Today, we celebrate Juneteenth.  On this day in 1865, the slaves in Galveston, Texas learned from Union General Gordon Granger that they had been freed by the application of the Emancipation Proclamation with the end of the American Civil War.

The Central Texas 9-12 Project continues to focus on educating ourselves about American history.  We are inspired by “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White” by David Barton (available at Amazon.com).  This book discusses the contributions that African Americans made to our American culture well before the modern civil rights movement.  As we did further research we found a list of African-American Republicans on Wikipedia.  There are only 98 listed here.

While we maintain a non-partisan position for our organization, we feel that this list of 98 Republicans  drastically underestimates the number of politically conservative African-Americans. We will add this gentleman to the list, E. Frederic Morrow.  (1906-1994) Morrow was the first African-American to hold an executive position at the White House.  He served under President Dwight D. Eisenhower as Administrative Officer for Special Projects from 1955 to 1961.

Wikipedia is edited by the users. There are no pre-requisites and no costs associated with contributing accurate, factual information to this resource. In the spirit of honoring the contributions of African-Americans from both sides of the aisle, and with a desire to reach further back in our country’s history than the last fifty years, we issue this call to action.

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Pollsters like to say their surveys are like a snapshot, limited to the time and the picture frame in which they are taken. What we are seeing in polling on the takeover of health care by the federal government is a consistent opposition by the American people. No major poll shows the people supporting the House or Senate bill.

The poll most often cited by conservative talk show hosts is that of CNN/Opinion Research. This is the poll that shows the widest gap between those in favor and those opposed—25 points. Rasmussen reports a milder ratio of 16% between those opposed and those in favor. Gallup shows it a near-tossup: 46% in favor, 48% opposed.

What all these polls fail to show, however, is intensity. Intensity in politics is everything.

Those who know the most, who tell pollsters they are following the debate most closely—especially seniors—tend to be most opposed.

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