Last year I reported on South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott’s decision to vote against the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first African American female on the United States Supreme Court. Had he any racial pride, he could have been conveniently ill and missed the vote, but then he would have reneged on the deal that he made with the Republican Party, when he sold his soul and racial pride to the GOP in exchange for his ascendance up the political ladder.
This past week, Scott made news when he added his name to the list of candidates seeking to challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. Scott joins the ranks of other Black Republican presidential hopefuls such as Dr. Ben Carson and Atlanta businessman Herman Cain — Carson running in 2016 and Cain vying for the office in 2012.
Different from Carson and Cain, both political neophytes, Scott has a lot of political firsts in his resume. He is the first African-American Republican to serve in the Senate since Edward Brooke departed in 1979. He is the first African American ever to serve in both the House and the Senate. Scott represented South Carolina’s First Congressional District from 2011 to 2013. When elected to the Charleston County Council in 1995 he became the first Black Republican elected to any office in South Carolina since the late 19th century. When elected to the South Carolina House of Representative he was the first Republican African-American state representative in South Carolina in more than 100 years.
He is also the first presidential hopeful of any race or party to announce his candidacy on the ramparts of Fort Sumter. The very cradle of the Confederacy. The site of the opening salvo of the American Civil War. An iconic location representative of the South’s defiance of the Lincoln administration’s desire to preserve the Union and where the first shots in a war to maintain slavery were fired.
For those who are not Civil War buffs or slept through a class in American history, Fort Sumter is an island fortification located in Charleston Harbor. In December 1860 South Carolina seceded from the Union in the wake of the election of Abraham Lincoln. The fort was occupied by a Union garrison under the command of U.S. Major Robert Anderson. When President Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort and maintain control of the fort in Union hands, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumpter on April 12, 1861, launching the first battle of the Civil War. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13. It was controlled by the Confederates for nearly four years. The fort was retaken by General William T. Sherman in February of 1865, two months before the end of the Civil War.
Presidential candidates and their political strategists generally take some time and effort in selecting an appropriate venue to announce their candidacy. In 2007, then Senator Barack Obama chose the Old Capital Building in Springfield, Illinois to make his announcement. As a former Illinois state senator and adopted son of the state, he chose to capitalize on the symbolism of the place where Abraham Lincoln announced his bid for the presidency in 1860. Therefore, one must assume that Scott and his team put some thought into his choice of locations for announcing his candidacy. Of all the places that Scott could have selected, why would he go Fort Sumter? He might as well have had a Confederate flag hanging in the background.
As I have commented previously, current Black Republicans continue to be oxymorons. Consider Florida Republican Byron Donalds who voted against naming a Federal Court House — a seemingly innocuous bipartisan act — in honor of Judge Joseph Hatchett who was the first Black Supreme Court Judge in Florida and went on to serve with distinction on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Here in Cuyahoga County, the first Black man elected countywide to a non-judicial office was Virgil Brown — a Republican. Brown had served as a Cleveland City councilman, director of the County Board of Elections — making him the first Black man in the State of Ohio to hold such a post — a Cuyahoga County commissioner and later director of the Ohio Lottery.
Prior to my election to the Cleveland Municipal Court in 1980, there had been three Black women who served as judges on that court — Judge Lillian W. Burke, Judge Sara J. Harper and Judge Jean Murrell Capers. They were all Republicans, and they were all appointed by Republican Governor James Rhodes. They joined the ranks of other Black members of the judiciary who were also Republicans, namely, the late Judges Perry B. Jackson and Frederick Coleman.
All these individuals were proud of their racial heritage. They were Black first and Republican second. They were members of the party of Lincoln, not Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Jacketless” Jim Jordan or Donald Trump. The current crop of Black Republicans are Republicans first and Black second or third or maybe fourth.
Consider Justice Clarence Thomas. His best friend, billionaire Republican Harlan Crow, financed his lavish vacations and most recently, as has been revealed in the national media, bought and improved Thomas’ mother’s house. But in addition to his largess, Thomas’ benefactor has a collection of Nazi memorabilia. I don’t care who you are, if you collect tokens of Hitler’s Germany, I don’t want to be your friend. But I guess I don’t think like Thomas.
Considering Scott’s opposition to affordable health care for millions of American; his proposed legislations to reduce food stamps to families in need; his anti-union stance; and his membership in a party that actively seeks voter suppression and voter intimidation, maybe he should have made his announcement at Charleston’s Old Slave Mart, but I guess it was already booked that day.
Pass the Oreo cookies, Massa.
C. Ellen Connally is a retired judge of the Cleveland Municipal Court. From 2010 to 2014 she served as the President of the Cuyahoga County Council. An avid reader and student of American history, she serves on the Board of the Ohio History Connection, is currently vice president of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers and Sailors Monument Commission and president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table. She holds degrees from BGSU, CSU and is all but dissertation for a PhD from the University of Akron.
3 Responses to “Tim Scott Announces Candidacy at Fort Sumter by C. Ellen Connally”
Mel Maurer
As you point out so well, his announcement at the place where the south started its war against America to protect its “right” to enslave Blacks is telling on the person Scott is. Nothing subtle about it. He betrays his race and his country. The “dust bin” of History awaits him.
Kathleen
Haha. Thank you for the straightforward words about Scott. It’s mental illness and moral depravity that drives these folks. it is sad for them to spend their time on this earth being so depraved and warped. It’s nothing new however because these types of mental problems have always been among us it’s just a shame that they are the ones that have a singular focus to wrestle power and claw to the top and the rest of us normal / thinking / ethical/ kind people have to observe and be impacted by their sickness. Narcissistic personality disorder: the only mental illness where everyone else suffers except for the one who is afflicted.
BB McGhee
Loved your article. Aside from never voting for him, what options do we have to show our objections to his faulty thinking? In our Republican state, he could easily be nominated and would surely get the stat’s electoral college votes. BB mcGhee