Chapter 20

The NACCP Convention was taking place at the aging United Arts Center. Built in the 1970's and became famous in the 1990's Chicago Bulls run of NBA championships under Michael Jordan still thought to be the greatest basketball player in history.

President Gabrielle Cunningham stood just off the stage as the auditorium filled up. Republicans were as welcome to the NAACP like snakes on a plane. Horace Wilson, the Democratic nominee, had received a warm reception from the African-Americans which was a given. Wilson was the governor of California and his running mate John Hall, a black Senator from Illinois.

She was tired due to the lack of sleep and had not eaten anything solid in days. Nibbling on toast, bagels, danishes downing it with tea. All of a sudden she began to have regrets. She had worked for weeks on this not consulting one person. It was just her and the computer. Her research was careful. She didn't want to make even one mistake. She was thinking of just throwing it open to a question and answer session. However presidents didn't do that to a major orginization, did they?

" ... President of the United States," she heard her introduction. With a pit in her stomach, the feeling of having to urinate, and feeling like lead in her feet; she stepped out on state to cold applause. Heading straight to the podium. She straightened her notes, looked up with a smile. She felt many rivers of sweat rolling down her back.

"Good afternoon," she barely was able to get it out. She heard a several polite replies.

"I have a question. I am not a black person as you can readily see so I am here to be educated by you. The question is, why are Blacks Democrats." There was a rumble in the audience as if she insulted them.

"I am bewildered because the Democrates have been your masters for the past four hundred years. They are the ones who bought your ancestors here to be their slaves. Every slave owner was a Democrat. They treated you in a cruel manner.

"All the abolitionists were Republicans. Lincoln, your liberator, was a Republican. The vast percentage of soldiers in the north were Republican or sympathizers for the coloreds as you were called back then. They fought the bloodiest war in American history to give you your freedom. You see, slavery is evil. No race has any right to put another in chains. And they didn't treat you well at all. The food was bad, the living quarters were small and cramped, they healed your wounds or illness because you were valuable to them. Valuable because they never gave you any wages. Not only that but they never kept your small cabins warm or dry, did they? These are the people you serve today. The same ones who did this to you. They call us the devils, you had better reevaluate this."

There was a stirring in the audience. She didn't know if that was favorable or not. Gabrielle was now determined to finish this speech no matter which way the tree would fall. Chris sat off stage cringing at the entire speech.

"After the war there were a string of Republican presidents and Congresses. You were given land to grow crops of YOUR choice. Now not all Republicans were agreeable to your plight and there were some Democrats that disliked slavery and saw the evil in it." She paused for a moment to drink out of a bottle of water. Her eyes scanned the crowd but she could read their faces. She took another drink before resuming.

"What did the Southern Democrats do to mollify the freed coloreds? Why they formed a little organization called the Ku Klux Klan. They'd meet at night, go out for a ride in the country to visit the coloreds. They warned them they had better leave or give them a percentage whatever meager wages you made, They beat your ancestors, lynched some, and they did other atrocities that would sicken a normal person. Adolf Hitler himself believed that these methods of murder and torture were perfectly suitable for the time,

"They charged you more at their stores and gave you inferior products. They made you pay a poll tax just to keep you from voting. They scared people from even coming in on election day. They wouldn't permit your children from going to a college in the South forcing that person to go North to get their education whether it be becoming a lawyer, a doctor, a dentist, and on and on and on.

"They called you all kinds of racial slurs. Nigger being the worst." (Gabrielle wondered how might they received that word coming from a tiny white woman. She had hoped that they looked past this slur.) There were some shouts in the congregation. She even heard a few claps.

"At fine restaurants where whites could have a nice dinner with quality meals, linen napkins, sterling silver flatware, china plates, crystal glasses; if you were served at all you had to wait in the back with all your orders to go. There weren't places that you could eat right there. These terrible embarrassing ways to belittle the black persons. They were not sorry. They did not care about your well being. And they showed you little or no compassion for your plight.

"You would think about one race doing this to another. It's inhuman. If they included concentration camps and systematic killings. And the only crime you committed was you were born the wrong color of skin. Did you ever view photos of black people with scars on their back from the whip from a overseer or some hate filled person with the KKK? Even the founder of the Klan Nathan Beford Forrest quit in disgust. He lost control of the organization. They had gone far beyond anything he envisioned when he formed the Klan of Hate.

"Hop to the twentieth century thinking what would happen next. Now I realize why you are angry, but your anger is taken out on the wrong party." There were angry shouts toward her. Others shouted in her favor. She heard one yell, "Let her have her say."