Why Black Southerners should become Republicans

(RNS) —  The Republican Party used to be the party of President Abraham Lincoln, and immediately after the Civil War, it was the party that empowered recently freed slaves in the South.

When Reconstruction ended and African Americans were disenfranchised, the white South went solidly Democratic.

This ended when the Democratic Party, under President Lyndon B. Johnson, embraced civil rights as a core issue in its platform. As a Southerner, he knew this would destroy the Democratic Party in the South. And he was right. White Southerners largely abandoned the Democratic Party as fast as it embraced Black Americans.

Republicans pivoted to welcome into their party whites disillusioned with the Democrats. Today, most of the South is now solidly Republican, and the Republican Party welcomes white racists.

Under the direction of President Donald Trump, the Republican state legislatures have aggressively gerrymandered state and congressional districts with no check by the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats responded in kind.

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