Ninety-nine and a Half Won't Do

Barack Obama's presumptive nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate is perhaps most starkly contrasted with the unbridled hatred encountered by African American politicians during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period between 1865 and 1877.

The Los Angeles Sentinel, the oldest and most influential African American-owned newspaper on the West Coast, celebrates Senator Obama's accomplishment.

"America Believes in Change," Los Angeles Sentinel, June 4, 2008:

From slave ships to Selma, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Rosa Parks, from Shirley Chisholm to the Rev. Jesse Jackson and now to Illinois Senator Barack Obama who became the great beneficiary of the many struggles of African Americans as the first Democratic Presidential candidate in the History of America.

To say that it has been a long time coming could not even be considered an understatement since it was never considered a possibility to begin with that a Black man would stand a chance to command the highest office in the nation.

However, here we are more than 40 years after Blacks were first allowed the right to vote in 1965 that Obama sits poised and ready to lead America into an evolution of change.

After five grueling months of a Democratic primary that unveiled the ugly wounds of racism and pitted a former First Lady whose last name -- Clinton -- stood for the closest Black President the nation would know, Obama defied all conventional logic and withstood one assault after another to end the historic campaign on Tuesday.

Former slave Abram Colby served as a Republican in the Georgia state legislature during Reconstruction. In 1869, he and his family were assaulted by the Ku Klux Klan, whose attempt to frighten Colby away from politics ultimately proved unsuccessful. Three years later, Colby testified before the U.S. House and Senate in an investigation into "The Conditions and Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States."

"Testimony of Abram Colby," The Conditions and Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, U.S. Congress, 1872:

Colby: On the 29th of October 1869, [the Klansmen] broke my door open, took me out of bed, took me to the woods and whipped me three hours or more and left me for dead. They said to me, "Do you think you will ever vote another damned Radical ticket?" I said, "If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the Radical ticket." They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more, with sticks and straps that had buckles on the ends of them.

Question: What is the character of those men who were engaged in whipping you?

Colby: Some are first-class men in our town. One is a lawyer, one a doctor, and some are farmers. They had their pistols and they took me in my night-clothes and carried me from home. They hit me five thousand blows. I told President Grant the same that I tell you now. They told me to take off my shirt. I said, "I never do that for any man." My drawers fell down about my feet and they took hold of them and tripped me up. Then they pulled my shirt up over my head. They said I had voted for Grant and had carried the Negroes against them. About two days before they whipped me they offered me $5,000 to go with them and said they would pay me $2,500 in cash if I would let another man go to the legislature in my place. I told them that I would not do it if they would give me all the county was worth.

The worst thing was my mother, wife and daughter were in the room when they came. My little daughter begged them not to carry me away. They drew up a gun and actually frightened her to death. She never got over it until she died. That was the part that grieves me the most.

Question: How long before you recovered from the effects of this treatment?

Colby: I have never got over it yet. They broke something inside of me. I cannot do any work now, though I always made my living before in the barber-shop, hauling wood, etc.

Question: You spoke about being elected to the next legislature?

Colby: Yes, sir, but they run me off during the election. They swore they would kill me if I stayed. The Saturday night before the election I went to church. When I got home they just peppered the house with shot and bullets.

Question: Did you make a general canvas there last fall?

Colby: No, sir. I was not allowed to. No man can make a free speech in my county. I do not believe it can be done anywhere in Georgia.

Question: You say no man can do it?

Colby: I mean no Republican, either white or colored.

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Comments

[LiberTLover]

Today is the 10 year anniversay of the death of James Byrd, Jr. He was the 46 yr old black man who was dragged for three miles chained by his feet to the back of a pickup truck by three white men. That was after he was beaten and his face was spraypainted. His remains were found in 75 different locations and his right arm and head were found a mile from his mangled torso. Apparently his murderers thought that his being black in America was justification for their actions. I post this here because I think this man deserves to be remembered today and to remind many that we still have a long way to go.

[tasukibeth1]

Racism is still alive and well in America...I had some pretty specific words spit at me while phonebanking for Obama.

However, I believe that these people are a dying breed. Furthermore, I believe that their fears and hatred will diminish if he is president and they realize he is no different from them. He loves his family and his country. What is there left to be afraid of?

[democratsaint]

so we should vote fro obama cause he is black and if you dont your a racists.is that what the article is about?does not matter if he is qualified or not,does it. if obama was white woud he have been nominated ,nope. he was won because the blacks voted for him because he was black.but if a white votes for a white they are racists makes sense.
hate to say this but when pus comes to shove and national security is brought up obama willbe found lacking and unelectable.yes the democrats found a way to lose.another dukakis in the making.i hope a shakeup xomes out of this mess in the dnc and dean is ousted. we need to scrap the iow, nh lock.scrap caucuses if a state cant or want hold a primary they get no say.change to winner take all,screw this second place gets delegates in the real thing second place gets you squat.

[coloradosiren]

Shhh. Listen. You might learn something. It's called History.

[ksjohnso]

Yes democratsaint, "Shhh. Listen. You might learn something. It's called History."

The article was not about voting for Obama because he is black. If that were true, then I would vote of Condalezza Rice if she ran, which I would do, because I am a Democrat. The article is just pointing out fair black people have came as citizens in this great nation. We have gone from black people being threatened, killed, and raped for their right to vote, to a black man possibly becoming the President of the United States. This is an amazing time in history, and despite however you feel about Barack Obama you are witnessing history and the United States at one of its greatest moments.

Furthermore he is plenty qualified, and people need to realize that there are other important issues that are concerning people in the United States other than the war like the economy and gas prices.

[docpooh]

democratsaint, come on! Of course your shouldn't vote for him based on his race! That would be just as silly as voting for a woman just to elected a female President, and we all know that hasn't ever happened.....

Seriously though, as some other poster said, try putting Condi or Clarence or Keyes on a ballot and see how many African-Americans votes they get..... See we (thoughtful folks) don't base our votes on a candidate's race any more than we do on her/his chromosomes.

[disgustedbyitall]

Spell check.

Grammar check.

Ethics check.

[LiberTLover]

Reality check

[speakyourmind]

Obama is going to WIPE THE FLOOR with that old man. Can't wait to watch.

[skindoggy]

Unfortunately, sad to say, I am not sure that much has changed since 1869. Today, there is still rampant discrimination. It is just more subtle and discreet, albeit just as profound and tragic. A milestone has been reached in this country with the first presidential nominee that is an African-American. But I regret that the march has begun behind the scenes to tear him down..... This country still has deep seeded roots in discrimination and I do not believe we are ready to elect an African American named Barack Obama. The right wing of the Republican party is gleefully excited that they are not running against Hillary, because she might actually have had a chance to win. Wait for all of the stops to be pulled... as the nut jobs in charge for the last 8 years begin a smear campaign like no one has ever seen..... in their desperate attempts to hold on to power.
Skindoggy

[PlantGod72]

These are extraordinary times we are living in, and through the tears, as I read this story----only one of thousands that could be told, I'm sure----I know we have taken a big step forward.

Let us not falter now.

[MetryJen]

It amazes me that Republicans at the start were the party of equal rights. How far they've fallen from the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt.

[mredder4]

And the Democrats used to be the racists and segregationists, at least in the South, so look at it this way: it's not as if the country didn't gain a counterbalancing force when the Republicans began to track to the right. The GOP's fate as the party of exclusion, hate, greed, and racism is their own choice. Let them live with it.

In a way, it's kind of funny, considering the party names. Republican implies that one is for the republic, i.e. representative government, which is what we have (for all that we call it democracy). Democrat implies that you believe in the power of the people, the votes of the individual, and majority rule, by extension. It seems as though somewhere along the line, the parties kept their names but swapped their identities with each other. Weird, huh?

[MetryJen]

LOL, yep, totally weird.

[lostonechampion]

What a great history lesson.

[Soothsayer08]

This was a terrible time, and no one should have been treated this way. Obama brings a new day one of hope and a change for the better.

[khaleef49]

Amen!

[Gma11]

Our national shame.

Now we have a national triumph before us.

[gcswift2]

We have a long and ugly history in America.
I hope the there are enough babyboomers and Gen-Xers to overcome our past and elect Barack Obama President.

My hope is based on these 2 generations because the Gen-Xers grew up in the meritocracy the Babyboomers fought for. If the members of the Greatest Generation decide to live up to their name we will start to prove what we americans have been preaching to the world is true.

[FullChat]

Wasn't the 15th Amendment, giving the blacks the right to vote, passed in 1870, not 1965?

I can't believe that blacks are going to run to McCain.

Vote McCain - Vote for the Draft!

[tbrnotb]

Actually, though African Americans had the "right" to vote, it was the 1965 Civil Rights Act, passed by LBJ and a Democratic Congress, that did away with things such as a "poll tax" and other racist tactics used for years to keep the Black man out of the voting booth. The 1965 Act, made it "against the law" to interfere with the voting of African Americans.

Though we may have rights, it takes an Act of Congess to make alienating those rights against the law.

[capitalismisntamoral]

Unfortunately the Ability to vote, and have your vote counted, is an ongoing battle.

If you payed any attention to the last 2 presidential election disasters in Florida
and Ohio.

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

The civil rights acts passed after the civil war gave blacks the right to vote. The 15th amendment enshrined that right into the constitution but it was never enforced, neither were the 13th or 14th.
Most Americans believe that slavery ended with the civil war, but this is not the case. Teddy Roosevelt tried to end slavery in the south in a series of prosicutions in 1903-1904 but failed because no jury in the south would convict a white man any mistreatment of blacks. Slavery remained a fact of life for most blacks in the south up until the federal government finally ended it to counter enemy propoganda in WWII.