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The WallBuilders Show is a daily journey to examine today's issues from a Biblical, Historical and Constitutional perspective. Featured guests include elected officials, experts, activists, authors, and commentators.
The WallBuilders Show
The Truth Behind Political Parties and Civil Rights
Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White
The tangled relationship between race and politics in America contains shocking truths that have been systematically erased from our collective memory. When Texas Democrats recently fled the state to break quorum on redistricting legislation, they unknowingly echoed tactics used by their political ancestors in the 1870s—though the historical context reveals a dramatically different motivation.
Did you know the Republican Party of Texas was founded on July 4, 1867, by 150 Black Americans and only 20 white Americans? Or that census records from the 1870s documented just one Black Democrat in the entire state of Mississippi? These aren't fringe theories or alternative facts—they're documented historical truths that challenge everything most Americans believe about race and political affiliation.
The electoral record speaks volumes: the first 42 Black elected officials in Texas history were all Republicans. This pattern repeats across the South—the first 99 in Alabama, 127 in Louisiana, 41 in Georgia, and 112 in Mississippi were Republicans without exception. Even more surprising, the Ku Klux Klan's founding documents explicitly stated they were created to "regain power from Republicans," not primarily to target Black Americans. Between 1882-1964, approximately 4,700 Americans were lynched—about 3,500 Black and 1,300 white—revealing the KKK's violence was politically motivated, targeting Republicans of both races.
The gradual transition of Black voters from Republican to Democratic support throughout the 20th century is a complex story often mischaracterized as a sudden "party switch." In reality, most Black Americans still supported Republican Eisenhower in the 1950s, with major shifts occurring gradually through FDR's Depression-era programs and later civil rights legislation.
We also spotlight forgotten heroes like Matthew Gaines, a Black Republican state senator who created one of America's first faith-based healing programs after the Civil War. These stories remind us that understanding American history requires examining the biographical accounts systematically excluded from modern narratives.
Want to discover more hidden history? Visit wallbuilders.com and search "Black History" for resources that will transform your understanding of America's complex past. Share this episode with someone who believes they know American history—they're in for an eye-opening experience.
Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. We're sure glad you joined us today on the Wallbuilder Show. Check out our two websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilder.show .show for the radio program, wallbuilders.show and then wallbuilders.com our main website. Lots of cool stuff coming up in the fall. Get your pastor on a pastor's briefing. Go check out some of the curriculum from biblical citizenship to, uh, the American story books. We got two, two down third ones on the way. I'm not even going to get us started there. They'll probably be like You know, volume 42, by the time we're done, but lots of good stuff available. Go check it out, wallbuilders.com. And speaking of the website, uh there's some really good material in there that is going to touch on what we're going to tell our goals deeper into what we're gonna touch on today. So David, Tim, you guys remember yesterday, we're talking about the, uh Democrat cowards running, you know, tail between their legs, hiding, leaving the state literally to hide so the business could not be conducted in the Texas Capitol. And I mentioned our debt. I think David, you mentioned not, not the first time, certainly they'd done it before. And I mentioned, yeah, all the way back to 1870, when they were trying to stop the, essentially what we would think of as the DPS of today, Department of Public Safety from being created in order to stop KKK from lynching people. And of course the Democrats, you know, that's their muscle, so they didn't wanna stop that from happening. And anyway, they did the same thing, went off and hid, broke quorum, but didn't leave the state, didn't even leave the Capitol grounds, and the sergeant at arms tracked them down, arrested them. And, you know, made a quorum again, but actually left some of them in jail for three weeks while they finished the session. So we'll see what happens this time. But apparently that call has been made, but David, you said something about back then 1870 timeframe, there would have been black leaders of the Republican party in the legislature. And we just don't think of that, you, that was, I remember that was what you got me so interested in this subject 20 years ago, because you had that hit card that was all those black legislators, I think it's South Carolina. That I had no idea that you had all these black Republicans serving in the state legislatures across the South.
David Barton [00:02:09] Yeah, and kind of backing up the story yesterday, uh, president Trump has called out half a dozen states or so that have underperformed in redistricting. Their redistricting does not represent how the state votes. And so Texas is one of those states that despite our strong Republican majority, the congressional districting map is not anywhere close to that. And so he, he called on them, you know, make it, make it match a state where, where are you sending so many extra Democrats out of a state that doesn't elect Democrats statewide. And I think, man, I don't, well, I, I was helping run the Republican party of Texas when for the first time in 130 years, Texas won a majority in the house and the Senate. And we won all 27 statewide races. And that was a number of years ago, bro. That was back in the 1990s and, and Texas has not had a statewide Democrat since that point in time. So Texas is a state that is very, very strongly Republican. We have not elected a statewide Democrat and, you know, 30 years essentially. And so looking at that, that's the kind of stuff that Trump was pointing to and saying, why, why are you allowing these States to underperform? And so Texas is appropriately looking at making the, the congressional numbers from Texas match what, what the, actually match what the state votes. So that's some of the stuff that Trump is arguing. Now, I got to say that here in Texas, we're one of the states that federal courts get involved with like every two years to check our redistricting. I mean, there was a period of time when, again, when I was helping lead the Republican Party of Texas, where it was like every 2 years we're in court because somebody's challenging the redistricting line, somebody's saying it's biased. And so the courts pretty much have signed off on what Texas is doing at this point in time. However, the president thinks that there's still some more space in there and maybe there is. So that's the arguments. Well, part of what Governor Abbott has done in the special session that Texas is doing right now, he said, let's look at readjusting some lines. Let's look to some of those areas. and that doesn't mean redistricting the whole state. It may be taking two districts and just adjusting some precincts back and forth and a couple of districts. I don't know what extent, but I know it's not a full redistricting because that happens every 10 years. So they're looking at some adjustments and that's when the Democrats turned and ran and said, no, no no, we're not doing that. And that's the same kind of stuff they've been doing in Texas for a long time. And this is where the, the history of Texas and really of all the, the former Confederate States in the South become very interesting from a political standpoint. And particularly when you look at redistricting and who gets the benefit from that, whether it's Democrats or Republicans, there's just a ton of American history that would shock most people today to hear. But what was happening and how that all came about and, and how ironic it is that Democrats are running from the state now, because they think they might lose some of the power they have, which, you know, they're already a minority in the state, but even losing some of that power, how opposite that is to the history of the Democrats in Texas. It's just very different.
Tim Barton [00:05:17] Now, dad, you're saying that as like a teaser, like somebody ought to say this and you're not saying it. So take some time and tell us how was it opposite? Cause I honestly would have thought this is super similar, right? When their power was threatened back in the 1870's, they were like, we're out of here. Their powers threat now again they're repeating we're out of here it seems like consistent behavior not opposite behavior but walk us through some of that history that most of us were not taught if you live in texas you take Texas history and yet, Texas history courses don't usually cover some of this political transition and the birth of the republican party and some of those details so walk us to that for a little bit.
David Barton [00:05:59] Yeah. So what happens is nearly all the contention over redistricting that happens in the federal courts are over what are considered minority areas. And these congressional districts, usually black areas in the city of Dallas or Houston or Hispanic areas in Austin or whatever. And that's nearly where all the fight falls is over these minority areas and Democrats claim that, Hey, when you're taking away blacks and Hispanics, you're taken away Democrat votes and et cetera. And that where the irony really comes in. Uh, because when you look at, for example, taking black votes out and that's a Democrat constituency, maybe it is now, but when you go back to the formation, for example of the Republican party of Texas, the Republican Party of Texas was started on July the 4th, 4th of July, 1867, and the Republican party of taxes was founded by 150 blacks and 20 whites. And so right off the bat, you're going to, wait a minute, say that again, 150 blacks, 20 whites, every Southern Republican party was started primarily by blacks with some whites. So what you find is that when you look back in the census of that day, and we have census records from the 1870 census, and I think in a hearing, I think it was 1871 or 72, um, some of the government officials were testifying that they had finished the census in Mississippi. And all of Mississippi, they found only one black person in Mississippi who was a Democrat. Every other black in Mississippi was a Republican. And so when you look at the founding of all of those states, that's where all the first black legislators came from. I mean, if you take, for example, just here in Texas and look at Texas, then right off the bat and in states like Texas, the first 42 blacks elected in the history of the state of Texas were all Republicans. If you go to Alabama, the first 99 blacks elected in Alabama were Republicans. If you go to Louisiana, the 1st, 127 blacks elected office in Louisiana were all Republicans. The 1st 41 in Georgia, the1st 112 in Mississippi. I mean, it just keeps going. And that is why it's so interesting today is people think, well, blacks are always a traditional constituency of the Democrat party and you're trying to move blacks over to Republicans. That goes against all history and no, it doesn't, this is where that, that the whole lack of knowledge about American history and the lack of knows about black history as absolutely disappeared, especially when you go to black political history and you take even the early black Congress and Robert Smalls is one of the great early black congressmen, uh, as a black legislator, he was the guy who founded the Republican party of South Carolina and probably nobody today, no Democrat today would even imagine. That a black congressman who was the founder of the Republican Party in South Carolina. And that's kind of the irony of Democrats turning and running because they're afraid of losing some black voters or Hispanic voters or other minority voters when that from the very beginning had been traditional Republican constituencies and not otherwise.
Rick Green [00:09:07] All right guys, uh, Tim, I don't know about you, but I'm still stuck on one guy. Well, what's the story of this one guy in Mississippi, one black Democrat in all? Was it Mississippi? I'm like, I wouldn't know the backstory on this guy. I'm just stuck on the fact that he's the only one
David Barton [00:09:21] Well, it's kind of funny because I spoke at a black church in Mississippi and was doing an event with a lot of black pastors in Mississippi, and I was going through just the history and one of the things that we have in the wall builders collection is so much original documentation, black history from these early black legislators and just really cool stuff. And so I do a lot, a lot black history presentations and black churches. Which is always ironic, you know, we're in February, it's black history month. And they introduced a white guy to come up on the stage in a black church and give black history. And it's always like an audible gasp. You know, it was like, you're, you you're selling us out kind of stuff, this is a perception. And then I'll pull out some of those documents and go through it. And so I did that in Mississippi with some black pastors and a black pastor, he was probably, I don't know, maybe it's 48, 50 something. He came up to me and was just kind of shaking his head. And he said, you know what? He said, my grandmother always used to say she would not let a Democrat set foot in her house. He said and I never understood what she was talking about until now. He said I've never heard this about black history, but she was old enough to remember back when Democrats were so hardcore racist and there was no way you're going to get blacks to support Democrats and, and he said she came from that generation. And so. It's like, and that was Mississippi, you know, and here she was, he grew up in Mississippi, but by the time he grew up, history had been so rewritten and so changed and had gone through so much revisionism that he had no clue what she was talking about and thought she was kind of losing her mind. And he said, now he understands.
Tim Barton [00:11:02] Well, and dad, too, I think it wasn't maybe just revisionism, although certainly that would be part of it. I, you know, it's there has been a transition historically in the 20th century. There was a major transition where the black community that voted pretty much exclusively Republican, there was a transition over many, many decades where a lot of the black population left the Republican party and joined the Democrat party. And this is why people today would argue, well, there was a great switch. Right? There was this, there was this defining moment when the political parties both decided they were going to switch and they were gonna be the other party, which of course is silly for lots and lots of reasons. But there was a transition of black voters that were voting Republican to voting Democrat. And part of that happens under FDR when you're going through the great depression and FDR opens some of the food and soup kitchens, there's many people that were in dire need that shifted over their support to Democrats because the Democrats at this case, right FDR, he was helping keep people alive. Now it's also very arguable that a lot of his policies prolonged some of the issues of the great depression. So, you know, oftentimes progressive policies, they don't help put money back in people's pockets and that can make things worse economically. Yeah, for sure. That's part of it. But there was a transition there, although, as you get past FDR, Harry Truman is a Democrat and there was a lot of the black community voted for Truman. But when you even get all the way up to Eisenhower, who's the general from World War II, the commander of the Allied forces, when he runs for president, he runs as a Republican. And the majority of the black population vote went to a Republican Dwight Eisenhower. And so, even at Dwight Isenhower's time, the majority of the Black demographic had not shifted their vote over to the Democrats. That actually comes a little bit later with LBJ and part of the war on poverty, and there was a lot of things that happened to change in transition, where there was trickle and trickle of voters leaving the Republican party joining the Democrat party. But dad, to your point, this is why someone that remembered the history and said, wait a second, we remember what the Democrat Party stood for and they didn't stand for equality, that they didn't stand for equal rights. When you look even at the civil rights legislation that was finally passed in the 1960s, it wasn't passed with primarily Democrat support. It was passed with primarily Republican support. Now there were Democrats in charge of time and there was a lot of of political and public pressure for them to do things. And so they were the ones presenting the legislation and presenting the change, but the majority of Democrats did not vote in favor of it. It was the majority Republican vote that actually gave the votes needed for the civil rights legislation to pass. And so even in the civil Rights Era of the 1960s, Democrats were not the ones largely leading the effort for equality. Again, this is why, you know that as you mentioned that pastor Mississippi, his grandmother was like, nope, we're not we're not in step with the Democrats. They're not coming in my house because she understood the history of the Democrat Party and what they stood for.
Rick Green [00:14:16] Yeah, guys. And one of the, one of the most shocking, materials that y'all have ever put out, setting the record straight, American history in black and white. And David, I think you did that, man, it seems like 15, 20 years ago. I can't remember how long ago it was, but I remember how shocking that was to black churches when you would go in and give that presentation, but also just to general public. I mean, none of this stuff was, it was shocking to me. I was certainly taught none of these things. And so really encourage people and go to wallbuilders.com under the store. You can search for black history and get some of those CDs and, and different recordings. But And also, under resources search for black history and we used to have a magazine basically a periodical that would go out and there's tons of additions with all kinds of stories on late black heroes a lot of this black history, and so every you know every year and you know black history month in February there tends to be some more new stuff coming out from wallbuilders, but there's a ton on the website. So check that out of wallbuilders.com quick break guys. We'll be right back You're listening to the wallbuilder show
Rick Green [00:16:20] Welcome back to the wallbuilder show. Thanks for staying with us, we've been talking about the Democrats fleeing Texas once again, and it got us off on this conversation from 1870 and, and how, you know, people just don't think about the fact that the Democrats were the ones doing the lynching, the Democrats where the ones that wanted to keep slavery, the Democrats were, the ones not only, not only those things, David, I remember you talking about after the civil war, all the white only primaries and, you know, just, the constant effort for the Democrats to try to prevent blacks from having equal rights in society.
David Barton [00:16:55] Hey, Rick, you mentioned lynchings. Let's go back there real quick because how did that even enter the discussion? Well, it's because when you go back and look, probably the group associated most with lynchains is the Ku Klux Klan and Ku Klux Klan, their own official documents in 1866, when they were started, they said that they were starting to regain power from, not blacks, from the Republicans. Now, at that time... Blacks were Republicans. So what you look at is alright, if you're going to get power back from Republicans, you're gonna terrorize Republicans in these former Southern States because that's where the Klan was active in the Southern States. You didn't see it going up in Minnesota and you didn't say now it has chapters up there, but it was really active in the southern States. And so we often think of it as terrorizing blacks, which they did. But when you look at it, they lynched between 1882 and 1964. There were roughly 4,700 individuals that were lynched. Of that about 3,500 were blacks and about 1,300 were whites. Now, why would you be lynching nearly one fourth of the people you lynch are whites because you're lynching Republicans. And that's what they said. The Klan was started to take back power from the Republicans. You can look at virtually any black in the South and say, there's a Republican. Go get him. You couldn't look at every white in the south because some were Democrats. So you had to be careful which were the Republican, but that was the point of the Klan was not blacks. It was Republicans. It just proves the point again, that blacks in the South were overwhelmingly Republicans. And so your comment on lynching, you know, that's, that another little bit to go with it.
Rick Green [00:18:38] Yeah, I think that's one of the things that stood out to me the most when you first did this research and had this presentation was, was that lynching statistic and, and, you know, we just don't, nobody knows that the fact that, uh, 25% of those lynchings were, were whites. It totally changes the picture. They're going after Republicans. No doubt about it.
Tim Barton [00:18:56] And guys, as we're talking about this too, it's worth noting, I mean, you know, dad, this is part of what you foot noted in the book, setting the record straight, American history in black and white. It actually goes back to Democrats in congressional committees, talking about where they're saying this, this is why we have the KKK. This is what they do. And so the things we're about that this is one of many things that we try to point out to people, we're not just trying to offer our opinion on this. We're wanting to cite the original documents. We're willing to actually go back to original sources because the modern narrative often gets distorted and things get left out. And sometimes it's quite intentional. Now, maybe sometimes things get left out because maybe just somebody forgot to include details. Maybe there's not a kind of malice in some of the storytelling. Now, some of it we know there is. But this is why we always say, let's go back to the original documents. Let's let's see what's actually there and let's make sure we're we're basing it on what is true. And, and this is the kind of stuff that even when you look at the 1619 project, one of the things that they identified was they wanted to highlight the contributions of black Americans and we went through a slew of black American heroes from the American revolution, from the war 1812 from the Civil War. And some of these incredibly inspiring stories, and the 1619 Project has yet to tell any of their stories, almost as if they didn't want to include the story of like a Robert Smalls or other, again, very well-known, noted, documented stories of these black heroes because it didn't fit the Marxist narrative of what was being promoted. And this is one of the battles we are continually facing but guys, I love. That as we study history, one of the things we see is the repetitive nature of history, right? What the Bible tells us, Solomon wrote, there's nothing new under the sun. What has been will be again. And because so many decisions, so much behavior is based on human nature and human nature doesn't fundamentally change, we see the repeating of so many things. And this is why, again, knowing history becomes significant because if we can learn from history. We don't have to be caught in the repetitive cycle of doing the same failed things over and over and over. Uh, but when it comes to some, some of this, uh, Republican history or black history, it's certainly a stuff that has not been told or has not been told. Well, or has been told this honestly, and probably all three and maybe for multiple different reasons.
David Barton [00:21:39] Thinking about that, Tim, even what you said about the history we do with so many individuals, that takes me back to where I kind of started when we started the discussion and I talk about speaking in black churches. And let me be real clear that when I go speak in black churches, I don't do this Republican history like we're doing right now. Just take it through all the Republicans and Republican party and the founding of the Republic. I tell the stories of black individuals they've never known. And, and there's so many of them. But as it turns out, somebody happened to be Republican, but that's not my point. And that's what I cover in there. For example, the first ever recorded faith based program that was done like in the 18 hundreds came from a black Senator in Texas named Matthew Gaines, who was one of those first 41 elected to office. And you look at, for example, the first three chairman of the Republican party in Texas, two of those three were black individuals. One was a minister, a black minister. So. We just cover the stories of people. I don't necessarily talk about whether Republican or Democrat, but once you learn some of these heroes and start looking into them, then you start seeing that, man, what I've been taught in politics wasn't right either, not just only American history and, and actually racial history, but even political history, just to be real clear, I'm not going into churches and trying to turn everybody into a Republican. That's just not the point.
Tim Barton [00:23:00] Well, and dad, let's back up. When you say, all right, this senator who started one of the first faith based programs instantly, my thought is, wait a second, we had like Bible societies. We had Sunday school. We had other faith based things before this. So what was the faith based program that he started and how, or why was it different?
David Barton [00:23:18] So we've always had this atmosphere promoting religion, morality, Congress and the presence. Well, when he got over into the state level, the state like Texas hadn't really done that. That was not part of what Texas had done. And so now we've gone through all the trauma of the civil war and the trauma of slavery and everything else. And how do you recover and rebuild from that? And, and Matthew Gaines, a state Senator in Texas said, well, it takes, it takes God to do that. And so really that faith based program that came out of Texas, That's one of the earliest faith-based programs in the South that was promoted toward kind of helping people heal, and it was from a black Republican senator in Texas.
Tim Barton [00:23:59] And it's also interesting that when they saw a need that the thought wasn't just let's throw money at it, right? Let's create a welfare program. It's interesting that there used to be a better fundamental understanding of what the human soul actually needs and what people actually need, and there was largely a faith component to it. If you didn't have that faith component, it wasn't going to be real successful. Things weren't going work well. It's what the founding fathers talked about even when it came to education. You had to have the Bible as the base in education because without it, I think it was Benjamin Rush said, if we educate students without the Bible, we'd be educating menaces to society. So we had to give them religion and morality as the basis of their education so that we are doing things to benefit them. Again, going back to this idea that when we used to think the thing that would benefit someone the most was helping restore a faith foundation for them. So different from where we are today, but it does again give a great indication of what made America different and why our founding and even right at this point you're in reconstruction and so you're kind of rebuilding in some ways but even the rebuilding of America there was a lot of faith components to it.
David Barton [00:25:13] Our history is so awesome. Just going back and studying and reading it and we take the approach of biographical history, kind of like the Bible does. You study the stories of people and as you learn that, it's not the dates, names, places or even political parties. It just happens to be interesting. But biographical is just so awesome to study.
Rick Green [00:25:31] Alright, guys, well, so much that's, that's in there. I mean, we packed a lot into today's program and I'm guessing, you know, most of that was shocking to a lot of our listeners, unless they've been listening to Wallbuilders for a long time, or they have one of the, you know, old programs on setting the record straight. So if, if folks out there, if you heard some of this for the first time, you're going, ah, I don't know if that's true. Everything wall builders does is incredibly documented, footnoted, all of that. So go to wallbuilders.com just type in black history. You can do it under resources. You can it in the store. And it'll bring up so many different tools, so many of different materials and tools that you can get to educate yourself and your family. So just type in Black History, go to wallbuilders.com, type in black history. There's a lot of great stories in there, a lot a great black heroes that most Americans just know nothing about. But even just setting the record straight on the political parties, on the history of these various things that David was talking about today, it's all available to you right there at our website. So I strongly encourage you to go there. And then to everyone, even if all of that was not new, if you're familiar with all of those materials, be sure and check out some of the new stuff at wallbuilders.com and of course make that one time a monthly contribution so that we can expand these truths and make sure that more people know these things. Thanks again for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.
