Repairing the Breach

“I see an America where all our children are taught the basic skills they need to live up to their God-given potential … where every citizen owns a stake in the future of our country, and where a growing economy creates jobs and opportunity for everyone … where most troubled neighborhoods become safe places of kinship and community … where every person of every race has the opportunity to strive for a better future and to take part of the promise of America. And I believe the government has a role to play in helping people gain the tools they need to build lives of dignity and purpose.”Those were George W. Bush’s words addressing the 35th anniversary of the Indiana Black Expo recently when he talked about a new relationship between African-Americans and the Republican Party – a 21st-century relationship based upon the historic bond that was ruptured during the ’60s with what can only be described as a “Southern Strategy” based on racial division.On the same day, GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman sent a powerful message to all of black America when he addressed the NAACP’s annual meeting. He acknowledged how the Republican Party had benefited electorally from racial polarization in the past: “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”This was a message of mea culpa that will resonate with most African-Americans of goodwill across the country. It is a repudiation of the Southern Strategy that began with Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign and led to Barry Goldwater’s voting against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, both of which were interpreted as the Republican Party deserting its historical commitment to equal opportunity and civil rights for people of color.We are at a historic turning point in the relationship between the African-American community and the Republican Party. The public tension currently in evidence between the NAACP and the GOP – as illustrated in the remarks of NAACP Chairman Julian Bond at the organization’s annual meeting – can be overcome by open-mindedness and a sincere desire to bind up old wounds by parties on both sides of the divide. As I talk to individual African-Americans from all walks of life around the country, I detect the stirrings of a positive realignment taking place.With the choice of a successful businessman, former Verizon group President Bruce Gordon, to run the NAACP, the right person is now in the right position to restore the historic affinity between African-Americans and the party of Lincoln without sacrificing NAACP ideas and ideals. Obviously, there can be disagreement over programs and policies, but there can be no disagreement over America’s fundamental commitment to equal rights and social justice for all people. While Gordon will not yield an inch on the principles that made the NAACP a great organization, he brings a fresh perspective and a unique set of life experiences that will allow reconciliation to occur.After the Emancipation Proclamation, the end of the Civil War, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the capital that the Republican Party had built up in the black community was overflowing. It was the party of equal opportunity, the party that appealed to people not on the basis of color but on the basis of their desire to improve their lot in life. With the Homesteading Act of 1862 and the Morrill Land Grant College Act of that same year, the Republican Party offered a combination of property ownership, entrepreneurial opportunity, and the vision that any poor man in America should be able to own his own land and climb the ladder to the dream universal.The Republican Party is learning that the purpose of politics is not to defeat your opponent as much as it is to provide superior leadership and better ideas than the opposition. In a great federal republic such as ours, a successful political party must seek consensus, not coalitions.That was the Founding Fathers’ understanding of the “public interest” – not a zero sum exercise in which certain groups benefit at the expense of the rest of the people but rather what makes everyone better off. It is gratifying to see Bush and the chairman of the Republican Party begin to repair the breach and reach out to all segments of the American electorate.Mr. Kemp is founder and chairman of Kemp Partners and honorary co-chairman of the Free Enterprise Fund.

Repairing the Breach

Repairing the Breach

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