Word: kempe
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Specter, Sen. Arlen •death of Jack Kemp is somehow blamed on Republicans...
...that Kemp sought to build bridges across racial lines solely for political gain, would ignore much of his 73 years. After growing up in largely white LA of the 1940s, he confronted racial prejudice as a young professional quarterback playing games occasionally in the Jim Crow South. When his (then) Los Angeles Chargers traveled to Houston for a 1960 game, the team had to stay at University of Houston dorms because no hotels would accept black players. Kemp joined other teammates in bolting a movie theater that restricted black members to the balcony. Four years later, Kemp arrived...
...country sausage. But on September 6, 1996, something special was on the menu of the landmark Harlem eatery: A white, middle-aged man running for vice president on the Republican ticket was stumping for votes. "This is the color of the new civil-rights revolution - green," shouted Jack Kemp, waving a dollar bill and wearing a sweat-drenched white shirt, as he stood on top of a folding chair...
...Kemp might as well have been selling raincoats in the Sahara. He and Bob Dole, his presidential running mate, had no chance of breaking through in Harlem, the solidly Democratic capital of black America. GOP strategists had figured a visit there might demonstrate the kind of tolerance and inclusion necessary to nail down moderate swing votes in white suburbs. But while that was the reason everyone else gave for the unusual stop at Sylvia's soul food café, it was not the reason for Kemp, who believed wholeheartedly that Republicans could and had to win over blacks. "For Jack...
...Those words serve as a lasting political testament of Kemp, who died Saturday and is being memorialized at the National Cathedral Friday. Thirteen years later, a black Democrat occupies the White House and Kemp's party is fighting off political isolation, popular only among a small fraction of voters who are mainly white, conservative or Christian...