For months, the Republican Party has become known as the Party of "No", a deliberate strategy to block meaningful legislation in order to bring down the Democratic Party, especially President Barack Obama. Remember Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina called to fellow Republicans: "Kill the Health Care Bill and it will be Obama's Waterloo."

Well, Gerald E. Smith, from all indications a Republican, has added another strategy to the Republicans' playbook: deceiving. In a January 21, 2010, Smith alleges in an Americus Times Recorder editorial that the Republican Party fought for Civil Rights legislation while the Democratic Party fought against such legislation. He goes on to say that, "In recent years revisionists have distorted the facts and most of this is hidden to appear that the Democratic Party is the champion of Black people."

Smith is the one distorting the truth. History clearly shows that the Democratic Party championed modern-day civil rights legislation. What Smith failed to say is that Southern Democrats fought hard against such laws. These "Dixiecrats" as they were referred to then; but now would be called obstructionists, fought hard to defeat any civil rights programs. How well we Blacks in the 50's and 60's, remembered Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace declaring "Segregation today and segregation forever." He was not alone with that stance. Other democratic officials practiced racial segregation: Georgia's Senator Herman Talmadge, North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms, South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond, and Mississippi's Senator John Stennis, to name a few, all voiced a hard line against civil rights. These legislators were all Southern Democrats.

Who are the real revisionists who want to make Black people turn against the Democratic Party? Republican President Abraham Lincoln has been credited with freeing Black people after the Civil War. That era, many Blacks were Republicans because the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during Lincoln's Administration. We remained Republicans for the most part until President Herbert Hoover brought on the Great Depression, which produced massive joblessness and starvation. Many Blacks switched to the Democratic Party because their living conditions improved under Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The American economy rebounded and jobs were created after Roosevelt replaced Republican President Hoover. Today, the majority of Blacks remained in the Democratic Party. There were no revisionist's plots or historical distortions. Life was better for Blacks and Whites. And, in the 1960's, President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Bill (1964) that ended legal segregation in the South. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., witnessed the historic signing…another reason that Blacks remained loyal to the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party leadership record on civil right is dismal or very weak at best…definitely nothing for Smith to boast about. President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, reversed or dismantled many civil rights gains the Johnson Administration enacted.

Reagan even refused to meet with the US Congressional Black Caucus. He left office having burdened the country with one of the largest deficits in the last 30 years. And Reagan set the standard that most Republicans judge the greatness of a president. Another Republican, President George H. W. Bush continued Reagan's position on civil rights. Bush's choice to replace liberal Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was Clarence Thomas whom Blacks viewed as a traitor. His choice of Thomas proves that the Republican Party's goal is for Thomas to continue dismantling civil rights. That the majority of Blacks considers Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom," Smith will find it difficult to say that Thomas, a Republican, is a civil rights advocate.

And Blacks certainly can't say that eight years of the second Bush-President George W. Bush-championed civil rights…illegal wars perhaps, but certainly not civil rights. Okay. So he had Blacks in his cabinet (Secretary of State and National Security Advisor), but both appointees were Republicans with horrible civil rights records. Colin Powell, Bush's first Secretary of State and Condollezza Rice, National Security Advisor (she replaced Colin Powell as Secretary of State), were considered enemies of the Black community.

Yet, they benefitted from civil rights laws that made it possible for them to serve the public in such high government positions. And, the last election that resulted in the first Black president of the United States was a mandate that the majority of Americans, Black and White, wanted a Democrat to lead the nation.