended from white slave owners as well as black
slaves; and the slaves were mostly ‘house slaves,’ as opposed to ‘field
slaves,’ according to Connie Rice [Condoleezza’s cousin].”
Many middle-class Blacks waited for working class
African-Americans to bring down barriers that would especially benefit better
educated African-Americans.
“Condi Rice says her father embraced [the movement’s] goals,
but not its means,” the profile of her explained. “’My father was not a
march-in-the-street preacher,’ she says. He strenuously opposed the tactic that
ultimately broke white business resistance to ending segregation in stores
downtown – recruiting children to march into police commissioner Bull Connor’s
phalanx of officers, police dogs and fire hoses, and overflow the jails. ‘He
saw no reason to put children at risk,’ Rice says. ‘He would never put his own
children at risk.’”
But others did. And their courage should not be politically
exploited by those who stood on the sidelines and refused to take similar
risks.
George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service
and BlackPressUSA.com. He appears on National Public Radio (NPR) three times a
week as part of “News and Notes with Ed Gordon.” In addition, his radio
commentary is syndicated each week by Capitol Radio News Service
(301/588-1993). To contact Curry or to book him for a speaking engagement, go
to his Web site, www.georgecurry.com
5/17/05
Source: Chicago
Defender
7/11 Return to: Condoleezza Rice88