- Branden Cobb, Black Voices
All throughout the week I have spoken with blacks of different walks of life attending the Republican National Convention, from small business entrepreneurs to law clerks. All of them gave different reasons for joining the Republican Party, but one thing was consistent: they felt that the GOP’s plans and policies are the best way to ensure that they succeed in this society.
While he was a student at Grambling State University, Republican National Committee member Shannon Reeves was told by one of his professors that his writings were quite conservative. It was this comment that sparked in his interest in the Republican Party.
Reeves, a former secretary of California’s Republican Party, says he actually made the decision to join the GOP “because I felt that black people were being used by the Democrats.” He also agreed with Republicans on issues such as the importance of “personal responsibility and economic self-sufficiency.” Ironically, at the same time Reeves was committing himself to the Republican Party, he was still the president of his college’s chapter of the NAACP; belonging to two groups that on the surface seem fundamentally at odds with each other.
