The Party of Lincoln Is Dead

“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black, examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election. “Republicans are the party of Abraham Lincoln, but Black people are stuck on the Democratic plantation.” Please stop saying this. Every time someone makes this argument, an angel in heaven loses a few brain cells.  It’s 2024, and Virginia school board members have voted to put the names of Confederate leaders on two public schools. At the same time, the state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, has still not signed a Democratic bill passed in February to eliminate tax breaks for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Republican Governor Tate Reeves declared April to be Confederate Heritage Month. In Florida, Republicans are trying to punish local officials who remove Confederate monuments. And in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott has invoked a Confederate theory of secession to justify violating federal law. After lecturing Black people to “move on” and stop talking about the legacy of slavery, white Republicans just can’t stop celebrating the racist traitors who lost the Civil War nearly 160 years ago. That’s one of the many...