“Half the truth is often a great lie” Ben Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1758.

In his May 21 letter [”Reparations? Let the Democratic National Committee pony up!”] writer Norman Schell is entirely correct but tells only half the story. He writes that after the [Civil] war, “All resistance to the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments came from the Democratic Party. And in the Democratic Party controlled south a ‘share-cropper’ system, little removed from serfdom, was instituted. And Night Riders, thee KuKlux Klan, Jim Crow Laws, Sundown towns and racial segregation were enforced in order to keep the newly freed slaves under control.”

Quite true, except that it is not the whole truth regarding “the Democratic Party nationally and locally” as he continues. In the election of 1860, it is true, the Southern wing of the Democratic Party nominated pro-slavery Kentuckian John Breckinridge. But the Northern Democrats nominated mildly anti-slavery Stephen Douglas of Illinois. There was a fourth party, also pro-slavery, but the split in the Democratic Party handed the election to Republican Abraham Lincoln. The split in the Democratic Party lasted 100 years with Southern Democrats supporting racial segregation and terrorism against the descendants of the freed slaves.

And then with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans, Republicans began to woo Southern Democrats away from their party. Barry Goldwater and then Richard Nixon crafted their “Southern Strategy” and stepped away from the principles that their party had been founded on. The Republicans and Democrats did a little dance in which they changed places. Southern segregationists left the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans. Many liberal Republicans could no longer support their parties and voted Democratic.

Yes, you can blame the Civil War era Southern Democrats for a lot of violence and hate-mongering. But who are their present day heirs? The Goldwater-Nixon-Reagan-Trump Republicans who have succeeded in pushing all moderates out of their party. I can’t tell you the entire history in one short letter. Go and study.

Joe Kurland

Colrain