Their reports included an "Alternative" wreath-laying by black lawmakers at plaques in the Virginia State Capitol commemorating the 24 African American men who were elected to participate in the Virginia state constitutional convention of 1867 t0 1868, the 14 who were elected to the Virginia Senate from 1869 to 1890, and the 85 elected to the House of Delegates for the same time period.
We Virginians, we Americans, should thank President Trump for leading the African American legislators to bring these men to our attention.
Let me say that it is right and good to ensure that the party affiliation of the African American men who were elected in the Reconstruction era should be mentioned in their story - along with why they were not members of the other party, the party of slavery, the party that would, after just a few years of freedom, doom them again, for a hundred years, to oppression, hatred, lynchings.
As the Virginia Museum of History and Culture's website states: "Black political advancement in Virginia largely ceased by the 1890s. The Democratic Party gained control of the government, and one-party rule began, lasting nearly a century."
These men of Virginia proudly identified themselves as Republicans.
Many of these sketches appear on the website of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission's Virginia African American Legislators Project.
Honoring the African American men who were elected in the Reconstruction era should not have been an "Alternative" to being present when a president, much less a Republican president, honored Virginian democracy at the 400th anniversary in Jamestown.
https://spectator.org/amnesia-in-virginia/
We Virginians, we Americans, should thank President Trump for leading the African American legislators to bring these men to our attention.
Let me say that it is right and good to ensure that the party affiliation of the African American men who were elected in the Reconstruction era should be mentioned in their story - along with why they were not members of the other party, the party of slavery, the party that would, after just a few years of freedom, doom them again, for a hundred years, to oppression, hatred, lynchings.
As the Virginia Museum of History and Culture's website states: "Black political advancement in Virginia largely ceased by the 1890s. The Democratic Party gained control of the government, and one-party rule began, lasting nearly a century."
These men of Virginia proudly identified themselves as Republicans.
Many of these sketches appear on the website of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission's Virginia African American Legislators Project.
Honoring the African American men who were elected in the Reconstruction era should not have been an "Alternative" to being present when a president, much less a Republican president, honored Virginian democracy at the 400th anniversary in Jamestown.
https://spectator.org/amnesia-in-virginia/
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