Oscar Stanton De Priest (1871-1951) was the first African-American elected to Congress in the 20th century. Like Barack Obama, he rose through Chicago machine politics. Unlike Obama, De Priest was a Republican firmly opposed to big government....
Schoolroom and media accounts during February's Black History Month celebrate big-government proponents but generally ignore fighters for individual liberty like De Priest, NAACP co-founder Moorfield Storey, Howard University dean Kelly Miller, and novelist Zora Neale Hurston....
Jonathan Bean's Race & Liberty in America points out that "academic booklists reflect the politically correct view that left-wing liberals or radicals completely dominated the struggle for racial freedom." Bean's excellent book shows that many African-American leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries had a different emphasis. Those leaders prized individual rights, Christianity, and markets where the only color is the green of greenbacks. Those leaders knew that government power enforced racist codes and segregation...
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