The Black Republican

There is a ray of daylight coming from the Baltimore Sun, and it's name is Star Parker.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced affirmative action. Hand-wringing liberals and ambitious black politicians joined hands, laying the foundation of a new political plantation that displaced the pillars of values, faith, family and personal responsibility with the catechism of victimization and dependency. The result is what we see today.

The success of welfare reform in 1996 hints at what we can expect if we allow blacks the dignity of freedom and choice. Despite predictions by liberals of impending doom if we started to dismantle the welfare bureaucracy, today there are 37 percent fewer mothers with custody living in poverty and 47 percent fewer children reported by the Agriculture Department as being hungry, compared with before welfare reform.

Let our black history lesson for 2004 be to recall that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s victories were achievements of courage and character. He succeeded despite racism, with little physical or political power.

Blacks today, particularly black youths, want real freedom.

She did everything but beg blacks outright to vote Republican. I'm skeptical that there will be much of a movement in that direction, but then again John Kerry is no Bill Clinton.