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 Had you asked a group of African Americans in 1935 which party stood in the way of black political involvement, they would have uniformly answered, the Democratic Party. The statistics at the time were staggering. Since the end of the Civil War not a single black candidate made it to the house or senate as a Democrat. Blacks were blocked from state positions as well by the Democratic Party or its terrorist arm, the Ku Klux Klan. Remarkably, the Democratic Party, the oldest existing political party in America, failed to put an African American in the United States Senate until Carol Moseley Braun in 1993.
Today the Democratic Party mouths the ideal of black political power but fails to deliver. To this day no black man or woman has ever chaired the Democratic National Convention. Three African Americans have chaired the Republican National Convention, including most recently Oklahoma Senator J.C. Watts. African Americans have exerted greater influence in the past few current Republican Administrations than ever before, including stints in such powerful positions as Secretary of Defense (Colin Powell), State (Powell and Condoleezza Rice) and Education (Rod Paige). Incredibly, whenever an African American rises to positions of power within the Republican Party, he or she is mocked and reviled. One only needs to look at the appalling treatment afforded Clarence Thomas by the Democratic Party and its media brute squad. Although Democrats give lip service to the goal of black political power, they seem opposed to those African Americans who rise to power without their benevolence. The black community must wake up to the fact that the Democratic Party is the main roadblock in this country to an empowered and influential black citizenry.
Here in Chicago, the Democratic Machine has long taken the black community for granted and delivered little in return. A report on January 29th indicated that black Chicagoans now hold a smaller share of policymaking city jobs than at any time since Daley took office. African Americans now hold a mere 29.9% of these important positions. Hispanics, another staunch Daley constituency, now hold only four City Hall Cabinet positions (down from 11). Blacks and Hispanics together compose over half of the citys population.
 The clear pattern in Chicago is that those who are faithful to the Democrats political machine reap jobs, while everyone else sits on the sideline. The sad legacy of this system is that those African Americans who do rise to power in city politics tend to owe fealty to Mayor Daley. This illegal scheme, currently under federal investigation, prevents natural black leaders from rising to positions of prominence. The plethora of 50-0 votes in favor of the mayors proposals indicates a dearth of independent black leadership. Whenever aspiring black leaders cross the mayor, their political careers tend to come to an inglorious end. This sad state of affairs is the inevitable result when an ethnic group is completely owned by a single political party. What does a Democrat have to do for the black community in order to win their vote? Next to nothing. Unless both parties are actively fighting for the black vote, which implies that African Americans are willing to listen to both parties, the black community can expect little in the way of change from the Democrat machine.
When, for Cook County Sheriff, a white Irish Democrat from the 19th ward is slated to replace another white Irish Democrat from the 19th ward (whos not even qualified to be a security guard), its time for African Americans to say enough is enough. There were several qualified black candidates for that position who were overlooked. It is time for the African American community to acknowledge that the Democratic Party is the roadblock in the effort for more black leadership in this city, county and in this nation. The Cook County Republican Party and the African American Republican Council, look forward to working with emerging black leaders and ending the decades long rule of Democratic indifference.
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