The Browning of the GOP - Ebony Jet Online Magazine

Top Conservatives Bring Color and Candor to Republican Party                                                   Friday, October 08, 2010                                               By Armstrong Williams

Here's a statistic that you might find shocking: one in four Black voters between the ages of 18 and 29 describes [himself or herself] as 'conservative.' Now, here's why you shouldn't find it shocking: African-Americans, as a whole, are conservative, favoring positions that could only be described as mainstream Republican. According to a recent study, 75 percent of Blacks favor school prayer; 73 percent favor a $500-per-child federal tax credit; and 72 percent favor three-strikes-and-you're-out laws. These are all conservative positions.
While the most liberal faction of the Democratic Party has held it hostage with left-wing ideas that are far from the mainstream, the Republican Party has remained steadfast, supporting the issues that a new generation of Blacks routinely rate among their chief concerns. Be honest: Black America often cringes with the Republican Party at the liberal secular attitudes Democrats have toward such issues as nontraditional marriage, gays in the military and education policies that continue to fund a failed system.
But we never break rank, even though the reality is clear: no political group has done more to help minorities than Republicans. Its the party that freed the slaves, invited Booker T. Washington to the White House and sent federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce school integration.
In fact, most Blacks used to be die-hard Republicans, fleeing, for the most part, in 1964, when Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater­­ widely regarded as the fat, beating heart of the publicly professed his intent to repeal the Civil Rights Act. The rise of Goldwater signaled unmistakably that the highest levels of the modern Republican Party leadership included outright racists.
Even now, its amazing to think that one man created a mass exodus of Black voters from the Republican Party. But today, the great flight has the chance to be met by the great return as a new breed of Black conservative has emerged and taken center stage in the Republican Party. The two face plates for this movement ­­former U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and current National Republican Committee Chairman Michael Steele‹speak exclusively to Black America in the November issue of EBONY.
Ebony Jet