November 2007

Guest Speaker: Michael Zak

Michael Zak receiving recognition award from President Richard Geno (R)

Our guest speaker in November, Michael Zak, has thoroughly researched the history of the Republican Party. He shared with us the strength and heritage of the Grand Old Party. He told us that too often Republicans are on the defensive about their party because they do not know its historical background. If Republicans did know the rich history of its beginnings and its past, they would be taking the moral high ground instead of being somewhat apologetic.

Michael cited two primary reasons Republicans are on the defensive. First, liberals control most of the media; and, secondly, liberals write the history books. The liberals of the past forty years have re-constructed history to fit their agenda. Michael elaborated in great detail the history of the two parties as it relates to civil rights and race relations. He said that while the Republican Party has a rich and proud history with support for the African-American, the Democrats have a very dark past that history books in recent years have whitewashed.

It first started with the slave trade. Only Democrats had slaves. It continued with the fight to free the slaves. It was Democrats who fought to keep slavery. Then, there was the century of the terrorist wing of the Democrat Party - the Ku Klux Klan. This was followed by the Democrats fighting the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. In the past 40 years, it has been Democrats who have put blacks back in shackles by creating a system that has made them dependent on government.The Democrat Party has gone from physical slavery to a more insidious psychological slavery which destroys the human spirit.

Michael then provided a litany of firsts established by African-Americans over the past 125 years, from being elected to Congress and the United States Senate to governorships and being candidates for Vice-President - all Republicans. He discussed Martin Luther King's recommendation back in 1956 that all African-Americans vote the straight Republican ticket as he supported President Dwight Eisenhower's re-election bid. It was a very well-attended meeting, and Michael Zak's remarks were very warmly received.

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