A Veteran’s Thoughts
By Ski Ingram
June 2026
Politicians have been lying to us for 250 years in order to get elected to office and most of us understand it as “politics as usual.” We rarely hold them to the promises they made. Fortunately, few political promises or lies affect our daily lives. There is one lie however, that affects us all more than any other and that is the lie about racism in America.
Racism is being used to marginalize groups of people and to gain power over them. Racism is also being used as a cudgel against people so they can retain that power. If more people knew the history of racism that power would disappear. I was surprised to learn that Anthony Johnson, a black man, was the first person, in 1621, to bring black slaves to America.
I was also surprised to learn that after the Civil War twenty-two black men from the South were elected to Congress in the Republican party in 1870. A short time later, after Jim Crow laws were enacted and other groups such as the KKK were organized, these Black Congressmen were forced out of politics. When poll taxes and literacy laws were enacted, it was almost impossible for black people to vote much less run for political office.
When Joseph Rainey, the first black Republican Senator, left Congress he stated, “When myself and colleagues shall leave these halls and turn our footsteps toward our southern homes we know not but that the assassin may await our coming as marked for his vengeance.”
In a few days Americans will be celebrating Juneteenth. June 19, 1865, is the day that former slaves in Texas learned that they were granted their freedom through the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The former slaves only found out about their freedom when Union General Gordon Granger informed them that they were free. I believe it was racist for Texans to keep this information from the black population for 71 days after the war.
Few people know the name Margaret Sanger. She was a woman celebrated by southern politicians in 1916 after she founded the “Negro Project.” The goal of the project, as Sanger explained, was to eliminate “races like Orientals, Jews and Blacks.” Why do so few people not know about this woman and what she believed and promoted? Was she a racist? Were her followers racists? The Negro Project name was changed in 1939 to “Planned Parenthood” because as she stated, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
Dr. Ben Carson stated, “Who started the KKK? That was the Democrats. Who was the party of slavery? Who was the party of Jim Crow and segregation? Who opposed the Civil Rights Movement? Who opposed voting rights? It was all the Democrats.”
It seems clear to me that there is a segment of Americans, of all races, who want to keep the lie of racism alive. These same people gain their power from the race issue. We have just learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is accused of paying hate groups such as the KKK to cause racial problems. They then condemn the KKK as racists and then ask for donations to fight the supposed hate. These donations make it possible for them to continue paying hate groups to cause problems and keep the myth of systemic racism in America.
In 1963 Reverend Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech where he told the crowd of 250,000, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Just a few days ago Dr. Alveda King testified before congress stating, “I still have a dream. I dream that one day we will move beyond black power and white power and embrace God’s power and human dignity.” I have that same dream.
Ski Ingram is a combat veteran and a patriot who can be reached at: www.Skiingram.com
