[Commentary: Speaking Truth To Power]
Ouick; To The Back of the Bus
Last Friday, several conservative Black Republicans assembled for a press conference at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C. to decry the current call for new gun control legislation.
The participants claim the call for gun control will cause African-Americans to lose their gun rights.
Was this press conference anything more than the morally-challenged ramblings of confused African-Americans "conservatives" who’re selling out for a few crumbs?
Stacy Swimp president and CFO of the Fredrick Douglass Society, and several prominent African-Americans met at the National Press Club to denounce the push by some in Congress to legislate more stringent gun-control measures in the face of the recent spate of shootings. Besides Mr. Swimp, speakers included: columnist Star Parker, Niger Innis spokesman for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), Dr. Deborah Honeycutt, Rev. William Owens, Rev. Kenn Blanchard, Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Rev. Bruce Rivers and NBCC (National Black Chamber of Commerce) President Harry C. Alford.
The group claimed current proposals to enhance gun control laws would limit the rights of Black people—and they insinuated the current Democratic Party’s has a motivation similar to that of the Dixiecrats after Emancipation. “I think if you look right after the Emancipation Proclamation – what was going on down in the southern states, it’s very clear that the Dixiecrats wanted to disarm Black people to keep us from defending ourselves against the Klansman, who were murdering white and Black Republicans to control the ballot box,” Mr. Swimp said.
“The first gun laws were put into place to register Black folks, to make sure that they would know who we were – that we could not defend ourselves…There’s a direct correlation between gun control and Black people control.”
This claim was echoed by Rev. Hutcherson, a
