Oscar Stanton De Priest (1871-1951) was the first African-American elected to Congress in the 20th century. Like Barack Obama, he rose through Chicago machine politics. Unlike Obama, De Priest was a Republican firmly opposed to big government. He lost his seat in 1934 when African-Americans voted their empty pocketbooks and began a massive switch from the Republican Party that had claimed their allegiance for 70 years to the Democrats who have claimed their allegiance for the past 75

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That switch had political consequences—Democratic control of Congress, with rare exceptions—and socioeconomic ones as well: Asian immigrants typically built businesses and many African-Americans have as well, but black economic progress in the popular mind is connected to government growth and affirmative action. Schoolroom and media accounts during February’s Black History Month celebrate big-government proponents but generally ignore fighters for individual liberty like De Priest, NAACP co-founder Moorfield Storey, Howard University dean Kelly Miller, and novelist Zora Neale Hurston.

Jonathan Bean’s Race & Liberty in America (University Press of Kentucky and The Independent Institute, 2009) points out that “academic booklists reflect the politically correct view that left-wing liberals or radicals completely dominated the struggle for racial freedom.” Bean’s excellent book shows that many African-American leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries had a different emphasis. Those leaders prized individual rights, Christianity, and markets where the only color is the green of greenbacks. Those leaders knew that government power enforced racist codes and segregation.

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