A Good Read

I'm reading a book right now that I highly recommend. Actually I wish it could be a standard supplement text for all high school history classes. It's called "Under God" by Toby Mac and Michael Tait. I actually purchased it years ago, but just getting to it now. (wish I wouldn't have waited so long) It's a collection of true stories of America's rich heritage. These are stories you rarely read about in you history classes. There was a fascinating one about George Washington from the French Indian War. Basically he was shot at multiple times by the Indians who were specifically aiming at him and never miss, till now, and he later discovered holes in his uniform but he was unhurt. The chief realized that it was divine protection and that this man would go on to do great things, which we know he did.

The story that I read today prompted me to write about that book. It was about a man named John Prentiss "Print" Matthews. He was a known Union sympathizer and worked for the cause of equality during the reformation. He lived in Mississippi, so this was a dangerous position to take. They had formed a Fusion Independent Party comprised of blacks and whites. They had been successful in other elections but in 1883 things changed. Militant white Democrats basically waged war on them, intimidating blacks, doing night riding to black homes, whipping and threatening, and even killing one man who fought back. These militants where respected and successful business men in the community. Matthews party had successfully proved that whites and blacks could work together. They went against the all white power philosophy of many in the south, but had a large following of both white and black families. In 1881 Matthews lost the vote for sheriff by only 84 votes, most likely due to the fact that the Democrats "claimed" a horse ate the ballots in a mostly black precinct. Back to 1883, voters of the Independent Party were terrified to vote. Matthews had been given written warnings not to vote, which he ignored. He went to the polls, was verbally warned, and when he handed in his ballot was shot to death. An all white jury declared the shooter Ras Wheeler, innocent. He went on to a successful Democratic political career. The Democrats passed a resolution that no one could organize blacks against the whites in their county without personal harm. Many Southern states followed suit and Mississippi Constitution in 1890 prevented blacks from voting.

We know through history that Democrats are known to stand in the way of racial equality at every turn, yet today tout that they are the ones looking out for black families or any minority. In essence they still are doing all they can to keep black families poor and dependent. If they truly wanted to help, they would step out of the way and let black families become strong and prosperous. We know that's not what they want. They want power and control of blacks and anyone who disagrees with them. One of their biggest problems is that they still see blacks as "different" when they are not. We are all human, we all descended from Adam and Eve, thus all sharing basic genetics. There really is only one race..human. It just contains a wide variety of traits, none being better than the other, just different. I'm beyond sick of "race" games. We are all just people of one big family...move on.

I'm not even a quarter of the way through the book and each story is eye opening...find it and read it :)