For Your Review
The President's Reading List
The President of Frederick Douglass Republicans of Tarrant County Reading List is found below:
- "Nothing To Lose, Everything To Gain" by Kathy Barnette—Center Street Hachette Book Group
- "Ralph J. Bunche, Selected Speeches & Writings edited with an Introduction" by Charles P. Henry. The University of Michigan Press
- "Texas VS California, A History of Their Struggle For The Future of America" by Kenneth P. Miller, Oxford University Press
- "The Parasitic Mind, How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense" by Dr. Gad Saad Regency Press
- "Escaping The Racism of Low Expectations" by Barbara From Harlem! A Post Hill Press Book
- "We Can Overcome, An American Black Conservative Manifesto" by LTC Col Allen West, (Ret.) Brown Books Publishing Company
- "Team of Rivals" (The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln) by Doris Kearns Goodwin; Simon & Schuster Publishers
- "My Bondage and My Freedom" by Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, A Classic; Peguin Classics, Publisher
- “Grant” by Jean Edward Smith; Simon & Schuster Publishers
- "The Defender” (How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America) by Ethan Michaeli; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers
A Historical Fact
Black and Tan Republicans were African Americans in the Reconstruction-era South who were loyal to the Republican Party. When the Republican Party was founded in 1854, few African Americans joined. By the time of the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Party began to attract support from Northern blacks including, crucially, Frederick Douglass. That support grew in the late 1860s as some Southern blacks, now voting, cast ballots for the Republicans. After the 15th Amendment was passed in 1870 allowing most of the black males in the former Confederate states to vote, the Republican Party (also now known as the Grand Old Party or GOP) commanded the loyalty of an overwhelming majority of African Americas, prompting Frederick Douglass to remark that for them, "The Republican Party was the ship and all else was the sea." Many of the newly enfranchised Southern black men now formed "Black and Tan" clubs, which along with similar organizations like the Union League, helped to institutionally tie these voters to the Republican Party. Black Republican votes were also driven by white terror. Beginning with the founding of the Ku Klux Klan in 1866 and escalating through the late 1860s and 1870s, Southern whites used violence to intimidate black would-be voters which at first helped solidify their allegiance to the GOP. Thousands of black voters were murdered in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. White terrorists also intimidated and ostracized Southern whites who supported the Republican Party. They harassed the children of white Republicans in schools and isolated the wives of prominent white Republicans in churches and social clubs. On many occasions direct violence, usually reserved for African American Republican voters, was used on white Party activists as well. The violence and intimidation of black and white voters, often called the "shotgun policy" or the "Mississippi Plan," destroyed the effectiveness of the Republican Party in most areas of the South as an alternative to one-party (Democratic) rule. Whites left the GOP and rejoined the Democrats or quit politics. Blacks who continued to vote did so at the risk of being killed. White Republicans who remained in the Party were increasingly convinced that they could survive politically only by removing black GOP officeholders and leaders and in some instances by jettisoning black voters altogether. These Republicans, known as the "Lilly Whites," fought the Black and Tan Republicans for control of the Party. They remained warring factions until the 1930s when African Americans deserted the GOP to support the policies and administration of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sources:
Republican of the Year
On June 15, RNC National Committeewoman Dr. Ada Fisher was presented with the Republican of the Year Award at the Rowan County Lincoln Day Dinner.
Elected to the RNC in 2008, Dr. Fisher was the first-ever black woman to be elected from North Carolina and has since been reelected in 2012 and 2016.
Don Vick, the Rowan County Republican Party Chairman, presented Dr. Fisher with the award and highlighted her important service to the Party on the local, state, and national level. A dedicated advocate for conservatism, Dr. Fisher’s vast work includes writing a booklet about North Carolina’s black elected Republicans and a book called Common Sense Conservative Prescriptions: Solutions for what Ails Us. She also served as a member of the North Carolina Federation of Republican Woman and stumped for President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
In addition to Dr. Fisher’s work for the NCGOP, she has been deeply involved in public service. Her past work includes volunteering with local high school students working to get into college, consulting for occupational health services, and working at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salisbury, NC. She has also published columns in the local Salisbury Post and Newsmax Magazine, which cited her as one of the 50 most influential African American Republicans in the entire country.