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Tuesday, June 26, 2018

No, the NRA Didn't Help Protect Former Slaves from the Democrats

NOTE: Professor Warren Throckmorton (a white Evangelical) was let go from Patheos not long after writing this critique of the NRA's history with African-Americans.

He writes, 

"At present, I have no way to know for sure but I wonder about the influence of the NRA post. I have learned that the Chairman of BN Media (owner of Patheos) is Joe Gregory. Gregory is the chairman of the National Rifle Association Ring of Freedom donor recognition program. He and his wife are charter members of the Golden Ring of Freedom which means they have donated over $1 million to the NRA."
During the most recent NRA conference, Trump supporters Diamond and Silk claimed that the NRA “helped our ancestors to protect themselves from the Democratic party.” I countered that no evidence can be found to support that claim and called on the NRA to produce evidence or retract the claim.



This claim about the NRA has been debunked several times. The NRA was founded by two Union military veterans to help improve marksmanship. There isn’t any evidence that the NRA assisted post-Civil War freed slaves against the KKK or Democrats or any white aggression. Supporters of the NRA offer this claim without any historical evidence.
At the time, the Democrat party was the party of Jim Crow. However, the NRA claim appears to be made up out of thin air. To fact check the claim, I reviewed the founding documents of the NRA, the biographies of the founders, and historical descriptions of the organization, especially in the South. According to the NRA’s founding document, the aims of the association related to rifle practice: