The Democratic Party knows only one way to reach the black population in this country. They race-bait; they lie; they foment change that never actually helps black people. They engage in covert racism against the very people they claim to want to help.

This is for Taylik, Dewayne, Kanesha, Latoya, and any other African-American Millennials who do not fully comprehend that the Democrats have never stopped attempting to strip African-Americans of their birthrights.

Cities that are Democratically controlled have an abysmal record of assisting black citizens. Yet, when election time comes around, the Democrats swoop in with their promises, only to leave when the television cameras cease running.

In 2016, Investor's Business Daily asserted that "[w]hen Democrats are in control, cities tend to go soft on crime, reward cronies with public funds, establish hostile business environments, heavily tax the most productive citizens, and set up fat pensions for their union friends. Simply put, theirs is a Blue State blueprint for disaster." IBD cites Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, Oakland, and Newark, the latter being the fifth worst city to live in 2015.

The heirs of Frederick Douglass have much to be proud of. They have a legacy of strength and family unity against impossible odds. Even during times of slavery, black families were composed of nuclear families, and marriage was the means to cement relationships. Reginald Washington writes of the Freedmen's Bureau Marriage Records.

On April 19, 1866, former slaves Benjamin Berry Manson and Sarah Ann Benton White received an official marriage certificate from the Freedmen's Bureau, officially known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The Wilson County, Tennessee couple had lived as slave man and wife since October 28, 1843, and for the first time in more than two decades their marriage had finally received legal recognition. The Freedmen's Bureau — established in the War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865 ... provided freed people with food and clothing, medical attention, employment, support for education, help with military claims, and a host of other socially related services — including assisting ex-slave couples in formalizing marriages they had entered into during slavery. For the Mansons — who had lived intermittently on separate farms — the marriage certificate issued by the Freedmen's Bureau was more than a document 'legally' sealing the sacred bonds of holy matrimony. Listing the names and ages of 9 of their 16 children, it was for them a symbol of freedom and the long-held hope that they and their children would one day live free as a family in the same household. Benjamin and Sarah Manson were not alone in their quest to put their slave marriage on a legal footing. When freedom came, tens of thousands of former slave men and women — some seeking to marry for the first time and others attempting to solemnize long-standing relationships — sought help from Union Army clergy, provost marshals, northern missionaries, and the Freedmen's Bureau.

But today, largely in part because of Democrat policies, black men and women were enticed into losing the very cement that keeps family unity. And now, young black people think it is the norm to have 72% of their young ones born out of wedlock despite the negative results of this epidemic of fatherlessness.

Concerning the pride of being gainfully employed, as noted by Larry Elder, "[u]nder Trump, black unemployment is near historical lows," whereas during the Obama years, black people lost ground in every major economic category.

Regarding education, how is it that so many black students are not excelling in school? Frederick Douglass innately understood that slavery and education are incompatible because ignorance is one way slave-owners kept their slaves manageable. Why aren't black students demanding that they be taught the basics and not a slew of left-wing indoctrination meant to divide people and keep them down?

While no one is in actual iron chains, the Democratic Party keeps black people manageable because they have been denied the tools to succeed in reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. If you can barely read, you are ripe for the indoctrination and emotional angst the Democrats whip up. If you are praised when you speak street talk in an effort to avoid appearing educated, what kind of gift is that? If Democrats — now diehard leftists — use "white privilege" arguments in order to lure in naïve black students, these students have become useful tools to the left-wing Democratic Party.

As Thomas Sowell has written, "[d]uring the half century following the Civil War, an estimated $57 million was contributed from the North to educate black students in the South and blacks themselves contributed an additional $24 million. But the Southern states dragged their feet on creating schools — and especially high schools — for black children."

In fact, it was the Southern Democrats who were determined not to let black children realize their full potential. Kevin Jackson, who writes a blog called "The Black Sphere" and who authored The Big Black Lie: How I Learned the Truth about the Democrat Party, states, "Democrats are the biggest historical oppressors of black people, and they still are" (159). Jackson challenges any Democrat voter to answer the following question:

If a Democrat can name one thing specific to Democrats that has improved the lives of black people and justified black voting 94% Democrat for the last five decades, then [Jackson] will pay his monthly mortgage payment once for each issue on which he's right.

The usual response is "the Civil Rights Act," whereupon Jackson's pointed retort is:

The first Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1871, which protected blacks from the KKK. It was called The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Though many of the tenets of the original act are in force to this day, the Civil Rights Act was 'modernized' by Eisenhower with the support of other Republican senators and became the Civil Rights Act of 1957, then the Civil Rights Act of 1960, then 1964. Johnson was opposed to it back in 1957, literally saying that Negroes are 'uppity,' and had to be kept from acquiring too much political power.

Eventually, he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and "Johnson hijack[ed] civil rights from the Republicans and [made] it seem like a Democrat accomplishment. But congressional Republicans had voted in favor by 82% while the Democrats were only 64% in favor."

But, you ask, what of the Democrat "people of color" — aren't they working on behalf of black people? Their left-wing ideas will bring ruin to all Americans, and any economic strides that have been made in the last two years will come crashing down. Their Green New Deal is a cover for outright socialism leading to a tyranny. How many people, a good number of them "of color" in Cuba, North Korea, China, and Venezuela, have lost their lives under socialism? According to the Victims of Communism site, "40 countries have experienced communist rule, with over 100 million people killed as a matter of policy in peacetime by their governments, and every single experiment ended up as a collapsed economy or a totalitarian police state."

In addition, Democrats cry crocodile tears for illegal aliens but conveniently forget that it is "many low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered the most" as they compete with illegals.

America is your birthright. Why would you allow yourselves to be used as pawns in a power play by a party that would deny you your G-d-given rights? The Democrats are very good at getting you emotionally angry, but it is a misplaced ire. They are the ones who have denied you what you are due, all under the guise of compassion.

It is time that you removed the blinders from your eyes and called them out on this. It is time to reduce their power if all they do is abuse your interests and prevaricate. At this five-minute You Tube video, listen to these black men who reveal the true face of Democrats, "the party of the KKK." They are proclaiming that they will "support 45."

Will you?

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.