Democrats love to perpetuate the lie that the Republican Party is the “white people” party. It’s especially ironic if you know anything about history.

Mauricio Baretto of Carolina Review has written a good reminder here.

Lincoln’s Legacy

It was on December 30, 1842 that one of the first African Americans to ever serve in Congress, Josiah T. Walls, was born. Born a slave in Winchester, Virginia, he was forced to fight in the Confederate army until captured by the Union army in 1862 at Yorktown. Once free, he joined the valiant ranks of the States Colored Troops, in which he become a corporal and was finally discharged to Alachua County, Florida. Soon enough, he was elected to the Forty Second United States Congress in 1871 and joined the ranks of Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi, Jefferson F. Long of Georgia, and Benjamin S. Turner of Alabama as the very first African Americans to serve in U.S. Congress. And what else did these congressmen have in common? Not only were they the first African-Americans elected into congress, but they were all proudly serving Republicans as well.

It is crucially important to understand the history of the Republican Party and its legacy to be able to fully understand what it stands for today. With origins dating back to President Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party quickly became a symbol for equal opportunity and freedom, even though that message has somehow been often misconstrued in today’s society. Abraham Lincoln, in signing the Emancipation Proclamation, set a precedent for what the Republican Party should be: a protector of the freedom of the people in all aspects of their lives. In signing the Emancipation Proclamation, he sparked the fundamental change needed to truly move this country forward as he declared four million U.S. slaves finally free. This precedent initiated a legacy that has led the Republican Party to represent and uphold freedom, even today.